Biden & Harris Continue Racist Trump Migrant Rhetoric & Policies
The new administration continues to racialize Latin people and violate their legal and human rights
Vice-President Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants, traveled to Central America this week to deliver a clear message to victims of U.S. empire in the region seeking to find refuge up North away from the ravaged remains of their home nations in the wake of near-constant United States anti-democratic intervention there. “I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking of making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border; do not come. Do not come,” she said while in Guatemala.
“The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. There are legal methods by which migration can and should occur. But we, as one of our priorities, will discourage illegal migration. If you come to our border, you will be turned back.”
Harris’ carefully crafted language in those prepared remarks during her official trip representing the Biden presidential administration mirror both the language and policies of the preceding Trump administration. In addition to being cruel, the Harris and Biden administration are outright lying by implication.
Seeking amnesty by trekking to the Mexico/U.S. border, as so many of the migrants from Guatemala and nearby nations are and have been, is - contrary to Harris and Trump’s claims - a human right as well as rights ensured under international and U.S. law. In her remarks and in their policy, Harris and Biden are repeating the same big lie that Trump did with regards to Central American migrant asylum-seekers - that they are breaking the law.
In fact, migrants coming to the Southern U.S. border asking for asylum are not breaking the law - they are attempting to follow it. It is the lawless U.S. empire, now with Harris and Biden and a Democratic congressional majority at its helm, that is illegally denying these migrants’ ability to do so and then vilifying them in the process to add insult to material injury.
It gets worse. These Central American migrants are not seeking asylum in the United States for unknown reasons, fleeing devastation in their homelands of some mysterious causes. They are fleeing the result of U.S. crimes that have destabilized their countries, especially in Guatemala.
This latest speech from the Vice-President is just part of a continued attack on Latin American people by the U.S. empire, an attack that surely hasn’t abated one bit during the Biden/Harris administration. This Democratic administration follows in its Republican predecessor’s path as it continues to break U.S. and international law by denying migrants and refugees the ability to apply for amnesty at our border.
Not even U.S. citizenship saves Latin people from the empire’s racism, now facilitated by the Democrats. The Biden/Harris administration has announced that they will deny Puerto Ricans disability benefits even though they are United States citizens.
The Biden/Harris administration continues to operate concentration camps within our borders housing Latin people. These Latin migrants are separated from their family members, killed, and used for slave labor.
The women are sterilized by force. Democrats in power have not only refused to stop these practices, they’ve increased support for the agencies and private companies that commit these racialized crimes against Latin people.
Despite campaigning for the White House on the vague promise that they’d change course from the Trump administration, the Biden/Harris team continues to enforce Trump’s “Title 42” which effectively keeps our Southern border closed, even precluding lawful amnesty applications, in violation of our own law and international law. The pretense both the Trump and Biden/Harris administrations have given for the enforcement of Title 42 is covid-19 spread prevention, though dozens of public health experts say there is “no scientific basis as a public health measure” for the Latin-targeting policy.
The Biden/Harris administration is using the same Trump racist reasoning and language to keep in place horrific Trump policies and practices that exploit Brown refugees seeking asylum after we’ve destabilized their countries, all for the profit of their corporate donors who benefit from the privatized concentration camps and migrant slave labor. Those who voted for Biden and Harris against Donald Trump in the last presidential election because they wanted to see Trump’s illegal and immoral treatment of Latin migrants end now have to honestly look at the reality on the ground.
The racist crimes of empire haven’t ended, the camps haven’t been closed. Now that it is your favored elected officials committing the crimes against humanity, what are you going to do about it?