Scapegoating Immigrants Hurts All of Us — Except Elites
.By Sonali Kolhatkar
There’s a direct line between Donald Trump’s 2015 declaration about
Mexican “rapists” and his 2024
lie about Haitians eating pets. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance
(R-OH), has echoed the
horrific contention about Haitians even while admitting
it was a lie.
Both men are married to women of immigrant origins and may
not even believe their own lies. In fact, as a Yale law student in 2012, Vance
wrote a blog post decrying Republican anti-immigrant rhetoric. But after he
found how convenient it is to bash immigrants for votes, Vance asked
his former professor to delete it.
During the vice presidential debate between Vance and
Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), Vance scapegoated
immigrants every chance he got. In Vance’s world, immigrants are
smuggling fentanyl and importing illegal guns. They’re also driving up housing
prices while simultaneously putting downward pressure on wages by working for
pittances.
Never mind that it’s mostly U.S.
citizens smuggling fentanyl, and that illegal guns are flowing the
other way across the border — from
the U.S. into Mexico. Never mind that it makes no sense for immigrants to
be working for less while paradoxically being able to afford homes that
Americans cannot.
Truth and logic are beside the point. Fear of the “other” is
the plan. This makes life very dangerous for immigrants. Haitian migrants,
among others, are facing
threats to their safety.
Trump has repeatedly deployed Hitlerian language to describe immigrants, blaming them for “poisoning the blood” of the country and claiming that they commit homicide because they have “bad genes.” (One can hardly imagine him extending the same logic to mass shooters, who tend to be overwhelmingly white and male, or to the two white men who recently tried to assassinate him. According to Trump, being white means you have “good genes.”)
Beating the racist, anti-immigrant drum is the first step
toward violence. The United Nations identifies hate speech as a “precursor
to atrocity crimes, including genocide,” and scholars of past genocides
have drawn clear links between language that “otherizes” whole communities and
pogroms aimed at them.
Anti-immigrant lies also harm native-born Americans. Trump,
Vance, and their supporters recently unleashed rumors falsely
blaming immigrants for disaster relief difficulties. Elon Musk jumped on the
bandwagon, claiming that
“FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving
American lives.”
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell called these
lies part of a “truly dangerous narrative.” Even Republican governors of
hurricane-hit states are deeply appalled,
warning that these lies threaten to disrupt disaster
recovery efforts.
Most importantly, the purveyors of anti-immigrant hate let
corporate power and wealthy elites — like Musk — off the hook for the problems
facing Americans. Hedge
fund managers, not immigrants, are outbidding Americans for housing. Corporate
employers keep wages low and privatization has
ruined healthcare, not immigrants.
Oil and gas corporations are responsible for the
catastrophic climate
change fueling hurricanes like Helene and Milton, not immigrants.
(Indeed, migrant
workers often help rebuild after these catastrophes
as communities struggle with a labor shortage).
If right-wing politicians really want to help Americans
struggling with economic stressors, they could ban hedge
fund managers from buying up homes, support single-payer
health care, increase the federal minimum wage, tax
billionaires, divert
money from war to climate, hold fossil fuel companies accountable
for climate crimes, and back a
renewable energy transition.
Instead, they attack immigrants — and do nothing.
Attacking immigrants and calling for mass deportations will
do nothing to ease the very real struggles people face. What it will do
is whip up hate and violence, give the purveyors of hate the political power
they desperately seek, and let corporate vultures off the hook.
Sonali Kolhatkar is the host of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.