Three Questions For Those Who Want To Deport Illegal Immigrants from Mexico and Central America
July 11, 2018
Very important 12 minute video: How U.S. Involvement In Central America Led To a Border Crisis
OK, you're right: the MASS migration of millions of poor people across the U.S. southern border is a big problem. (And by the way, it's not only a problem for American citizens, it's also a huge problem for the migrants themselves, who wished they didn't have to migrate to survive.)
NOW THE FIRST QUESTION
Do you know one of the biggest reasons WHY so many Mexicans are migrating to the U.S. illegally?
THE ANSWER
It's because the U.S. government (both Democratic and Republican administrations) has been subsidizing Big Money agribusiness to dump cheap corn in Mexico and drive the small farmers off their land in search of employment the only place it is available--north of the border. Read all about this here and here and here and here and here and here. In fact, NAFTA required that the Mexican government remove the section of its constitution that prevented the poor farmers’ communal farmland from being bought and sold, and this paved the way for the farmers to be forced off their land and forced to migrate north to survive, as described here.
NOW THE SECOND QUESTION
Don't you think we should demand that the government stop subsidizing Big Money agribusiness's driving of poor Mexican farmers into the U.S.?
NOW THE THIRD AND MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION
Do you know who would be our biggest ally in this effort to stop the government from subsidizing Big Money Agribusiness dumping of cheap corn in Mexico? Guess who.
It would be the illegal Mexican immigrants.
The illegal Mexican immigrants are our friends, not our enemy! They are the victims of our common enemy: Big Money. We should treat the vast majority of illegal immigrants—i.e., those whose only illegal act was crossing the border—as friends, not as an enemy.* Deporting these people amounts to treating them as an enemy. Instead we should ally with them to stop Big Money from forcing them to migrate when they would much rather not be forced to do that. This is a no-brainer, but both the liberal and the conservative media censor this viewpoint.
WHAT ABOUT THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM CENTRAL AMERICA?
The reason so many people from Central America are immigrating illegally into the United States is because they are fleeing terrible violent oppression that is caused by the fact that the U.S. government has for decades used violence to maintain brutally oppressive dictators (friendly to U.S. corporations) and drug gangs in power there. This is discussed more fully here and here and in this 12 minute video.
Again, these illegal immigrants from Central America don't want to be forced this way to leave their homes and enter the United States illegally just to survive. And these illegal immigrants are our ally in fighting the Big Money people who rule the United States and force people to immigrate here. We should treat these illegal immigrants as friends, not enemies. One does not deport one's friends. One allies with them against our common enemy. This too should be a no-brainer.
Cole Kazdin's article in Vice is titled, "The Violence Central Americans are Fleeing Was Stoked by the U.S.: We're still dealing with the aftermath of atrocities committed by U.S. allies in Central America during the Cold War."
Watch this 12 minute video for more information about Central America and the role of the U.S. government creating unlivable conditions that force people to flee.
The Guardian has an informative article about Central America titled, "What Is Forcing Thousands of Migrants to Flee Their Home Countries?" by Michael Deibert.
THE MORAL QUESTION: WOULD YOU HAVE CAPTURED AND RETURNED ILLEGAL RUNAWAY SLAVES HAD YOU LIVED IN THE 19TH CENTURY?
The illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America are just trying to survive the violence and oppression inflicted on them by Big Money. Deporting them is as morally wrong as it was to capture and return runaway slaves in the past. As in the past, the choice is whether to ally with Big Money or with the good and decent people whom Big Money attacks.
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* As for the small number of real criminals (the statistics are given in detail in the article linked to here) among the illegal immigrants, we should treat them the way we treat criminals who are citizens: arrest them and prosecute them for their crimes. If our rulers were truly concerned for public safety and if there were not enough police to keep us safe from illegal immigrant criminals (two big 'if's) then they (our rulers) could bring home all the U.S. military forces that are now in foreign countries killing innocent people or doing nothing useful (as in Germany and South Korea) and let them deal with the supposedly huge numbers of criminals caused by illegal immigration.