Between 1 and 2 November Mexico marks the Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Its focus is celebrating the memory of loved ones who are no longer with us. The tradition is a mixture of ancient Mesoamerican indigenous culture and the Catholicism of Spanish colonisers. This year, the Biden-Harris White House tweeted that it was celebrating the day.
Day Of The Dead
But its tweet backfired, with award-winning journalist Aura Bogado responding:
No altar is big enough to hold the memory of those who died on the border due to this administration’s policies. https://t.co/NY0Fj7s8WW
— Aura Bogado (@aurabogado) November 3, 2024
Indeed, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would likely need to fill the White House with altars in order to remember the hundreds of people who have died at the US-Mexican border under their administration’s watch.
“Competing over who can appear tougher on immigration”, at the expense of human life
In 2022, the number of refugees dying on the US border with Mexico reached a record high. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed that the frontier had become “the world’s deadliest land migration route”. Combining the number of deaths and disappearances, the Biden administration also has the worst statistics.
As Human Rights Watch (HRW) explains, the US government has pushed a ‘Prevention Through Deterrence’ policy since 1994. The Border Patrol says there have been around 10,000 refugee deaths during that time. Human rights groups in the area, however, think there may have been up to 80,000. The idea of the policy was to make crossing the US-Mexican border “so dangerous that people are discouraged from even trying”. This strategy has “proven ineffective at reducing migration”, though.
Nonetheless, Biden’s government has sought to appear tough on immigration. And Harris is no different, which she’s made crystal clear during her electoral match-up with Donald Trump. As HRW’s Vicki B. Gaubeca wrote in October, “both parties are competing to see who can keep propping up the same old failed myths about immigration”. In short, they’re “competing over who can appear tougher on immigration”. As DemocracyNow reported in July, Harris:
defended her support for harsher immigration and border enforcement policies. Harris compared her record to Donald Trump’s and blamed the Republican presidential nominee for tanking a bipartisan bill that would have further militarized the southern border.
She even boasted that:
Some of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, D.C., supported the bill. Even the Border Patrol endorsed it.
Why do people still try to get to the US?
The US remains the world’s biggest economy. And in the Americas, most of the other countries suffer instability and immense inequality, largely as a result of US imperialism systematically terrorising their people for many decades. Whether that has been via Washington’s support for brutal right-wing dictators, devastating civil wars, or a combination of coups, terror, sanctions, and invasions, the US has provided people throughout the hemisphere with a very good reason to emigrate.
Having the biggest economy on the planet, meanwhile, creates significant demand for workers. That’s why businessman Steven Kopits stressed in a 2017 CNBC article that immigration will continue as long as there is demand. Because the government provided “only about one third as many visas as needed by U.S. businesses”, despite them being “unable to find Americans to fill these jobs”, illegal immigration was bound to happen. Issuing enough visas, Kopits said, would help to cover domestic labour needs and make illegal immigration even less attractive.
There are many benefits of welcoming immigrants, as academic research has shown. And the need for immigrants will only keep growing. Economists insisted earlier this year that the US economy, and in particular its Social Security system, “depend on a growing immigrant workforce”. This is partially to do with the growing number of people in retirement, and the falling number of births.
The White House: a bastion of social murder
In short, immigration is a complex issue. But both Democrats and Republicans continue to treat it simply as a propaganda tool to show how tough they are on some of the most vulnerable people in the region. And we should never stop holding them to account for the loss of human life that results from their inhumane policies.
Featured image via the Canary
