The Brutality of the Current United States Immigration Policy

Credit Picture: Markus Spiske generate by Wix

There is a heightened anti-immigration sentiment among the rightwing extremists in the United States today following the false perception that immigrants are to blame for everything that goes wrong in the country. Unfortunately, the United States immigration restrictive system and policies have always been deadly to people trying to enter the country and carve out a better life for themselves.

The immigration system leaves bruises, broken bones, separates families, and

needlessly ends countless lives. Since the 1990s when the Jim Crow style militarization against immigrants from Mexico began, about eighty thousand people and counting have died at the United States border. The American border, now a racist stalking regime with mass surveillance industry that has grown profitable from the border’s expansion, hunts not only immigrants but

also anyone with a skin color of language of the “supposed undesirables.”

“Let us make America ‘White’ again! Using racial, physical, and linguistic profiling for immigration purposes to decrease the number of non-white people in America is utterly horrendous and outrageous.

The anthropologist, Jason de Leon, in “The Land of the Open Graves” aptly describes the United States border as “a killing machine that simultaneously uses and hides behind the viciousness of the Sonoran Desert” where the United States Border Patrol constantly fires bullets at unarmed teenagers and others trying to flee dangers in their homelands to rebuild their lives in America. A Gallop poll found that more Americans support immigration and 79% (8 in 10) believe that immigration benefits the country. The poll also shows that many Americans support giving immigrants a pathway to citizenship.

Even as the United States government shuts down due to budget impasse and government personnel are without pay, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outrageously remain in operation and over 19,000 ICE employees are exempt from furloughs. We need a reckoning with the structural abuse embedded in the United States immigration policies, which is destroying the rights of not only immigrants but also the human rights and dignity of all Americans. It behooves both Democratic and Republican legislators to play a critical role in putting an end to the zero-tolerance, abusive immigration policies, and widespread family separations.

Democratic and Republican legislators need to stop the chilling practice of turning the United States border loose on innocent people, capturing not only individuals without legal status, but also Americans, and Green Cards holders. As Americans, we must continue to fight for our Civil rights, Civil liberties, and our freedom. The time to act is now, today, and not tomorrow! We must not be too craven to vote out of office this November those who cannot stand up for Justice and are decimating our Democracy.

Dr. Bernadine Ahonkhai

Author/Founder & CEO of the Coalition4Justice