Anti-immigrant rhetoric grows in the US with promise of mass deportation

The anti-immigrant rhetoric of American conservatives is hardening, between Donald Trump’s incendiary rallies, governors’ challenges to Joe Biden, and a caravan of supposed patriots advancing toward border cities with Mexico.

Republicans accuse President Biden of carrying out a policy of “open borders”, with some 10,000 migrants intercepted daily in December. The most radical ones speak of “invasion”.

Democrats deny this, alleging that they have deported approximately 460,000 people in just over seven months until the end of December because they did not meet the conditions to enter.

But his explanations fall on deaf ears among conservatives.

Trump, favorite for the Republican Party nomination ahead of the November presidential elections, hammers home the same idea at every rally: Biden is weak and has opened the border wide.

The tycoon promises “the largest internal deportation in US history“if he returns to the White House because migrants”poison the blood of the country”, comments that have earned him comparisons with Adolf Hitler.

With this message he hopes to convince the Republican voter, for whom the immigration crisis takes precedence over the economy, according to surveys. But it could scare away the most moderates and independents.

For now it has the support of a good part of the party.

The most loyal have gone to work to hinder Biden’s path to re-election.

To begin with, they have made the approval of aid to Ukraine in Congress subject to a tightening of immigration policy.

Biden has relented by asking a group of congressmen to negotiate a bipartisan agreement, but the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, has warned that it will not survive the vote “if the rumors about the content” are true.

The conversations take place amid great secrecy.

“The text of this supposed agreement has not been shared with practically anyone,” Democratic Congressman Greg Casar said in a telephone press conference this Thursday.

The little that is known has been revealed by Biden, who said he would grant “new emergency authority to close the border when it is collapsed.”

Republican challenge

Trump can also count on another ally, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has put up razor wire on the border, bused migrants to Democratic-run cities and, according to the Biden administration, prevented agents from accessing federal to some sectors.

What’s more, he has challenged a ruling by the United States Supreme Court that allows the removal of barbed wire installed to deter the crossings of migrants, mostly poor Latin Americans or those fleeing insecurity.

You are not alone. Twenty-five Republican governors have expressed solidarity with him.

Images of migrants crossing the border or abandoned to their fate, sleeping on the streets of overflowing cities, flood social networks.

In a country very polarized since the attack on the Capitol in January 2021 by Trump supporters, the situation is explosive.

“The widespread hate against migrants is motivating some of the most dangerous elements in our society, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and anti-government extremists, and it doesn’t help that the governor of Texas (…) is taking on the federal government in ways that are reminiscent of the civil war,” declared Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project against Hate and Extremism, in a telephone press conference.

“Hate agenda”

For Devin Burghart, president of the Human Rights Research and Education Institute, “the confrontation between Texas and the federal government has become a magnet for far-right street surveillance.”

He takes a dim view of the “Reclaim Our Border” caravan, which has planned demonstrations this Saturday in border towns.

The organizers, who call themselves We the People, urge active and retired members of the security forces, veterans, civil servants, business owners, ranchers, truckers, motorcyclists, press and “law enforcers” to join them in protesting. “peaceably”.

An initiative that has led the League of Latino American Citizens (LULAC) to issue a national alert, the second in its almost 100 years of life.

“Governor Greg Abbott’s false and inciting political rhetoric is motivating people to commit possible acts of violence and mass murder,” said its president Domingo García in a statement, in which he called “to be alert to armed extremists from outside of the state with an agenda of hate.”