With all the talk of immigration, the incessant panic about the southern border, and now the president’s authoritarian deployment of military power in LA, I’ve been reading up on immigration. Again. Actually, I’ve been at it a while.
I still hear repeatedly the refrain: “They need to get in line!” Or, “My grandparents did it legally!” And so on.
There is no line. And your grandparents entered a different country under different circumstances. In other words, you’re stuck in the 1890s. There is no line.
This article is five years old, but I think the author did a nice job, and it’s still well worth a read.
You can get a visa and hope for an eventual green card if you meet a short list of exclusionary criteria. For the many people fleeing violence in Central America—which the United States contributed to—there is zero hope of these things.
Were the National Guard and Marines deployed when the Capitol building was stormed? No. When you’re White and have a beer gut and an assault rifle, you get pardoned. The LA protests have been largely non-violent. This fact has been downplayed in the televised news.
White + violent = peaceful
Brown + peaceful = violent
We have seen this all before. It’s called systemic racism. Racism expresses itself at the bureaucratic level. It’s why White cops shoot Black citizens. It’s why White citizens display racist Thin Blue Line flags. “Leave White cops alone!” Systemic racism also manifests itself in tribalism. The Thin Blue Line flags are tribal. Tribalism is why Trump received 77 million votes. Make America white again! (I do not think Trump won strictly because of racism, but it helped. A lot.)
He’s trying, though most of his efforts are theater to appease his supporters—whom he holds in contempt. The real priority is to shower the seriously rich with free money. There aren’t enough people who are seriously rich, so you need to get votes somehow. Racism and tribalism work like a champ.
Oh, before I forget … there is no line.
https://reason.com/2019/12/18/there-is-no-line
