Donald Trump is fanning nativist fears and bigotry using the actual rhetoric of Hitler to attack immigrants. He said that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and they are “like a military invasion. Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.”
Republicans are amplifying racist, divisive and inhumane lies.
Does the US need to address the border situation? Yes – and Biden is trying to address the situation. But he does not get any help from Republicans. It is more advantageous for Republicans to amplify the rhetoric and lie about the situation than it is for them to address it.
Trump and his enablers want Americans to forget that almost all of us are the descendants of immigrants who fled persecution, or were brought to the US under duress, or simply sought better lives for themselves and their descendants.
In a n op-ed in The Guardian (January 12, 2024) in The Guardian, University of California professor of public policy and former U.S. labor secretary Robert Reich debunked the Republican lies and laid out the truth. Please amplify the truth instead.
The Lie: Biden doesn’t want to stem illegal immigration and has created an open border.
The Truth: Since Biden took office, he has consistently asked for additional funding for border control. Republicans refuse additional funding. Instead, they are voting to cut Customs and Border Protection funding and are blocking passage of Biden’s national security supplemental that includes border funding.
The Lie: Illegal immigration is responsible for the drug crisis in the United States.
The Truth: While large amounts of fentanyl and other deadly drugs flow into the United States from Mexico, 90% arrives through official ports of entry, not via immigrants illegally crossing the border. Research by the Cato Institute found that more than 86% of the people convicted of trafficking fentanyl across the border in 2021 were US citizens.
The Lie: Undocumented immigrants are terrorists.
The Truth: For almost a half century, no American has been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the United States that involved someone who crossed the border illegally. The claim comes from data showing that from October 2020 to November 2023, 312 migrants – out of more than 6.2 million who crossed the southern border during these years – matched names on the terrorist watch list. It’s unclear how many were actual matches and whether the FBI actually considered them national security threats since the watch list includes family relations of terrorist suspects, many of whom are not considered to be involved in terrorist activity.
The Lie: Undocumented immigrants are stealing American jobs.
The Truth. Evidence shows immigrants are not taking jobs that American workers want. Also, the surge across the border is not increasing unemployment. Unemployment has been below 4% for two years, far lower than the long-term average rate of 5.71%.
The Lie: Undocumented immigrants are responsible for more crime in the US.
The Truth: Nope. Studies show that undocumented immigrants have “substantially” lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants.
Note: Much of the language in this article is copied from Robert Reich’s original article in The Guardian. We encourage you to read the original for more detail and links to sources.