Republicans Are Intentionally Making Immigration Messy
From recent anti-immigrant laws to inhumanely using asylum-seekers as political pawns, right-wing politics grow more hateful and extreme every day
When the prospect of Title 42 coming to an end became part of the national discourse, several states and many politicians adopted anti-immigrant language once relegated to the most extreme elements of our society such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). In echoing the language of the KKK, those same politicians have focused on Latino immigrants in particular—a shift from the routine targeting of all migrants from the Global South.
The history of KKK attacks on the Latino community is brutal and violent. The Klan’s resurgence around 1920 came with a broader focus from targeting freed enslaved Black people in the South. Their renewed popularity and intensity led them to target all other non-white groups starting with Latinos, or Hispanics. In “The Ku Klux Klan's Campaign Against Hispanics, 1921-1925,” Juan Sanchez gives us a stark reminder of the chronology.
“The Klan vented its racial bigotry against Hispanics much as it did against African Americans,” Sanchez summarized. “Through the use of race, religion, and language, the Klan deemed Hispanics as inferior, foreigners, and minions of the pope. As non-White products of race mixing, Hispanics were inferior; as non-English speakers they were foreigners, members of a priest-ridden, and inferior culture.”
In many ways, this same logic is used to justify the inhumane policies being implemented in various states today. Intentional or not, policymakers see Latinos as second-class citizens. This is an implicit bias born of a society centered on whiteness and white power structures. In the early 20th century, refusing to surrender one’s culture from their homeland rendered that person a “hyphenated American” - an immigrant that was never seen as loyal to the United States. The hyphenated phrasing remains common today and is still to differentiate non-white groups from so-called Americans.
In 1915, Woodrow Wilson said in a campaign speech about Americanism that, “certain men, born in other lands, have in recent months thought more of those lands than they have of the honor and interest of the government under which they are now living.” That question of loyalty led to the birth of “hyphenated Americans” for anyone who wasn’t considered white.
In a speech, Theodore Roosevelt insisted “the hyphenated American of any type is a bad American and an enemy to this Country.” Roosevelt continued, saying, “We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.” Today, we see people react to this rhetoric the same way the KKK did. We see near-constant murders and lynchings of non-white people by racists who have been taught this logic through generational ignorance and hate.
An issue that is endemic in the United States.
Fail, Fail, and Fail Some More
Operation Wetback was a policy used to indiscriminately deport more than 1.3 million people to Mexico. The word “wetback” is a racial slur used against Mexicans. Many of those deported had been invited to the US to work through the Bracero Program while other victims were naturalized citizens. Yet, despite this policy, farmers in Texas hired armed guards to protect the laborers as they continued to hire outside of the bureaucratic red tape of the Bracero Program.
Farmers fighting back against programs led by Border Patrol head and convicted murderer who in 1931 killed a Latino at a young age, Harlon B. Carter, led the US government to water down the requirements for the Bracero program. A move that ultimately led to the end of Operation Wetback due to the needs of farmers. Much like today, farmers across the country were suffering losses because of the lack of skilled labor as a result of anti-immigrant policies.
The policies and the implications of the past should serve as a reminder of how dependent the United States economy is on migrant labor. The difference today when compared to the late 19th century is that the migrant labor forces largely come from Latin America. US society is such that a sustainable labor force made up of people willing to do the work no longer exists to maintain its agricultural sector as well as other critical industries.
Recent laws in Florida, Texas, and Kansas mimic the policies of the distant and more recent past. Alabama and Arizona passed anti-immigrant laws about a decade ago that crippled their agricultural sector. The laws were mostly struck down in court with the remainder of the laws either being rescinded or are no longer enforced due to how critical migrant labor is to the corporations that need them.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
As is typical of white supremacist ideas, attacks on marginalized communities have historically backfired. Under former president Donald Trump, the implementation of Title 42 created costly problems for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CNP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Once Title 42 was lifted, the US Southern border began to normalize based largely on less-than-perfect but more humane policy.
In Florida, where one of the strictest anti-immigrant laws impacts one of the largest populations of undocumented workers in the US, farmers and state legislators are now backtracking and asking Latino workers to stop leaving the state and to talk to each other about staying. With an estimated 775,000 undocumented workers potentially leaving the state out of fear of incarceration and racial profiling, Sunshine State is already feeling the economic impact of the new law and it's only expected to get worse for the state.
There Is No Difference
The levels of generational ignorance it takes to carry on the same xenophobic language as the founders, through the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the 20th Century feels calculated and intentional. Now, white grievance about “the border” is infecting other non-white communities and is spreading farther and faster than ever. A grievance that is largely based on the same anti-Mexican rhetoric recorded throughout history.
Now it’s used against us all.
Even sadder is seeing other Latinos talk down to immigrants as if they don’t have immigrant stories in their family history coming from the same places as the rest of us. The bigotry in our own communities is well-known to us. To others, not so much. We all know about racist Latinos. Neo-Nazi Latinos. White supremacist Latinos. But to US society, this seems as oxymoronic as a “white Latino” despite many of us being white (ish).
Latinos are one of the biggest drivers of Latinophobia. Once people from our communities validate what racists say, they run with it. And seeing Latinos speak using Klan-like language is a stark reminder of just how bad ignorance and bigotry can be found in our communities just as they can in others. There is no difference in the hate that drives anti-Latino rhetoric and policy decisions today when compared to the hundreds of years in United States history.
But because we don’t teach the history of white power structures and how they negatively impact everyone - including white people - many Latinos in the US don’t realize when they’re echoing the rhetoric that would inevitably lead to their demise should hate groups come looking for them. We are all targets. Cozying up to white supremacy doesn’t serve anyone.
Instead, challenge it.
Arturo is a writer, journalist, and publisher of The Antagonist Magazine and a regular contributor at Latino Rebels and Unicorn Riot. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.