Grassroots/Hank Kalet

No Room at the Inn

Immigration has historically been a flashpoint in American politics. As far back as the founding, the federal government and the states have sought to restrict entry to people and groups the government or public considers “undesirable.”

The arguments favoring these laws have always been the same and disingenuous. They raise the specter of invasion and infiltration, of a threat to a vaguely defined “American way of life,” and usually target those who are different and — the argument goes — dangerous.

The Alien and Sedition Acts of the late 18th Century were justified on national security grounds. Anti-Chinese restrictions on both economic and race-purity grounds, and the national quota system of the 1920s on a broadly defined concept of race, as well. These laws, in part, were about maintaining the United States as a largely White, Christian nation — African Americans post-slavery occupied a separate class and were not a part of the calculus.

Over the decades, some of these groups — Eastern European Christians, Italians, and to a lesser extent Jews — were redefined as White, assimilated into the broader culture. Others — some Asians, Jews — remained different in the minds of the public, but were assigned “model minority” status. These shifts occurred against a backdrop of racial change. Black Americans demanded and mostly won equal status, and the new class of “ethnic Whites” were convinced that these hard-won gains came at their expense, which led to a political retrenchment that froze African American progress in its place and put other dark-skinned groups in the cross hairs.

Periodic national security scares ramped up the anger, and we are now at another moment of inflection. President Joe Biden’s executive order in early June, which restores Trump-era restrictions, is only the latest salvo in a bipartisan dance on the issue. No president has been immune from the political pressures. Barack Obama, for instance, is one of the few presidents since Ronald Reagan to ease life for immigrants in the United States through his DACA program, but he also severely ramped up border security and enforcement.

According to the Texas Tribune the new rules “will largely suspend entry of noncitizens into the country,” with exceptions for “permanent U.S. residents and unaccompanied children.”

The limitations are to be discontinued two weeks after there has been an average of less than 1,500 migrant encounters between official ports of entry for seven consecutive days. The restrictions would resume when there has been an average of 2,500 encounters or more for seven consecutive days.

Advocates in Texas, the Tribune reports, say the Biden order “resembles failed policies of past administrations and will put many migrants at risk of violence as they wait on the Mexican side of the southern border to secure an asylum appointment with U.S. officials following already-treacherous journeys north.”

"You're really seeing incredible dismantling and restrictions imposed on accessing asylum," said Karla Marisol Vargas, a senior lawyer for the Beyond Borders Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project. "In practice, what this means is trying to even ask for asylum or ask for any of these protections is going to be well-near impossible."

In issuing the order, Biden is acceding to political pressure and fear stoked by Republicans and some Democrats. The president’s immigration record has been inconsistent and haphazard, a reactive mess of shifts and reconsiderations. In the end, despite his rhetoric in 2020, he is following the playbook set out by his predecessor on the issue.

Donald Trump opened his 2016 presidential campaign with an attack on Mexican immigrants and he spent his four years in office and the four years since attacking immigration, using overtly racist language and arguments and ginning up his nativist base. The Democrats have failed to push back in any meaningful way, and instead have been fighting this issue on Trump’s turf.

Biden’s executive order is more of the same in this regard. The motivations appear political — an effort to win over swing voters — and perhaps this will work. Or, it will offer another reason for more progressive Democrats to stay home — a disastrous outcome given that doing so will return an unhinged and unremorseful Trump to the White House, where he has promised to dismantle what is left of our democratic safeguards.

In the meantime, the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet — those fleeing climate catastrophe, war, and gang violence — are being told by the United States, but his supposed “nation of immigrants,” not only that there is no room at the inn, but that we really don’t care.

Hank Kalet is a poet, essayist and journalist in New Jersey. He teaches journalism at Rutgers University. Email: hankkalet@gmail.com; Facebook.com/hank.kalet; Instagram, @kaletwrites; X (Twitter), @newspoet41; Substance, hankkalet.substack.com.

From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2024

Populist.com