Trump Already Won

How “No More Kids in Cages” Became “Tough, Smart Solutions to Secure the Border”

The first person I knew who died of COVID-19 was an immigrant from South America — I will not say his name to protect his family’s privacy, but we can call him Renaldo. He was on the frontline of the epidemic, working at a pharmacy in New York City, so before everyone even knew what their “bad flus” actually were, they were coughing it in his face. I knew him because, like many immigrants, he was the victim of the bottom-feeders of American finance, his wages stolen through fraudulent judgments on debts he never incurred (he was not even in the country when they were incurred). I still remember when we first met — a weary smile seeing light at the end of the tunnel, his shaky hands earnestly shaking mine. Renaldo was a proud man, and probably would never have come to me for help but for his step-son, who also worked at the pharmacy, who saw that Renaldo was not getting any sleep and was very stressed. The two years before Renaldo’s death were a very stressful time for him. There is nothing fun about bringing a lawsuit, and sadly Renaldo never lived to see the compensation he deserved. Like many working class immigrants, he died without a will, and when I left my job at that time and New York City in July of this year, the courts 4 years later still had not processed our request to give the money from his lawsuit to his developmentally disabled son.

Now I live in Chicago. Every day, outside of my office building, there is a woman from Central America with her baby daughter selling candy. When I go to the grocery store, there is a family of migrants with cardboard signs conveying their plight. When I passed them recently, the mother was helping her daughter do her homework. In my office itself, I put up a sign from an old rally for the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) to advocate for amnesty laws for migrants. But recently I saw LiUNA advocating for people to vote for Kamala Harris because she tried to pass a bipartisan immigration bill — a bill that:

1. impose an “emergency authority” that would leave asylum fully out of reach for those crossing between ports of entry for much of the next three years;
2. raise the initial standard a person must pass in order to access our asylum system; and
3. increase immigrant detention capacity by 47%.

Harris has attempted to use Trump’s opposition to this bill as a way to call into question whether he is “serious” about “securing the border.” It is a ridiculous strategy. Of course Trump is serious about his hatred of immigrants and using whatever power he can get to attack them. Trump’s opposition to this bipartisan border bill was just savvy politics on his part. In politics, when you succeed at moving your opponent to a compromise position, you do not meet them there — you push further. The fact that the same Democrats who only a few years ago were discussing decriminalizing the border are now embracing border militarization that used to be a fringe position even among Republicans is about as clear of a sign that Trump, even if he loses this run for president, has won.

People are quick to forget that the anti-transgender, anti-union Trump of this campaign was not the message of his 2016 campaign. Aside from the substance-less slogan of “Make American Great Again,” the campaign had one message: “Build the Wall.” His unabashed xenophobia and racism were shocking and effective at tapping into the ugliest parts of our country’s psyche. Hatred of immigrants is not some paradox, because the United States began as a country of colonialists and slave masters. We have a long history of putting immigrants in concentration camps and carrying out mass deportations. It is only recently that some strides have been made to actually making the United States a multicultural country that embraces its diversity of national origin rather than denying or subjugating it. Those strides were hard won by immigrant organizers, labor unions, and the political Left of progressives, socialists, and Communists.

How quickly it seems that the popular opinion has turned back towards a reactionary embrace of anti-immigration politics. It is not that hard to understand why. I can see it in every person who pointedly avoids looking at those migrants I mentioned outside my office building and grocery store. In a vacuum, removed from the material reality of cages full of people just as human as you and me, the reality that people will get injured and killed, mass deportations can seem like a convenient way to get rid of being exposed to terrible human suffering on a daily basis. For those of us entrenched in this issue, it can similarly be easy to think that anyone who would support mass deportations must be racist or at least denying the humanity of immigrants. But the reality is that polling consistently shows that many of the same people who will nod their heads at mass deportations will also nod their heads at mass amnesty. I do not subscribe to the belief of some Leftists that Americans and especially white Americans are hardwired racists. They may have some racist beliefs, but few would outright deny the humanity of immigrants. They can be moved, and we should never resign ourselves to believing that they cannot be moved.

The leadership of the Democratic Party fall into two camps, conveniently represented by the former presidential nominee Joe Biden and the current nominee Kamala Harris. Joe Biden was, and in my opinion still is, a racist. It is hard to find another explanation for his breakout in politics being on opposing integration of schools via busing, his friendship with racists like Strom Thurmond, and the disturbing non-sequitur outburst during his last debate about rapist migrants.

Conversely, I do not think Kamala Harris is doubling down on his immigration policies because she shares his racist beliefs (at least about Latina migrants — Palestinians are a whole other story). Rather, I think she subscribes to the belief that many Americans are hardwired with racist beliefs. And frankly, her approach seems more rational to that belief than the Leftists who share it and advocate for ostracizing the racist unwashed masses. She may think these people are racists, but she knows she needs their votes, so she panders to their racism. Harris is hardly the first person of color to pander to racists to get ahead. But a different rationale than Biden does not make her embrace of racist anti-immigration policies any less dangerous.

The racism of Democrats like Joe Biden and reckless disregard of Democrats like Kamala Harris has led us to Trump telling 60 million viewers that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio are eating cats and dogs. While I am all for laughing at the absurdity (to paraphrase Mark Twain, there is no laughter in heaven), we should understand how serious of an escalation has happened. The Republican presidential nominee is openly repeating a conspiracy theory created by neo-Nazis. This is the logical conclusion of the Democrats shifting to MAGA talking points on immigration. The resulting harm is not speculative — it has already begun.

We must not accept the rightward shift of the Democrats on immigration anymore than the conspiracy theories of Trump, because they are two sides of the same coin. We must fight in our unions for pro-amnesty policies that stop undocumented workers from being used as a cheap alternative to union labor. We must fight in our communities against even the hint of this venom before it begins to terrorize our immigrant neighbors. We must uplift the voices of leaders like my friend Phara, not just on social media (though that’s a good start) but in conversations with our families and friends. Do not look away from the real migrant crisis facing this country — the crisis of devolving to the worst historical precedents of mass deportations, concentration camps, and pogroms.