To be told that something is broken is to be told that something must be done. To an extent, there’s a truth to this. The images of chaos and havoc at the southern border instill a deep sense of urgency, as if collapse is only moments away. Something must be done.
But the United States has constructed a faulty system designed to flaunt international protocol.
The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly spells out that all refugees are entitled to apply for asylum, and yet the U. S. has adopted a policy primarily based on expulsion. Court filings from 2022 show that roughly half of all encounters resulted in expulsion, and the replacement of Title 42 with Title 8 has maintained those deportation levels.
Put simply by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, “If anyone arrives at our southern border after midnight tonight, they will be presumed ineligible for asylum and subject to steeper consequences for unlawful entry, including a minimum five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution.”
So, why the draconian dismissal of agreed-upon U.N. policy? Surely it must be because these immigrants present some sort of existential threat to the country, right?
It would be a strange case to make, given that crime rates have decreased consistently as the share of immigrants in the country has increased. In fact, crime rates calculated from the Texas Department of Public Safety explicitly show that both documented and undocumented immigrants have lower offense rates than natural-born U.S. citizens. In other words, the fearmongering about an impending crime wave due to illegal aliens is not supported by available evidence.
Now, we must ask ourselves why such scapegoating is necessary; why the fabrication of such a problem at all?
The answer: smoke and mirrors. Put simply, if you cannot solve real problems, you must appear useful by solving fake ones.
Real problems exist, and we feel them every day. The stagnation of wages in the wake of neoliberal reforms dating back 50 years, the extreme rise in housing costs and the increased wealth inequality all present real and tangible issues that require attention. Actual solutions, though, would require radical changes to our economic system, and the current administration would rather double down on previous legislation that did nothing to address any of those issues.
Instead, it’s much easier for those who enjoy the status quo to inflame reactionaries by pointing the finger at the “hordes of migrants” that have come to bust down our door. Forget that natural-born U.S. citizens commit more crimes than migrants, our problems are clearly because of those fleeing the violence left in the wake of the U.S.-supported military regime in El Salvador, the very regime that killed famed bishop Oscar Romero. It obviously must be the people who fear the very gangs we exported back into their home countries.
Like many crises, this is a problem of our own making, and one that happens to provide useful ammunition to those aiming to maintain existing economic policy. The sad part is that this playbook is old, the rhetoric tried and tested. We’ve been told there is an existential threat to the U.S., poisoning it from the inside. They say it’s an international effort coordinated by elites to erode the fabric of our once great country. They say it requires swift, immediate action to combat it, starting with the militarization of the state. They say if we fail to act, our beloved nation will be thoroughly destroyed, stripped down to nothing. This is a threat so dire, they insist, it must be met by a savior we empower with expanded authority.
Famed Italian commentator Umberto Eco put it well in Ur-Fascism when he said, “The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.” This pervasive demonization of a disadvantaged group, touting them as an existential crisis, is nothing more than an old tactic used by regimes to consolidate power for other purposes. It is not new.
And really, that’s the crux of it all.
President Donald Trump did not invent the southern border issue. He did not invent the way he describes immigrants. The foundation for our current crimes was laid long ago, but what he did invent is his particular brand of showmanship. Like Ronald Reagan before him, he understands performance more than anything else. A moral blight festered in this country for decades, and he happened to be the man who could exploit it the best.
How we solve the labyrinth we’ve built for ourselves is uncertain, but it cannot be by adding to it.
Our complacency with blatant misinformation has gone on long enough. The time has come to push back against it everywhere we encounter it. Stop letting the people in your life lie to you. Stop letting the monsters who yell the loudest dominate the conversation. And most of all, stop letting those in charge feel that you’re ok with what’s happening. The death of truth has led us to where we are now, and if we are to set things right, it can only be through bringing it back to life.
Cameron Parker is a Physics Ph.D. candidate and guest contributor to The Battalion.
