The GOP’s “Immigration Crisis” Is a Lie Designed to Exploit Workers
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There are few things more infuriating and demoralizing than watching American discourse around “immigration.” I say this because it is a false issue surrounded and defined by false assertions and a political consensus grounded in false agreements. There is no “border crisis.” There is no “immigration crisis.” There is only a convenient and ugly story hiding a larger reality that no one seems particularly interested in addressing.
You can be forgiven if this is shocking. After all, in a historically divided and polarized country, the idea that there exists some existential crisis at our southern border is one of the few common touchstones left. Whether you’re watching Donald Trump and the Republicans spend every moment of their lives demeaning immigrants and warning about their bloodthirsty nature or tuning into Kamala Harris promising to end the “problem” herself, you’re swimming in the same myth. If you tune into Fox News, it’s the inescapable narrative. America is changing. Immigrants are everywhere you look and they’re supposedly out to get you and your kids. Read The New York Times, pop on MSNBC, or watch a debate, and what you hear is that this isn’t just one of the major issues the electorate cares about, but a pressing concern that demands precious space and time.
What we are experiencing is a pseudo-environment in which narratives based on inherent prejudices and stereotypes meld to create a skewed reality which obscures larger truths. If you reside here, you are likely screaming at the television or taking to the internet for hours at a time and calling for leaders do something, anything, to finally address the apparent problem.
But the larger truth, and it is hard to understand in such an environment, is that no one in power is particularly interested or motivated in doing anything to curb this “crisis.” And that’s because America depends on immigration and illegal immigration for the operation of its economy.
The Republican Party, as an institution, is dedicated to delivering a public-facing expression of its donor class’s agenda. These individuals range from billionaire corporate CEOs to regional small-business owners, all of whom rely on illegal immigration for the operation of their businesses. This is one of the great untold truths of this entire mess, and to confront it would mean addressing an ugly and dangerous operation at the heart of an already unsteady and unwieldy economy.