Rapists. Murderers. Drug Dealers. Gang Bangers. Donald Trump said the clever Mexican government is conning weak and stupid American leaders by “sending” mostly “really bad” people into the U.S.
Trump called for the deportation of all the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants as well as their American-born children. He would build an impenetrable 2000-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Shortly after Trump’s bombastic proclamations, two guys in Boston almost beat a homeless Hispanic man to death. While being arrested, one of them told police that “Donald Trump was right, all of these illegals need to be deported.”
When Trump was asked about this attack, he said “That would be a shame.” But he quickly added, “I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again. But they are very passionate. I will say that.”
This is morally depraved. “Trump has sent a message that it’s OK to be racist,” says Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling (PPP). “So maybe some racist attitudes you previously held, or were not allowed to say in public, now one of the leading presidential candidates is saying them and not apologizing at all.”
Jensen was releasing a new national poll that showed that Trump is “benefiting from a GOP electorate that thinks Barack Obama is a Muslim and was born in another country. Sixty-six percent of Trump’s supporters believe Obama is a Muslim to just 12 percent that grant he’s a Christian. Sixty-one percent think Obama was not born in the United States to only 21 percent who accept that he was.”
Fifty-one percent of all Republicans want to amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, which is given to anyone born on U.S. soil. Sixtyone percent of Trump supporters want to eliminate that right and a majority said undocumented children should be deported.
This is somewhat bizarre. We aren’t experiencing an immigrant crime wave. In fact, according to a July report by the American Immigration Council, immigrants are less likely than the nativeborn to engage in either violent or nonviolent “anti-social” behavior.
Trump claims the immigration situation is “completely out of control.” However, data by the Pew Research Center shows that Mexican undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. declined by 1 million, from the 6.9 million peak in 2007 to 5.9 million in 2012. Net migration from Mexico dropped to zero in 2010, and since then more Mexicans have left the United States than have arrived.
Immigration enforcement swallows up half of the country’s entire law enforcement budget. The border patrol’s budget has risen tenfold since 1970, to almost $4 billion. Border patrol personnel have doubled since 2004.
There are 700 miles of walls at the Mexican border backed by sophisticated surveillance towers, cameras and more than 12,000 motion sensors. The agents have drones, Blackhawk helicopters and armed personnel carriers.
The once-thin border with Mexico, Canada and both coasts has been extended 100 miles inland and now covers places where two-thirds of the U.S. population (197.4 million people) live. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls it a “constitution-free zone.”
Princeton sociologist Douglas Massey says the evidence shows that all the money spent on border enforcement “is worse than useless — it’s counterproductive.” He argues that the “militarization of the border” has made it harder for immigrant workers to go back home as they did before the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed.
New York Times reporter Eduardo Porter explains: “What was once a pendular flow of Mexican men coming north to do seasonal work in a handful of states and returning to Mexico in the winter became a permanent community of full-fledged families that settled across the 48 contiguous states.”
A recent study by Massey and other scholars estimates that the tightening of border enforcement since 1986 has ironically added 4 million people to the population of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. in 2010.
Trump insists he can “easily” deport 11 million people if he becomes President. Certainly mass deportations have happened before. During the Great Depression, counties and cities in several states forced Mexican immigrants and their families to leave the United States. Around 500,000 to 1 million Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans were pushed out of the country. People were rounded up in public places and frequently without any official proceedings.
About 60 percent of those who left were American citizens, according to various studies. Many families lost most of their possessions. Neighborhoods in cities such as Houston, San Antonio and Los Angeles were emptied out.
What Trump proposes to do would be much worse than the 1930s deportations. This is unbelievable.
This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.
