Cruel hoax: the political economy of anti-immigration – Asia Times
If citizens have been properly cultivated by decades of demonizing and scapegoating them, deporting immigrants may win them political victories. For its patients, the atrocities involved are tragic.
But for repatriation makes little sense financially. It is a poorly understood immigration finance software that has the potential to destroy the nation. What once “made America great” ( at least for the majority light people ) were its successive waves of refugees.
What highlighted the strength of the British economy was its capacity to withstand those ripples despite tensions between them: a truly effective melting pot. Through my PhD, my National education stressed these items.
What therefore caused such a favorable perception of emigration to change? What otherwise made immigration a pressing threat to American greatness? What lets Trump pose as “protecting” us by strongly reducing immigration and substantially deporting refugees?
I’m referring to the vast majority of people who are poor and meet the working class at lower rates of pay. Foreign-born US citizens comprise about 14 % of the total population or around 46 million. About 12 million of them are undocumented. )
The social sector of emigration provides answers to these questions. However, those responses and the political economy that underpin them are utterly excluded from mainstream discussions and consciousness. The Republican party’s subsequent years of anti-immigration language and the policies in place for immigrant imprisonment during the last three presidencies serve as examples of this absence.
Deportation is a necessary response to the” costly invasions” of immigrants ( often equated to criminals ) by many politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties. Proof for this marginalization system has been very indisputable. Its supporters appear to be mainly ignorant of the realities of immigration.
The majority of immigrants to the United States are younger people. The adolescent can best handle migration’s difficulties and dangers. They are most likely to be able to find the hardest work under the least amount of money because of their precarious and fragile surroundings. The illegal among them are the most susceptible.
When companies take advantage of and misuse them, they dare not complain to the police or another government officials. Immigrants often send portions of their wages ( “remittances” ) back to the countries they left.
Payments help care for children, the old, and others who remained there and partially compensate those countries of origin for losing their migrants ‘ performance.
Before older refugees arrived in the United States, their education was supported by their countries of origin. Their individuals and institutions spent considerable amount feeding, clothes, hiding, educating, etc., them from beginning to 15-18 years of age.
Because the younger people immigrated to the United States, they “invested” in their young individuals but made little money from that purchase. Their decades of production benefitted the US market, not the economies of the nations that made investments in them.
Prior to becoming full-time individuals, Americans who were born and raised in the country are already paying high financial costs to the US economy. US people partly cover those costs ( foods, clothing, and shelter ). The federal, state, and local institutions cover different parts of those expenses ( people teaching, public services, etc. ).
The US economy benefits from its child performance as a profit on its expense in their upbringing because comparatively few Americans immigrate. The United States increases the efficiency of immigrants they didn’t engage in, adding to that payoff.
The emigration of their residents to the United States is a rebate from and paid for by the poor because many of the nations where immigrants frequently reside are among the poorer nations. The globalization of socialism is not only reflected in its global imbalances, but it also makes them worse.
The child performance that migrants ‘ countries of origin lacks is what they most depend on. The wealthy nations that the least have them are transferred those rewards.
Numerous decades of large and successive waves of refugees made up the “great” National past that MAGA celebrates. The grants provided by refugees contributed a lot to the US’s amazing GDP growth in the 19th and 20th ages.
First waves of refugees stimulated economic growth that in turn attracted, welcomed, and integrated after waves. Each american wave faced difficulties, and the majority of them finally rose to higher wages. Some yet left the working class and became employed. Immigration and expansion were able to coexist in a routine that some perceived as “exceptional.”
As each expat flood arrived, its members tended to have the worst jobs, the lowest wages, and lived in the worst neighborhoods, including underserved ones like the poor schools for their children. When the next flood arrived, its people accepted the equal.
The economic expansion that earlier waves of refugees contributed eventually allowed their fights for better work, pay, and cover to achieve. Additionally, this development made it possible for the after waves of immigrants to take the place of the previous ones at the lowest echelons of the social scale.
Thus, nearly all immigrants could fairly anticipate better years back. The United States could boast of having a remarkable level of” social mobility.” Carefully exaggerated by “rags to riches” fables like those in the many novels of Horatio Adler ( 1832–1899 ), working-class belief in social mobility served social peace and often blunted socialism’s appeal.
Migration has not yet been considered in terms of its regional or economic effects by this analysis. Migration furthermore has economic effects: its effects on the employee-employer relationship. Immigration is typically less lucrative than what native-born people will recognize. Still less is accepted by illegal refugees.
Because immigrants may indicate a real economical threat, the native-born, better-paid workers is fear, hate, and oppose their appearance. Demagogs frequently use their reflection and reinforcement to bolster their hate and opposition to win seats.
If the migrants display “racial” differences, demagogues can integrate racism ( traditional or new ) to aggravate the competition between immigrant and native-born employees.
Companies have frequently pitted immigrants against native-born workers and illegal immigrants against both. Employers ‘ divide and conquer strategies have stifled native and immigrant employees ‘ collective actions and stifled or destroyed labor unions and strikes.
On the other hand, in recent years, significant portions of the US labor movement have revived partly by pointedly unifying immigrant ( documented and undocumented ) and non-immigrant employees and, thereby, defeating employers. Not surprisingly, some companies, worried about a reviving work activity, cultivated a reaction to strengthen groups among employees.
They were persuaded to reject emigration. Denunciations of and demands to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion ( DEI ) commitments became popular covers for and companions to anti-immigrant agitation.
New American presidents have criticized immigrants and used hostile language and actions as votes in the country. Those leaders ‘ plans and the resulting arrests were a response to several years of significant immigration. Whites and demagogues in politics used their common functions.
Trump lifted them into his efforts and congresses. His next term is intended to be the largest imprisonment in US history.
US companies will be disappointed that the persecution have reduced the number of profitable and low-paying immigrant workers (especially those who are undocumented ). Of course, companies retain their usual solution of technology: replacing actually more employees with computers, drones, and AI.
Millions of people who have been denied government jobs ( as a result of Trump, Musk, and DOGE ) will compete for shrinking job opportunities in the US private sector.
The Trumpian goal is a working class purged of refugees, organizations and La differences. It is a MAGA earth that has properly resubordinated most non-whites, people, refugees, and all others deemed inferior by the likes of Trump and Musk, and those they select.
Immigration has always been primarily responsible for the demands of US socialism. Migration was generally expensive, dangerous, and painful to the migrants who generally lacked additional ways to survive. The US working class was frequently threatened by emigration, which cast a negative light on it, but it lacked the democratic will to cease it.
On the other hand, the working group was also appreciative of the opportunities and life that immigration provided for their ancestors and people. In that way, they saw immigration favorably.
Over many subsequent years, slow, uneven economic development redistributed US wealth and income forward. A declining US empire, rising global competition (especially from China ), climate change’s escalating effects, and subsequent global conflicts, all combined, led to significant journeys to the country as its jobs, wages, and prospects were being stifled.
Immigration’s perceived bad results came to overshadow the good ones. Enough about the US working class’s support and appreciation of immigration prevented right-wing demagogues from snooping on their most recent great opportunity.
The working class’s changing circumstances and sentiments helped the populists shake up US politics. During the upsurge of the US dynasty in the 19th and 20th centuries, regular executive orders have stifled the political consensus that existed between the GOP and Democratic institutions.
Republicans and Democrats have since turned ever more harshly against one another as the US empire and socialism have begun their socially expanding drop. In terrible conflicts, their ancient social structure fell apart.
Immigration became one battlefield, one way to create a new democratic way out of the wane that no gathering official would dare to acknowledge. Trump has so far greatest grasped the opportunity to drive an extraordinary place on immigration—mass deportation—to energy. But, since it will soon became apparent that deporting immigrants solves small and worsens the US drop, the political program’s prospects are uncertain.
Much the same applies to the other initiatives that he and Elon Musk have in mind. These include neocolonialist plans to retake control of Greenland, Gaza, and the Panama Canal and make Canada the nation’s 51st position. Additionally, these include imposing tariffs on all countries and preventing the United States from participating in global efforts to combat climate change and health ( WHO ).
Abandoning the Ukraine war and shifting its prices to the Europeans does cause their opposition and expected frustration, which Trump and Musk may face.
As with immigration, the political economy of other Trump-Musk jobs ( and much of Project 2025 ) raise similar profound questions about their logic, blind spots and unintended consequences.
The deep contradictions of anti-immigration—and other projects —are not overcome by hiding them under the veneer of slogans like” America First”. The British version of what the term “declining kingdom” means is still present.
Richard D. Wolff is visiting professor in the student programme in foreign affairs at New School University in New York and professor of economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Wolff’s regular show, “Economic Update”, is syndicated by more than 100 television channels and goes to millions via various TV systems and YouTube. Understanding Capitalism ( 2024 ), his most recent book, is a response to readers ‘ requests for his earlier books,” Understanding Socialism” and” Understanding Marxism.”
The Independent Media Institute’s Market for All project produced this content. It is reproduced around with kind agreement.
