When it comes down to it, any able-bodied human in their right mind would choose to leave home if the living conditions were unbearable. The migrants at our Southern border made a choice that we ourselves would likely make if our circumstances at home were as dire as theirs. We all need a safe place to live. We all need shelter and enough to eat. We all want an opportunity to work and advance in this life.
Humans have been migrating since the beginning of mankind for a variety of reasons. First, there are survival reasons like the need to flee 1) the violence of war or gangs, 2) starvation from draught, famine or inflation, 3) natural disasters, 4) a lack of jobs or opportunity, 5) racial, religious, or political persecution. Then there are those, like my ancestors, who were forced to migrate for the exploitation of their labor. And finally, there are a few fortunate people who migrate by choice. These adventurous folks usually have enough wealth, social status, education, or talent that puts them ahead of the line for immigration in most countries. They aren’t the subject of our current immigration debate and in truth, borders mean very little to them because they are welcomed everywhere.
The romantic narrative of the U.S. is that we are a nation of immigrants. But in reality, we are a nation that tries hard to ignore the land theft and genocide of the indigenous people who already lived here, the enslavement of black people, and the exclusion of non-white and non-Christian people from fair immigration policies. We have never been a welcoming nation to immigrants from everywhere, despite the words engraved on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore”.
It’s inaccurate to say that our immigration system is broken. Certainly, it is under-funded. However, the disfunction is working as it was intended. Our system has always been designed to severely limit the legal entry of poor people of color. Lawmakers keep illegal immigration in place so that cheap labor remains available because taxes are being collected from them, labor complaints are few, and most social benefits can be denied. One could argue that the need for cheap labor drives the continuous under-funding public schools in poor areas.
Let’s face it, the U.S. economy has always thrived on cheap labor. Post-slavery and post-civil rights, our government leaders silently welcomed the able-bodied and highly ambitious people of color who illegally crossed our borders. They wrestled jobs away from poor blacks with their cheaper labor and fewer complaints about working conditions. Our government allowed drug trafficking because the drugs were primarily limited to poor black and brown communities while boosting the economy of our Southern neighbors and providing a reason to imprison a large population of poor people of color, ensuring they couldn’t vote and would be forever doomed as cheap labor. The situation was manageable and suited its intended purposes just fine.
But things changed when white folks started demanding greater quantities of drugs and started dying from them. Interesting, but not at all surprising how drug addiction stopped being criminal and became a public health issue as soon as a growing number of whites were affected. With money to be made, other countries entered the drug supply chain and conditions South of the border deteriorated to the extent that people started doing what desperate people do. They leave their homes in order to survive.
The Statue of Liberty seems like an open invitation, and they are coming. However, the white nationalists don’t want them here in numbers beyond their ability to exploit their cheap labor. They fail to see all humans as fully human with value and so their empathy level is as low as ever. To their core, they believe the lie that white skin is somehow superior and more deserving of life and opportunity in this nation. They forgot that their ancestors were migrants, too, who fled all kinds of disasters or came seeking opportunity. What makes them better than the migrants showing up at our Southern border any different from those who showed up at Ellis Island? Nothing except the color of their skin. And Republican leaders rely on their bigotry to force their true agenda.
Remember when they convinced their constituents to be afraid of Muslim terrorists and their “Sharia Law” taking over our government? Then they introduced fear of Asians whom they blame for bringing Covid-19. These days, they stoke fears of being overrun by brown immigrants, fleeing violence and poverty. Trump and his MAGA news outlets successfully convinced his followers that those southern migrants were to be feared as rapists and drug traffickers coming to kill them and take over the nation. He later said the quiet part out loud when he said he preferred people from white nations to immigrate and not those from “shit hole” countries. Funny, but that has always been the case. Think of how easily this country turned on a dime on behalf of Ukraine migrants.
I spent my career in higher education working in the segment of our immigration system that deals with foreign students coming to the U.S. and sometimes staying beyond their degree to work, marry, and become U.S. permanent residents and then citizens. Those with a lot of money would literally buy themselves a green card by setting up a business. Those with coveted degrees in science and technology would work themselves into eventual citizenship. Those who married a U.S. citizen for actual love got to stay provided they married a citizen with enough money. The students who came here from around the world are generally among the wealthiest and most privileged in their home country. The poorest rarely find their way here to study but when they do come, it takes a tremendous amount of effort to sustain them. Preference was always given to the wealthy.
I look at our immigration system and I realize that Congress has little to no will to improve upon a system that lets in just enough poor desperate people to provide cheap labor to industries that need it. A small amount will be legally admitted, but most will be undocumented and that is by design. Congress has the authority to drastically increase the number of guest workers allowed into the country, but it refuses because wages and working conditions will have to improve and prices will increase. These improvements will impact industries like agriculture, meat processing, hospitality, construction, and garment making. These are jobs Americans typically no longer want to do. And DeSantis in Florida is finding that out.
That said, what’s happening in Florida scares me. DeSantis knows that certain industries need cheap labor and forcing undocumented immigrants to leave his state has created a crisis that he will need to address. My fear is that he has just opened the door for him to exploit the labor of prisoners as the 13th Amendment allows. Most of the prison population in this country are black and brown people. Sound familiar? I’m curious to see if he goes the route of legalized slavery. It would not surprise me as crops rot in the fields and construction halts.
Other red states who are anti-immigrant are lowering the child labor standards to fill their need for cheap labor. Their obvious targets are the children from poor areas with failing schools and few opportunities. Without an education, these children will become part of the permanent cheap labor force and so will the children they will be forced to give birth to.
You see, lawmakers know that the anti-abortion laws don’t affect wealthy women who can afford contraception and easily obtain an abortion by traveling. But it does force the poorest women among us to give birth. The white children can be adopted, but we all know that black and brown babies are far less desirable among those who can afford to adopt. They will be raised by poor mothers or become wards of the state. Pro-life Republican leaders are really about providing industry with homegrown cheap labor to exploit while simultaneously closing our borders to drugs and brown people.
As long as white people keep thinking they are superior and Americans keep demanding illicit drugs and the rest of us insist on buying cheap goods and services provided by exploited cheap labor whether from undocumented immigrants, homegrown cheap labor, or perhaps a return to slave labor, absolutely nothing will change in our economic system that thrives on human labor exploitation.