America’s Immigration Crisis Myth
Trump flails on the debate stage, perpetuates migrant crisis myths and spews racist conspiracy theories.
“They’re eating the dogs!” was probably the most infamous Trump quote from Tuesday night’s presidential debate. It was the single quote that truly summarized his entire debate performance; it was unhinged, disgusting, and hateful. Trump spent much of his speaking time fear-mongering about immigrants and the degradation they will supposedly cause. And that one quote, sounding so insane, may have finally made it clear to voters that his platform is built on hate. This is what his strategy has been since the beginning; select a group of people and make them the scapegoat, even if facts or common sense disagree, then fear-monger. Let’s be clear, this is an inherently fascistic strategy, and it's not hyperbolic to say that. The basic premise of fascism is that society is experiencing degradation, it is the fault of a minority group, and we must return to a time when things were better. Trump does exactly this with every marginalized group of people, calling black people thugs, blaming all Muslims for terrorism, dehumanizing trans people, and his signature talking point– calling immigrants animals. At the same time, let’s not forget there was a point in time back in 2015 when democrats desperately wanted Trump to win the party nomination because they believed this rhetoric would be too gross for voters to elect him. Their miscalculation was despicable, especially as they didn’t necessarily disagree with the policies he implemented. Remember that the Obama administration never did away with imprisoning immigrants at the border including families with children. In the face of recent pressure, the Biden administration, instead of pushing back on the issue, decided to sponsor a bill that would provide massive funding to ICE to deport immigrants. While Biden tried to remedy this months later by offering a path-to-citizenship plan, democrats, especially Harris, are clearly using this as an issue to run on. Politicians of both parties run on this because it’s much easier to exploit an uninformed person’s fear than dispel it with the truth. Harris in the debate endorsed the conservative border bill and her campaign said earlier this year that she would continue Biden’s policy of limiting asylum acceptance while ‘cracking down’ on border enforcement. Something so fascinating about American politics is that the media’s coverage of immigration only appears every other year for midterms and spikes every four years, otherwise you don’t hear about it. It seems for politicians of both parties, the issue is not treated like a rubix cube but a hammer and nail; they see who can promise harsher policy rather than addressing the issue as a complex set of causes and effects.
To address the original quote, Trump broadcast this untrue story to the entire nation. He said, “In Springfield, 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.” The story comes from the neo-nazi group called ‘Blood Pride’ who spoke at a Springfield town hall meeting and took credit for starting the rumor that Haitian immigrants in the community were ‘savages’ eating pets and local wildlife. There was a photo circulated of a black man holding two dead geese which was used to support this. It was later revealed by the Ohio Division of Wildlife that the photo instead came from Columbus Ohio. There was no evidence the man was Haitian and it turned out the geese were killed in a car accident. Another video was circulated of a black woman killing and eating a cat on a police body cam. This too was not from Springfield, it was in Canton Ohio and the woman was not Haitian or an immigrant, she was born a citizen. While there is a large population of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, the county police issued a statement reading “We stand by our immigrant community and there is no evidence to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets. Seeing politicians or other individuals use outlandish information to appeal to their constituents is disheartening.” dispelling the rumor. Still, residents claim Haitian immigrants are ‘taking over’ and ‘ruining’ the town despite the population and economy declining long before the Haitian community began moving in. Many of the new Haitians in Springfield have lived in the US for a while and are moving to take advantage of the new employment opportunities. Many others have legally immigrated with an asylum claim and have protected status or have a legal work visa. The new Haitian community has largely helped revitalize the area, working in the many new factories that the city helped attract. They are known for being very active at the local churches and mainly want to build a life for their family. If anything, the Haitian community has helped this city’s economy rather than taking from it. The blame on Haitians in the first place for seeking asylum is made even more absurd if you consider the historical context in which they are coming from. Haiti is a country that has endured an onslaught of US interference for over a century leaving it in political unrest for over twenty years exacerbated by natural disasters and soil erosion. The most recent of which was the US-backed coup in 2004 which forcibly removed popular president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power after he demanded reparations for France’s colonial rule, supported social policies, and rejected American intervention in the country.
The city of Springfield is not alone, it is a reflection of much of the country’s racist disdain for immigrants. Trump also directly referenced another fake immigrant story in the debate saying, “You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They're taking over buildings. They're going in violently. These are the people that she and Biden let into our country. And they're destroying our country. They're dangerous. They're at the highest level of criminality.” That story originally stemmed from a video allegedly showing gangs breaking into apartments in an Aurora complex. It later came out that the landlord, CBZ Management, hired PR agent Sara Lattman to pitch the story to local media that a Venezuelan gang had taken over the complex providing surveillance footage with no context. Aurora’s police chief outright denied the claim that there was any gang activity in the apartment complex and that the city is taking legal action against the landlord for numerous code violations. Tenants staged a protest to dispel these false rumors of immigrant gangs and accused the landlord of extreme neglect citing mice, roaches, lack of maintenance, and bad plumbing. The landlord was forced to give up control of the property for these violations and is being charged. In August, the tenants were forced to move out after the city decided to condemn the property. Members of the Aurora community came out to help the tenants move as the city did offer some transitional assistance in hotel accommodations but did not uphold their request to delay the eviction. This wasn’t an immigrant gang takeover, quite the opposite. It was a slumlord under pressure for their neglect creating a fake story to scapegoat a minority community. We see this contempt for immigrants and minorities throughout America and Trump is exploiting it on a national scale.
The immigration ‘crisis’ is purely political. There are more immigrants in America today than previously, that is true. According to census data, the share of immigrants as part of the total US population is relatively high, reaching about 13.8% but it is slowly leveling off. Between about 1870 and 1920, the immigrant population was about the same peaking in 1890 at 14.8%, and fell until it reached a low of 4.7% in 1970. For a nation deemed ‘the melting pot,’ this high immigrant population should be a reflection of its history as ‘the land of opportunity’. Instead, politicians and the media have helped sew the racist narrative that this is a crisis despite the fact that the vast majority of them have ancestors which immigrated here for the same reasons immigrants today are coming to America. Liberals are complicit in this as well; while the right-wing media often generates these narratives, liberal media fail to push against them or hold democrats responsible for supporting anti-immigrant policies.
There’s then the framing that immigrants are ‘pouring’ over the border. This dehumanizing rhetoric ignores each person’s lived experience and minimizes them as part of a ‘wave’ or a ‘flood’. About 77% of the foreign-born population in the United States has legal status in the country. This includes 49% of whom are naturalized citizens. Only about 11 million representing 23% of all immigrants are unauthorized. Despite a growing total immigrant population, the unauthorized immigrant population has remained relatively flat for close to two decades. Combine this with the fact that approximately 42% of these immigrants are unauthorized because they have overstayed their legally obtained visas. We know that these are people that want to live in America legally as an overwhelming 98% accept visas when offered. So this is not a new issue and there is not a massive ‘wave’ of new undocumented immigrants coming into the country.
You hear a lot that immigrants are ‘fine’ if they are here legally but not if they are here illegally. The main problem driving the current uptick in unauthorized immigrants is the lack of resources and legislation to process migrants and asylum seekers quickly. In 2021 there was a relative surge in immigration across the southern border which was caused by the economic crisis and another spike again in late 2023 but has since been slowing down. Many of these people would have legal status if not for the slow claims process and a huge spike in undecided cases. These are keeping immigrants who otherwise be accepted from obtaining documented status.
The other response to this is fear that these immigrants are either not participating in the economy or are participating too much and are taking jobs. To the first point, over 8.3 million of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country are employed. The unemployment rate of foreign-born people, according to the BLS, was 3.6% in 2022 up from 3.1% in 2019 which is lower than the total US population's rate. To the point that they are taking jobs, there is no evidence that such a thing is happening especially as they face employment barriers such as English fluency. Statistics show that immigrants take work that natural-born Americans do not desire; immigrants make up 29% of the agriculture industry jobs, 25% of construction, 20% of hospitality, and 19% of manufacturing. Whether documented or undocumented, these jobs are paying federal and state taxes including social security. As for immigrants who are not on legal payroll, there is a major problem with corporations exploiting undocumented immigrants for sub-minimum wage labor. The problem extends to brutal child labor as well, even workers with visas are exploited under threat of their legal status being revoked if they request fair pay and conditions.
The most prominent and most incorrect lie is that immigrants are coming to America and committing crimes. A major study done by Stanford University found that immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than natural-born citizens. Another NIJ study done in Texas showed that immigrants were arrested at lower rates and committed violent crimes at a lower rate than natural-born citizens. It also showed that undocumented immigrants in particular committed violent crimes at less than half the rate of natural-born citizens. A similar grievance about crime is drug trafficking. This is a real problem but we find again that immigrants are not to blame for this. A Cato Institute study from 2019 shows 77% of drug trafficking is done by US citizens, typically through ports of entry like airports, not from sneaking over the border. Another statistic they provided from 2022 showed that 89% of convicted fentanyl traffickers were US citizens. Crime overall in the United States since the 1990s has been overwhelmingly down. According to Pew Research, despite Americans perceiving the crime rate to be up more than they perceived it was twenty years ago, both violent crime and property crime are down 49% and 59% respectively.
While immigration is undeniably rising, the ‘crisis’ rhetoric is unfounded. There are pragmatic ways our country can deal with this which must involve empathy. We must first acknowledge the impetus for immigration is not random. The economic and political crises that happen in these countries such as Haiti, Venezuela, Mexico, and the Middle Eastern nations are caused by America’s hegemonic foreign policy. It is terrible and inhumane policy to fight long wars and place crippling sanctions on countries then deny asylum to the people who are displaced. The war on terror which has been waged for twenty years displaced at least 37 million people over eight countries which have struggled greatly in the years since. Punishing countries like Venezuela which refuse to elect US-backed candidates with sanctions and injecting corruption into their political system is guaranteed to displace thousands of people. We must work alongside Latin American nations and support their efforts to root out criminal activity near the border while supporting their natural growth free from interference. So-called ‘free trade’ agreements like NAFTA are both responsible for the degradation of American industry but have also greatly harmed Mexico’s ability to grow as a nation as corporations fled the US to exploit their cheaper labor. In both Mexico and the US, labor needs far more union power to prevent capital flight and corporations must be taxed effectively to reverse quickly growing inequality. Companies must be prosecuted and held accountable when they leave America to exploit labor in another country since it not only hurts the development of that country but it takes away stable jobs in America. At home, the country must be committed to supporting workers which includes immigrants. Capital needs there to be unemployment to create labor scarcity which keeps wages low. We must end this immoral behavior, finally instituting a federal jobs guarantee. This will allow us to have a labor force needed to invest in important public projects like the Green New Deal to put the brakes on climate change or a massive housing project to fix the shortage and provide affordable homes for the 600,000 homeless in our country. We can simply pass legislation to declutter the documentation process and quickly give citizenship to the millions who need it without the unnecessary burden of deeming them subhuman while awaiting their court date.
These are modest policies. Providing basic decency to all the people of the world should be the bare minimum. And providing a short path to citizenship to a family who was displaced by a war our country waged should be the least we can do for them. Ultimately, there should be no borders, but we aren’t quite there yet. As John Lennon put it, “Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do.” In the meantime, the left project is one of solidarity; we are all part of the same class– immigrants, blue-collar workers, homeless people, farmers, drug addicts, union members, welfare recipients, truck drivers, teachers, and nine-to-fivers. We are all smothered under the boot of capital, so let’s not turn against each other.
"Open borders" means betraying all citizens of America today, to endless imflow of illegal aliens.
Hard to believe a rational counterparty would push that.
YES! There should be borders! We still have 3rd world countries & countries that hate America. There should be a limit of how many immigrants that can come into America each quarter/year legally. Yes we should have a better immigration policy! But you can't just let anyone come in. They should have a career that benefits America, and if they're unskilled labor there should be a limit on how many unskilled workers we let in...