As Donald Trump fights to become America’s next “Deporter-in-Chief,” he wants to keep all eyes on the border, particularly on migrants. A day after telling the National Association of Black Journalists that migrants will “take your jobs,” he appeared at the Georgia State University Convocation Center and said “illegal aliens” are “coming in from prisons, jails, mental institutions and insane asylums.”
Although these statements are not true, they are an attempt to justify stricter measures in the name of border security. What many Americans don’t realize is that such draconian policies don’t just affect migrants. They are a threat to all American citizens.
As a former Department of Homeland Security prosecutor across three presidential administrations, I know the dangers of vilifying noncitizens. Although American citizens are exempt from immigration laws, when the government detains or deports migrants, or subjects them to harsh treatment, in the name of “border security,” we make it that much easier for the government to use those tactics against us all.
Politicians and policymakers have a long history of using the legal distinction between noncitizens and Americans to sway voters. But in practice, the dividing line isn’t so clear.
In the 1880 presidential election, candidate James A. Garfield referred to Chinese immigration as an “invasion.” He capitalized on fears from Western states that Chinese migrants would steal their jobs –– the border security issue at the time. Two years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act, a total ban on Chinese migration, passed.
The law was supposed to only apply to noncitizens from China. Except it didn’t.
Many Chinese Americans were refused entry into the U.S., even though they had proper certificates to return. Those affected sought protection from the Supreme Court. But the court allowed the government to revoke its decisions, tipping Lady Justice’s scales in favor of border security and leaving Chinese migrants and Chinese American citizens exposed to arbitrary immigration enforcement.
After World War II, the same border security tune continued, except on a different note –– “Operation Wetback.” This time, Americans feared Mexican laborers would “steal” jobs and deplete resources. President Dwight Eisenhower responded with a mass deportation campaign, rounding up people who looked like Mexican migrants and deporting them to remote areas in Mexico. Families were separated and Mexican Americans were wrongfully deported.
Perhaps immigration officials didn’t care much about mistakes because their decisions weren’t reviewable by courts, or maybe they too fell victim to the border-security myth. Whatever the reason, these actions were applauded, and Eisenhower used this “success” to help secure reelection.
In the early 2000s, the War on Terror brought renewed concerns against noncitizens. Guantanamo Bay was established to detain and interrogate suspected terrorists and enemy combatants. The government detained many without charge. It was easy for the majority of Americans to watch on television as noncitizens were captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere and then transferred to Guantanamo, where they had no constitutional rights.
But when José Padilla, an American citizen, was arrested at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, President George W. Bush labeled him an “enemy combatant,” allowing his prolonged detention without formal charges. This time, the Supreme Court spoke, reminding the government that however it labels them, it must still afford U.S. citizens all the protections of the Constitution.
There is a better way forward. Americans have a right to a country with secure borders and a functioning immigration policy. But current border policies aren’t addressing the real problem.
Instead, more resources should be directed toward the 24.7 million shipping containers that enter the country every year, offering a far more efficient path to transport fentanyl and other contraband into the U.S. than via migrants. But only 2 to 5 percent of containers are thoroughly inspected. Data from the Drug Enforcement Association backs this up, showing Mexican cartels and other criminal organizations as the primary source of drug smuggling. But finding drugs in a container doesn’t get voters to the polls the same way that finding drugs on migrants does.
Americans need to learn from our history. Migrants’ lack of fundamental rights makes it too easy for any president to enforce a “border security” agenda. This is a slippery slope, because the actual security threat isn’t found at America’s physical borders but in using demonizing labels to justify the erosion of fundamental rights.
These categorical distinctions exist in name only, and make it easier for Americans to wrongly believe that these policies will never apply to them.
Veronica Cardenas is a former prosecutor with the Department of Homeland Security. She is the founder of Humanigration, a digital platform serving immigrants and their legal advocates.
