“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
In the weeks following the 2024 Presidential Debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the former president’s false claim—and now easily recognizable quote about Haitian immigrants in Ohio—has sparked broader conversations about immigration policy. In particular, Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has continued to spew increasingly violent rhetoric about migrants entering the country. Apart from displaying a blatant disregard for the humanity of these individuals, his stance poses a threat to the welfare of our nation.
While Trump’s comments have left many people appalled, some media networks and supporters often encourage his usage of often false, and certainly racist commentary on immigration. This echo-chamber of anti-immigrant commentary has progressively increased in severity, which in turn has had a greater influence on the American public. From news coverage claiming that “thousands” of immigrants are illegally voting on FoxNews, to the network’s exacerbation of immigrant-related crime, to the spread of wildly xenophobic remarks on social media platforms by Donald Trump himself, anti-immigrant media sentiment is clearly meant to instill fear within the American public.
Throughout his countless remarks on immigration into the country, he has primarily focused on tactics of dehumanization, depicting migrants as impure and economically draining, to present them as a threat to the American way of life. By portraying immigrants in such a negative light, he ensures that criminalizing and persecuting these individuals sounds rational and even necessary. As early as this April, he mocked individuals who sympathized with immigrant communities, saying, “The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals. They’re humans.’” while he asserted, “No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals.” Just last October, he accused immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country,” a statement that shares a terrifying connection to the perpetuation of white supremacist ideals of blood contamination.
Unfortunately, this rhetoric is nothing new. During his first presidential campaign in 2016, he claimed that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists into the country as a dangerous demonization of all Mexican immigrant individuals. However, arguments regularly used by Trump against immigration, which have largely centered around crime and the criticisms of foreign-born labor, are largely not accurate statements.
There is little to no evidence that foreign labor impacts the availability of American jobs or reduces the wages for native-born citizens. In fact, evidence instead suggests that immigrants have a net positive effect on the economy, significantly boosting the American GDP and contributing billions of dollars in taxes a year according to the American Immigration Council. Additionally, immigrants make up a large part of critical American industries, such as agriculture, construction, and S.T.E.M. fields.
So, what actually is happening at the border? Contrary to many of the statements made by Donald Trump, the number of immigrants coming into the United States illegally has taken a significant hit as a result of a temporary suspension of America’s asylum system by President Joe Biden. Even before this action was taken, the number of individuals coming into the United States illegally was declining, and in June, it reached the lowest it had been in three years.
However, a different crisis continues to plague the nation. While President Biden may have overturned many of the crueler immigration policies enacted during the previous Trump administration—including reported abuse at overcrowded, unsanitary detention facilities and the deliberate separation of families—migrants are still being detained in cages, and many children still haven’t been reunited with their families because of the limitations of Biden’s Family Reunification Task Force. Clearly, Trump’s policies held lasting implications, and if reelected, they will continue to worsen these political and humanitarian ramifications.
It is also extremely evident that Trump’s policies are intentionally meant to be divisive. Responsible for the death of a $20 billion bipartisan bill that would have increased the amount of Border Patrol Officers at the border and increased capacities at detention centers, Trump lobbied Senate Republicans to oppose the carefully constructed compromise, both through private conversations and public social media outcries. Blowing up the delicate piece of legislation ensured that he would be able to continue to blame Democrats for their negligence at the U.S.-Mexico border, and enabled him to exploit the issue during his presidential campaign.
Trump has consistently promised to execute the largest mass deportation in American history, assuring his supporters that “getting them out will be a bloody story.” He has even supported the idea of using federal troops to arrest and detain individuals in migrant detention camps before they are deported back to their countries of origin. In addition to this, he plans to reinstate similar travel bans he implemented during his first presidency, this time planning on restricting people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, places with historically high numbers of individuals fleeing violence in their home countries. Along with this comes the further reduction of the number of refugees permitted to enter the country, restricting access to various visa programs, and phasing out temporarily protected statuses.
More horrifically, he wishes to resume the “zero tolerance” policy he implemented during his first term as president, which led to the separation of thousands of migrant families by inhumanely ripping children away from their parents at the border. He has also pledged to end both the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programs, which offer legal protection to over one million unauthorized immigrants who are actively working and contributing to the United States workforce, occupying many jobs essential to our economy.
Trump even seeks to end birthright citizenship for those born in the United States, a constitutionally enshrined right, an action that would fundamentally alter one of the founding principles of the United States.
Based on his immigration policies from his 2016 presidency, where his administration successfully instituted a Muslim ban, tried to deport members of the DACA program along with others who possessed similar legal protections, and campaigned to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, none of this seems far-fetched.
The catastrophic impact this would have on the nation’s immigration and asylum systems cannot be understated. There are an estimated 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants currently residing in our nation, and any significant removal of these individuals would inevitably clog up detainment centers at the border and government infrastructure, causing the entire immigration process to likely grind to a halt. This would only create even more chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border, the exact problem that Donald Trump is vowing to repair.
These promises are frightening. If we look at historical examples of mass deportation, they have been the epicenter of indiscriminate removals that target those of Hispanic descent.
During the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, a highly militarized removal of Mexican immigrants known as “Operation Wetback” uprooted upwards of 1.3 million people from their lives in the United States. Deported individuals, many of whom were American citizens, were crammed into overpacked boats, buses, and even planes as they were sent into parts of Mexico that were often unfamiliar to them. The hellish conditions of these forced removals were commonly so disgustingly inadequate that many died as a result of sunstroke or disease while in custody.
While Border Patrol agents and government officials relied heavily on force for the execution of this operation, their actions were fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment that portrayed Mexican immigrants as subhuman. This pervasive spread of these negative stereotypes was used as a defense for the brutal treatment of these individuals, which is being similarly paralleled today.
Employing alarmingly similar tactics of dehumanizing and criminalizing immigrant communities, Donald Trump is mirroring the same justification that enabled cruelty against migrants earlier in the country’s history. In fact, Trump has openly praised the operation, saying he wishes to employ similar measures in his own plan for mass deportations.
We have a moral obligation to ensure that human beings are not being referred to or treated as animals. In a world where conversions surrounding immigration have shifted into a realm of dehumanization, which has only been worsened by inflammatory statements from Donald Trump, it is important that we fight for both the good of our nation and the good of the vulnerable this election season.
Featured Image Source: American Civil Liberties Union
Comments are closed.