Odd Man Out

“Remember when ICE locked up that guy from Guinea who lived in Philly legally for twenty years, just because they could? There are a million stories like his.”

I was telling my crusty neighbor Swamp Rabbit that the history of U.S. immigration policy is one of unintended consequences. Unstable conditions in poor countries compel armies of desperate people to pack up and move on. They settle here and are protected by the law until they’re snatched up and mistreated by ICE’s masked goons, who are cheered on by Republicans.

“You see where I’m going with this?” I said. “The MAGA dopes are up in arms about the mass migration of dark-skinned people to the United States — it’s their main issue — but they don’t think about what causes it.”

I told him the migrants — “refugees” is a more accurate term — are often fleeing brutal dictatorships that often exist because of collusion between the U.S. government and transnational corporations. I mentioned the wave of poor people who fled north after the drug-running Juan Orlando Hernández came to power in Honduras. Hernandez eventually received a 45-year jail term in an America court but was pardoned by Donald Trump, partly because Hernandez had helped set up a tax-free zone in Honduras that serves the business interests of tech billionaires — Peter Thiel, in particular — who are allies of the Trump family.

“Trump absolved one of the biggest drug dealers ever,” I said. “Hernandez and his cartel friends were trying to smuggle 400 tons of cocaine into this country.”

Swamp Rabbit sipped beer and looked bored. I reminded him that MAGA Republicans are blind to the crimes of the rich and powerful. They would rather blame drugs and crime on would-be immigrants who are dying in the desert or wasting away in detention centers.

My neighbor shook his head. “Democrats ain’t much better. Most of them didn’t care that the anti-immigrant policies are cruel, not until the orange hog monster came along and made the problem worse.”

It was a good point. Leaders of both parties have long been in thrall to rightwing propagandists who claim migrants are stealing jobs from native-born workers (untrue) and raising the national crime rate (also untrue). It’s a point repeatedly being made by journalist and author Jean Guerrero:

If working-class white Americans can be persuaded their real enemies are the oligarchs and warmongers enriching themselves at everyone else’s expense, not the migrants fleeing the chaos these oligarchs create, a different kind of politics could become possible.

“It’s pretty simple,” I said. “Vote Republican in November and you’re voting to get screwed over by corrupt politicians and oligarchs who use the immigrant problem to make non-wealthy, native-born Americans forget that the system is almost as unfair to them that it is to immigrants. Vote Democratic and there’s at least a chance we can start changing the situation.”

Swamp Rabbit was smiling at my political rant. “Don’t say anything,” I warned him. “Let me enjoy my pie-in-the-sky moment before I go back to full-time cynicism.”