President Biden recently tweeted in support of “even more resources to secure the border,” contrasting himself with “MAGA House Republicans” who are proposing to “slash funding for border security.” He’s positioning himself to the right of the more explicitly xenophobic and far-right “MAGA” branch of the Republican Party and their fear-mongering about fentanyl.
The Biden administration’s record shows that this statement doesn’t come out of nowhere — it’s implemented anti-immigration and violent border policies the whole time after cynically campaigning for humane immigration policies in the 2020 election. While in the 2020 elections, Biden was forced to give lip service to immigrants’ rights due to mass mobilizations against Trump’s draconian immigration policies, now Biden is showing his true xenophobic colors.
This comes after a recent agreement with Justin Truedau that makes it easier for the U.S. and Canada to turn away asylum seekers. Furthermore, Biden has been deporting Russians who are escaping Putin’s draft seeking asylum and only a few months ago announced severe restrictions on asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. The increasing emphasis on militarization of the borders comes in the context of the global refugee crisis, largely fueled by imperialist intervention, the climate crisis, and environmental extraction.
Earlier this month, in his proposed budget for fiscal year 2024, he bragged on the White House fact sheet about having “secured more resources for border security than any of the presidents who preceded him.” Let’s be clear. Biden is bragging that he is funding ICE, border walls and other border patrol more than Donald Trump. Biden claimed that he would “rebuild a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system that was gutted by the previous Administration,” although he has largely continued with Trump’s draconian immigration policies, including keeping kids in cages.
Who can forget the images of border agents on horseback whipping Haitian asylum seekers? Or how last summer over 50 migrants were found dead in a trailer in Texas in sweltering heat?
This is “lesser evilism” in action, despite cries and crocodile tears from Biden and the Democrats about “kids and cages” and needing “humane immigration politics” when election season rolls around. Even the “progressives” of the Squad haven’t supported immigrants’ rights. Instead, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is promoting the poverty draft, trying to get low income Black and Brown kids to enlist in the military.
We need a party of the working class with a socialist program and internationalist perspective, independent of both Democrats and Republicans that fights for the attacks on migrants, for immigrants’ rights, abolishing ICE, freedom of migration, and open borders. Let them all in!
Defying Trump’s right-wing agenda from Day One
Inauguration Day is coming up soon, and at Truthout, we plan to defy Trump’s right-wing agenda from Day One.
Looking to the first year of Trump’s presidency, we know that the most vulnerable among us will be harmed. Militarized policing in U.S. cities and at the borders will intensify. The climate crisis will deteriorate further. The erosion of free speech has already begun, and we anticipate more attacks on journalism.
It will be a terrifying four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. But we’re not falling to despair, because we know there are reasons to believe in our collective power.
The stories we publish at Truthout are part of the antidote to creeping authoritarianism. And this year, we promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation, vitriol, hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
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