Before the Democrats can free immigrants, they must free themselves from the GOP
The GOP has taken a maximal position that requires a maximal counter-position.
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I will spare you the details of the rightwing reaction to the Supreme Court's decision this week to uphold birthright citizenship. I will spare you because they are disgusting, especially on America's 250th anniversary. What you need to know is that the mainstream of the Republican Party is no longer flirting with the so-called "Great Replacement Theory." In GOP circles, the idea that immigration is "civilizational suicide" is now conventional wisdom.
I know the Democrats have a lot on their plates right now, but the rest of us need to push them into accepting this reality. Rightwingers no longer care, if they ever genuinely did, about the "illegal" part of "illegal immigration." As their reaction to the court should make clear, federal law and the Constitution are obstacles to overcome. To them, it doesn't matter what immigrants do or don't. What matters is who they are – namely their race, culture and religion – and from the viewpoint of these reactionaries, it's their humanity that's "illegal."
I think it's up to the rest of us to push the Democrats, because they tend toward inertia, not action. The party's mainstream – think Chuck Schumer – will interpret the Supreme Court's decision on birthright citizenship as the end of the story. Fact is, it's probably the beginning. First, because the court itself is corrupt and in need of punishment. It's only a matter of time before it strikes down 158 years of Constitutional law. Second, because we have been here before. Democrats used to think abortion was settled. Look where that perspective got us.
These reactionaries will always be with us, alas, and they will never be satisfied with a court siding with the law, because, as they see it, the law is part of the conspiracy against them. They have convinced themselves that they are locked in a war for their very survival. "Border security," therefore, has nothing to do with the "border" or "security" in any objective sense of those words. It means closing the door and purging anyone "who does not belong."
The Times reported this morning that immigrant arrests have surged to 10,000 in five days. The number of immigrants in detention has reached 63,000. The Post reported last month that due to immigrants dying in custody during the first five months of this year, the administration is no longer going to report deaths. The Marshall Project reported in April that 6,200 minors have been detained since the beginning of last year. It published a follow-up story, in June, reporting that 500 of those minors were literal babies. The Supreme Court supercharged the effort by dramatically eroding the means by which to seek asylum and ending the protective status of nearly one and a half million refugees from Haiti and Syria.
The Republicans have taken a maximal position that requires a maximal counter-position. Theirs is anti-immigration, and every action taken by the Trump administration, with the blessing of the court (mostly), has advanced that position. So the maximal counter-position should be anti-anti-immigration – or simply pro-immigration, a view that gives a whole-chested defense of immigration in terms of freedom and America as the land of opportunity.
John Stoehr
But that's not what I see in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. I don't want to sand the corners of nuance here, but I do think it's fair to say that the center of the party still accepts the bad faith of the Republicans as if it were well-intended. They talk about loyalty when they mean conformity and obedience. They talk about patriotism when they mean bigotry and prejudice. They talk about capitalism and tradition when they mean creating an economic system in which mediocre men do not have to compete on the basis of merit and risk the humiliation of losing to women. They are this close to saying that immigrants have no rights which the white man is bound to respect. Yet many Democrats seem to believe that reasonable people can work together to find a halfway point between liberty and tyranny.
Again, I don't want to encourage the idea that all Democrats are the same, but I do not believe the Democrats as a party truly understand the maximal position being taken by their rightwing counterparts, and what that requires. Therefore, it is up to the rest of us to make it clear to them that compromise, though it may mitigate immediate harms done by the forces of anti-immigration, will not defeat those forces in the end. "Pro-immigration, pro-security" might seem like common sense, but ultimately, the boot still comes down on the necks of immigrants. Indeed, from the immigrant's point of view, "pro-immigration, pro-security" means there's a dime's worth of difference between the parties, as the Republicans get to stomp and the Democrats get to tell the Republicans there's a better way to stomp.
John Stoehr
But before the Democrats can liberate immigrants, they must liberate themselves. The Republicans have been living in their heads rent-free for a quarter of a century. During that time, Democrats have accepted as true the implication that immigrants are a threat to national security, cultural identity, social cohesion and "our way of life." It's to the point where the Democrats are co-dependent, asking the Republicans to be allowed to disagree. In fact, immigrants are not and never have been any of these things. For God's sake, Ronald Reagan said immigrants are "one of the most important sources of America's greatness."
The Democrats do not need Reagan's permission, of course, but I think it's important to remember what he once said: "If we ever close the doors to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost." Democrats should make their own case for immigration as a universal good for their own sake but also for the country's. The forces of anti-immigration are not only destructive but a perversion, a profanity, a con. The Democrats should go on the offensive, demanding that the immigration system be burned down and rebuilt so the burden of proof is no longer on the huddled masses yearning to breathe free but on the government to assume the humanity of "new Americans" so their pathway to citizenship is just details.
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