False Promises, False Choices: The Hypocrisy of American Immigration Policy
By Ana P.
This is the fifteenth installment of Austin DSA’s “Class Enemy of the Week” series. You can find the fourteenth, on the state legislature and the future of socialist organizing in Texas, here.
Kamala Harris has proven time and again that she is a class enemy — from her days as California’s attorney general prosecuting elementary school truancy and marijuana charges to her inaction as vice president in pushing for a $15 minimum wage as part of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief package.
However, her blatant disregard for refugees and asylees during this past week’s visit to Central America stood out as particularly cruel. In Guatemala, her message to people fleeing persecution, violence and poverty was “do not come” to the US. This is a particularly harsh stance given the long history of US imperialism including the 1954 CIA-orchestrated coup in the country. Her visit to Mexico did not go much better, and to the surprise of many she declined to visit the US-Mexico border. Embarrassingly, she even fumbled her response to the media when pressed on why she skipped an obviously important stop on her first international trip as vice president.
The Biden administration campaigned on reversing the xenophobic policies of Trump, but DHS agents at the border still have emergency power under Title 42 to send migrants home without a chance at asylum. But even if the administration was able to address the backlogs in legal immigration and improve the process of obtaining citizenship or residency, the much larger issue at hand is US economic hegemony in Central America.
Biden’s “Plan to Build Security and Prosperity in Partnership with the People of Central America” might seem like a breath of fresh air in relation to the Trump administration, but past bipartisan efforts have similarly championed paths to citizenship and investment in security without delivering better conditions for the working people of Central America or the millions who are fleeing their home countries to come to the US.
The millions of dollars in aid laid out in the program target local military and police, “free trade,” and private investment — a familiar Washington strategy in maintaining power over Central America’s economy. In fact, the Biden administration plans to secure private funding by working with international banks like the World Bank, notorious for imposing structural adjustments that force countries to implement austerity programs that drain money from important social programs to pay down interest on loans.
People fleeing abject poverty and violent conditions perpetuated under global capitalism deserve to be met with humanity. Kamala Harris and the Biden administration care about securing capital’s position in the region, not protecting human dignity or empowering the working class of Central America.
