More languages
More actions
Someone told me "I don't support illegal immigration" or "Illegal immigration always involves "human traffickers" and here is what I know to reply when I hear these things.
For obvious reasons, I'm not going to tell you how I know all of this. I'm just going to tell you what I know. To those of us with life experience in what I describe, I'm stating the obvious.
Where I live, "illegal" refers to the humans who crossed the border. People make too much out of a situation that happens rarely. Generally, people arrive without a coyote (smuggler). Of course it happens, but it costs about as much as a car, and most people can't afford that. And people are afraid of cartels. I think most 'illegal' inmigrantes that I know simply drive across the border. That's practically all of us. And I think the ones using coyotes are specifically Latin Americans, not from other countries, which means that people are finding ways to deal with the illegal borders by any means available to them. A coyote is more like the last resort of last resorts, with several options before that. The main reason someone would use a coyote to cross is to evade getting detained. It may even be because they were deported previously. Once you can afford a coyote though, you might as well pay the visa fees. The currency difference between the U$ and MX is vast, so it is often out of reach, and primarily, coyotes are drug traffickers. There are many ways to arrive here without resorting to coyotes. So what is the primary contradiction here? The imperialists who impose illegal borders and oppression on Latin Americans.
Why do migrants get associated with human trafficking? The reality is, this 'human traffickers' thing is overblown by reactionaries to scare people away from supporting migrant workers. The real human traffickers, and perpetrators of human trafficking, are ICE themselves and the policing of citizenship status. The system needs undocumented labor. Since at least the 1900s, whenever jobs have been in high demand, undocumented people were recruited to them. There are many different international proletarian trades that enable people to travel to a different country. The main way that everyone comes here is as tourists, students, and mostly as migrant workers some of whom are seeking asylum - and that is why they are initially welcomed. What they don't want is for people to stay. It reminds me of that episode of the Powerpuff Girls when they went to the city for the first time, and by the climax of the episode their romanticism was struck down with one sentence: "Silly girls! No one lives in the city!" The U$ relies upon migrant workers' labor, and tourism to a lesser extent, to keep its economy running. Universities profit off of international students. Migrant workers do proletarian jobs that a lot of people don't want to do. The primary function of ICE is economic, to manage the inflow and outflow of the labor supply and serve the interests of the U$ bourgeois class. They keep a revolving door and ensure that no one can establish themselves for too long, because only the settler colonizers have that 'right'.
We are sometimes referred to as "border hoppers". I say "we" looking at the big picture. Not everyone has the exact same experiences. I'm not saying that all these experiences are individually mine. I was born here because someone from a small rural village, who was desperate for a better life, traveled across an entire country and walked across the desert on foot, and that has been a big part of my identity from since I was little. I would look at the vast area between where I come from originally and the nearby border where I lived growing up, knowing my destiny was to cross back and complete the circle. Often, when I walked or ran distances I would think about this. Am I strong enough to be like my family? This remains a part of my consciousness. A lot can change when you come to the U$, but some things don't change. I've started to realize that as the world changes around me, what felt like a foundational aspect of what shapes my reality is increasingly forgotten by others who cannot relate. The specific circumstances and backstories are constantly evolving with the times. Individually, our relationship to the colonial borders are all different based on many factors.
Not everyone is looking back. Others are making the most of their life here on this side, forgetting where they came from, and that is part of the diaspora experience too. Until something wakes inside and you realize something is missing (the culture you left behind in search of a better life)... A better life? Yes, do you wonder why everyone comes in search of a better life? Because their lives got destroyed directly or indirectly by U$ imperialism. When our children remember us, they carry our memories, and that is why even after generations they develop a consciousness marked by the history of migration, sometimes circular migration. I'm not saying that it's who we are, because we are much more than what we've been through, but "it is what it is" until that border is abolished.
As to the question of "illegal" immigration, remember that Turtle Island is under settler colonial occupation. We often say here "no one is illegal on stolen land", "no borders on stolen land". ICE are enforcers of the settler colonial occupation.
I know that I am native to Turtle Island, and that other migrant peoples are not, because they might be from Africa or Asia, but I don't feel they are unwelcome. Some of us who are indigenous are not only indigenous, but also have lineage in other countries that people migrated from. But whether or not that is the case, if you told me that an individual is profiting off a corporation that is destroying indigenous lives, I would feel differently about that individual, not about the nationality to which they belong. If you tell me that the individual is using their stay in the U$ to gain capital to become an oppressor in his own country, I would feel differently about that individual, but not about the nationality to which they belong. I would recognize this is a class, not national, distinction. And that's because that individual is aligning themselves with the U$ bourgeoisie, with imperialism.
For regardless of all the contradictions between indigenous people and Latinos, all of us have more a right to be here than Yankees. People who have a historical connection to these lands, whether of indigenous culture or latino-ized, have more right to it whether they come by "illegal" means or not is not the issue. And all people who come here migrating for whatever reason (as long as they are not white europeans, who act very entitled in the similar way of Israelis) it is always because of the imperialism of which the U.S. is the largest instigator. So it is no problem if someone comes from Afganistan, India, or Gambia, they came here for a reason (often because imperialism's ruining their economy or direct threats to their life) and we must welcome them. They made a choice to risk their life coming, and be faced with indefinite detention. There are people who get locked up here (usually immediately upon crossing) who have been locked up in ICE detention centers for years. Once imperialism ends, many people will also want to go back. But I prefer having these visitors over having settler colonizers who are currently the main ones who decide citizenship. Indigenous USians barely got citizenship decades ago.
So what I mean, everyone crosses the border. At the end of it, everyone is viewed as illegal no matter how they came here, if they have brown skin or speak with a non european accent. For this, even citizenship can be revoked or retroactively nullified if the person is brown. Meanwhile, a European can come here, be homeless, be drunk, be a drug addict, engage in disorderly conduct, be racist, and all kinds of things that a person of color would get locked up for and the European will still get the king's treatment. They can have no papers, they can get detained, and still be viewed as legal. They can cry before the judge and be given second chances. They will get released onto the street within a few days, find a job, be given many bribes to come settle. They will even have a case worker to help them. At worst, they get viewed as mischevious, resilient adventurers, until they establish themselves. It depends on the needs of the empire. Some Europeans, such as the Poles, were given houses upon arrival during the 1940s and 1950s, World War II. The blanqueamiento is welcomed so they don't usually get oppressed like everyone else. White Euroamericans are automatically assumed to be citizens. There are British people who arrive illegally, and get permanent residency, skipping the line ahead of all the brown people and never spending a day in detention. Generally, it's when the Europeans are impoverished and who have been to prison that I see them getting a little less of the king's treatment. Rarely do I ever see the Europeans migrate here, in recent generations there has been a steady decline of the white population. Instead, there are white people going to other places like Vietnam and becoming street beggars, and although it's illegal they get a pass because they are white. The white european colonizer privilege is a global privilege over the global south.
An indigenous person can walk across the border on their ancestral lands that they have a connection to for milennia and, because of settler colonialism, be viewed as illegal.
A Latino who is affected by imperialism in the present day, especially the ones who previously descended from indigenous communities, whether because it shows on their face or because they have a proven geneology, has more right to be anywhere in the Americas than anyone - save for the local indigenous people themselves, who belong to that place. It is not a matter of legal or illegal at that point, for the people here, all the borders were drawn by settler colonizers who created the divisions and the caste systems.
The U$ is also involved in the displacement of indigenous peoples worldwide. If they come here, they are welcome. The only people I don't recommend is the gusanos of the world, the complicit in imperialism, but privilege is naturally scarce under imperialism so that's a minority. Rarely are such people undocumented. Those people are often rewarded, and are often anti-immigration. And ICE detention wasn't designed specifically for them, who in all likelihood will never spend a day in chains and who may even get a nice house as a welcome. ICE detention was made for the rest of us, who risked our lives and our very identities for whatever reason, often times a promise of 'a better life' that is still hard because we are at the bottom.
No one is illegal on Turtle Island, save for the gusanos and settler colonizers. No surprise then, who gets treated as legal or illegal by the settler colonial occupation.
Adelante.