Adjusting to Trump II - Xenophobia edition

Rick Perlstein is a historian who is an expert on the Republican Party and the US Radical Right – to the extent there’s any meaningful difference between those two groups at all anymore.

He posted this Tuesday (11/12) on Facebook:

Trump and his team are sending signals that they want to begin immediately with mass deportations. Trump and his white supremacist advisers know that ethnonationalist xenophobia is a strong drug. So if you are intent are undermining the rule of law in a big way, this would be an excellent way to generate enthusiasm for it. It will also be an incitement/inspiration for their far-right counterparts in Europe and elsewhere as well. (1)

AP News reports:

Speaking last month at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York, Trump said: “On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.”

In one of his first personnel announcements, Trump announced via social media late Sunday that he would put Tom Homan, his former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, “in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” a central part of his agenda.

Trump can direct his administration to begin the effort the minute he arrives in office, but it’s much more complicated to actually deport the nearly 11 million people who are believed to be in the United States illegally. That would require a huge, trained law enforcement force, massive detention facilities, airplanes to move people and nations willing to accept them.

Trump has said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act. That rarely used 1798 law allows the president to deport anyone who is not an American citizen and is from a country with which there is a “declared war” or a threatened or attempted “invasion or predatory incursion.” (2)

Technically, a mass deportation could be done legally. But that’s not what the Trumpistas care about or even want. A lynch mob, a pogrom, an ethnic cleansing is more the vibe they will want to invoke. Getting their followers accustomed to the idea that the government itself can act illegally on behalf of the Great White Father is part of the authoritarian schtick.

If they actually undertake such a thing, it won’t be nearly as easy as fanatical fools like Stephen Miller imagine. Latino communities will mobilize to protect their neighbors. It won’t be in the form of MS-13 toughs gunning down cops. But helping people avoid police raids is something with which many Latino neighborhoods have some experience. States like California with sanctuary laws can also put up practical inhibitions to such mass roundups. (3)

The old saying “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” could turn out to be very relevant here. The agricultural sector in the US, from farms to meat-processing plants, is heavily dependent – completely dependent for all practical purposes – on undocumented (aka, “illegal”) immigrant labor. This is not a secret. Even loyal rank-and-file Republicans know it. And when confronted with the fact, the most they are likely to push back to mutter something about how we should have Real Amurcans doing those jobs. (Not a reality-based idea, BTW.)

The US has the largest economy in the world. (Or second-largely depending on the method used to compare with China.) How will it fare when the entire agricultural sector collapses? Which is what will happen if Trump regime actually pushes for a sudden and massive deportation. I hope that we don’t get a real-world test of whether I’m exaggerating about the results. But I’m not.

And, no, farms and meat-packing plants aren’t going to be able to find native-born replacements anytime soon. Maybe if other states follow the lead of Republican-led Arkansas in legalize labor for minors as farm workers and meat packers that will speed up the long process of trying to reconstitute a functioning agricultural system.

The construction industry, restaurants and hotels, home services like gardening and house cleaning, are also heavily dependent of undocumented labor. Trump notoriously used such labor resources in his projects. It’s not a joke. This is where “reality bites,” as the saying goes.

It is a scandal against decency, human rights and labor rights that such a system is so much a part of the US economic reality. And has been for, well, longer than the lifetimes of most Americans alive today. It’s shameless exploitation, even beyond the legal “legitimate” levels of exploitation.

It’s astonishingly cynical that such a system has existed for so long. It’s worth recalling that Ronald Reagan as President proposed and got enacted the last federal revision of the immigration laws, one that created a path to citizenship for longtime residents. There are volumes filled with Reagan’s misdeeds. That was not one of them. No matter how proud Biden and the Democrats may be of the dumb, failed political stunt this year to show that they are tougher on them thar Messican invaders than Trump and the Republicans are.

And, as much as it pains me to give any kind of credit to the Cheney-Bush Administration, they also proposed a decent immigration-reform law that the Republicans rejected. The Obama-Biden Administration did provide a program to help the “dreamers,” foreign nationals brought as small children to the US. But they also postured just like the Biden-Harris Administration did to show how tough they were on The Border.

This is not the way to fight xenophobia. Unless it is the goal of right-center and left-center parties to boost support for the far right. Which, for the Joe Manchins of the world (in the US and elsewhere), is actually their goal.

The defenders of democracy and the rule of law have to confront the xenophobes by not only debunking their lies and hate-mongering but also pursuing reality-based immigration and visa policies. Or they can surrender. That leads to nowhere good.

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To prepare for Inauguration Day:

Project 2025 American Prospect https://prospect.org/api/search.html?q=project+2025&sa=

Project 2025 Brennan Center page: https://www.brennancenter.org/series/project-2025

Project 2025 Britannica (yes, it has a Britannica listing) https://www.britannica.com/topic/Project-2025

Project 2025 Center for American Progress https://www.americanprogress.org/article/frequently-asked-questions-about-project-2025/

Project 2025 Guardian page: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/project-2025

Project 2025 Official Heritage Foundation site: https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025

Notes:

(1) Tom Homan on what mass deportation immigration plans may look like. CBS News YouTube channel 11/11/2024. <https://youtu.be/NKsgpNm63-I?si=dMcCG1NYZUEd6N-A> (Accessed 2024-12-11).

(2) Long, Colleen & Merica, Dan (2024): Trump on Day 1: Begin deportation push, pardon Jan. 6 rioters and make his criminal cases vanish. AP News 11/11/2024. <https://apnews.com/article/trump-day-1-priorities-deportations-drilling-ukraine-6747c6e64b0440978f59450b928f61d1> (Accessed 2024-12-11).

(3) "Sanctuary" Policies: What Are the Decisions Facing State and Local Governments? Albany Law 03/19/2019. <https://www.albanylaw.edu/government-law-center/sanctuary-jurisdictions> (Accessed 2024-12-11).