Al Jazeera America (Op-Ed)
By Malcolm Harris
September 8, 2015
Donald
Trump is leading the field for the 2016 Republican presidential
nomination by a wide margin. Of his policy positions, nothing has
distinguished his campaign more
than his ultra hard-line immigration proposals. These two facts are
mostly undisputed, but so far commentators have focused on how both a
Trump presidency and the imposition of such strict border controls are
unfeasible. It’s a good way to avoid reckoning
with their substance and consequences. When we’re talking about
millions of lives at risk, however, it pays to be mentally prepared.
In
order to “make America great again,” Trump wants first to better define
it. Candidate Trump, if elected, plans to build a wall around the
country. He also wants Mexico
to pay for the construction costs. It’s a ridiculous, albeit somewhat
popular, project, but the wall deflects attention from the rest of his
dead-serious immigration plan.
Trump
has accumulated a lot of support from the GOP nativist base in large
part because they trust him to enforce immigration laws. The first
sentence in his plan is “When
politicians talk about ‘immigration reform’ they mean: amnesty, cheap
labor and open borders,” and he’s right. Few national politicians and
fewer business leaders are serious about deporting 11 million people.
Undocumented immigrants are a necessary part of
the national economy; American enforcement practices are designed to
manage, not eliminate, violations of border laws.
A
strain of American resentment can’t deal with this contradiction: If
some people are allowed to violate the law, they must be doing so at the
expense of lawful citizens.
It’s not true; undocumented immigrants (not to mention over 50 million
Latino Americans nativists are really talking about) contribute to the
national economy, tax base, culture and social fabric in innumerable
ways. But racism and xenophobia make inspiring
campaign themes. “Enforce the law,” they say. But “enforce the law”
would mean splitting the country in ways that are so horrific, they are
difficult to contemplate.
First
of all, there’s the scale. Deporting 11 million people would be a
population transfer so large it only has a couple historical precedents,
and one of them is Adolf
Hitler's. To extract that many people from their communities would
require a much larger and more determined effort that Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) is capable of at present. To this end, Trump
proposes tripling the number of ICE officers, specifically
geared to increase deportations. In a country with volunteer border
patrols and lasting unemployment, I don’t think President Trump would
have a problem recruiting.
Sending
an amped-up ICE on a mass-deportation mission wouldn’t just be an
assault on undocumented people and their families, it would be an attack
on American cities,
where more than 90 percent of them live. For large municipalities,
rigorously enforcing immigration law is unfeasible but also politically
unpopular. So-called “sanctuary cities” have declared their ongoing
intention to drag their feet when it comes to cooperating
with the Feds. For example, law enforcement in many cities (including
New York) selectively complies with ICE requests to hold people in
custody on suspicion of being undocumented. ICE can’t do their job
without local cooperation and the use of these legally
questionable detention orders has decreased by more than 70 percent in
the last four years.
There’s a contradiction between the laws and the practices when it comes to American immigration, and it’s no accident.
Trump’s
answer to sanctuary cities is to defund them by “cutting off federal
grants.” It’s not clear if he means particular law-enforcement grants or
all federal money,
but either way he’s provoking a big fight, one that pits levels of
government and their armed agents against each other. Every American
city larger than Jacksonville, Florida, has some sort of public
sanctuary provision. I don’t think Trump wants to go to
war with all of them, but he says he does.
Local
law enforcement might be a Trump ICE’s smallest problem. I don’t think
any number of federal officers will be able, for example, to enter New
York City and round
up half a million people without meeting popular resistance. There are
plenty of precedents. London’s Anti-Raids Network catalogs and organizes
activism against immigration enforcement neighborhood by neighborhood.
The group uses Twitter to spur immediate
disruptions of raids in progress. American authorities may be better
armed, but we also have a strong core of brave activists and organizers
who are already changing the country from the street. And if only a
small percentage of the various conspiracist anti-government
fringe movements’ members aren’t white supremacists, the detention
camps a Trump administration would have to hastily construct would push
at least dozens of them over the edge.
On
the other hand, ICE agents might not be the worst thing we’d have to
fear. In a report for the New Yorker, Evan Osnos looked at how popular
Trump is with white nationalists
and neo-Nazis. They have heard his anti-immigrant dog whistle loud and
clear, even earning Trump the endorsement of leading Nazi site the Daily
Stormer. A Trump presidency would embolden these organized racists much
more than his campaign already has. I have
no doubt they would take the opportunity to terrorize racial minorities
and attack resistance infrastructure.
I
don’t believe all Americans are willing to put themselves on the line
for the undocumented in their communities or to fight tyranny in
general, but some do and more
will. Right now there’s a contradiction between the laws and the
practices when it comes to American immigration, and it’s no accident.
This compromise keeps elite interests (like low-wage labor and white
supremacy) balanced and the system running, at least
until now. Because the current system works well for most powerful
people, it’s doubtful Trump will be able to win the presidency or
implement his dastardly plan, but his support indicates a substantial
number of Americans are so full of hate they want to
roll the dice no matter what the consequences.
A
Trump presidency would delegitimize the federal government just as he
sends thousands upon thousands of unwelcome agents into American cities.
There’s a term for what
comes next: civil war.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimigrationlaw.com
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