Demonizing Immigration, Bowing to Oligarchy

By Garrick Rawlings

If you were the person in charge of carrying out the orders to deport people here who are undocumented, and it was your choice of how to do so, would you send people out to notify the immigrants that they need to get their affairs in order, and allow them to find some representation to fairly and humanely help them through the process, to notify their family and loved ones, their employer(s), and while doing so, respectfully identify themselves and show them the paperwork explaining the legalities of what is happening to them?

Or… would you say “fuck that” let’s spend a shitload of money, get a bunch of agents armored up in aggressive tactical gear, then roll up on them out of the blue unannounced like we do when apprehending violent criminals, then pull these peaceful people out of their cars, out of their place of work, grab them while they are already in court, as they were instructed to do, all for the world to see so their children and families won’t know what’s going on, or where their loved one is, so it will scare the shit out of everybody. Also, don’t identify yourselves, show no proof of anything and cover your faces while taking away their dignity, human rights, and reducing them to a helpless convict with no due process or representation?

This is all political theater, last time around nobody could stop talking about the wall, another dumbass distraction. Impossible to do, but even if an impassable wall were successfully constructed, nothing would have changed, in that there is still no functioning immigration system that is fair and efficient. This is all designed to keep everyone distracted from that fact because the oligarchy benefits from it being this way, not the average citizen.

When it served Ronald Reagan’s political needs, he gave them all amnesty; he didn’t do it for the good of the people, he did it for the good of his power and wealth. The suffering humans involved are only pawns in this game. Every presidential regime in our lifetime has kicked the can of immigration reform down the road, bobbin’ and weavin’, doing everything they can to make you think they will fix it while making sure it always remains the same.

Imagine if we were an honest country and absolutely and ethically enforced labor laws, such as no one getting paid less than a minimum wage, so that they would enjoy the OSHA worker’s rights that everyone else does. Follow the money, who benefits from the policy, and who suffers? Imagine how much more that would collectively cost employers to do so?

The political conditioning so many have fallen prey to is so successful that too many citizens cannot see how those in charge flipped the narrative completely around. Imagine if we were an honest country and enforced labor laws on every single employer so that it would be impossible for humans who aren’t allowed to work here legally to work here. The reason the vast majority of immigrants and refugees come here is that people pay them to do the work no one here wants to do, as well as enjoy the freedom and privilege to pay them less than documented workers.

This is why so many have been conditioned to call them “illegal immigrants” instead of “undocumented immigrants,” this language helps with the fear-mongering and growing the intolerant hostility towards these people, who are simply refugees and immigrants. Imagine the challenges they faced where they came from, that even the inhospitable, disrespectful treatment they’re given here is more tolerable to them than in the country they were born in. Why is hardly anyone calling out the lawbreaking, profit-mongering, illegal employers? Why are no arrests being made, or even charges being filed, or investigations being made on the vast numbers of employers who are breaking the law?

Also, there are multitudes of Caucasians in this country illegally from countries all over the world. Do you see any of them being dragged out in handcuffs? Do you see anyone dragging out anyone in handcuffs in Beverly Hills, Aspen, or any other affluent community? There are plenty of undocumented immigrants working in those places, too.

So many of the people who are OK with this mistreatment of immigrants claim to be Constitution-loving, Statue of Liberty-loving Christians, the ones who want the tenets of their religion and tax-exempt churches displayed in public places funded by the tax dollars of millions of citizens who don’t believe in the same things at all. Yet these same people, when it comes to this immigrant thing, have no problem throwing those liberty and Christian tenets right out the window, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” and the ones about loving your neighbor, about not judging people, following the golden rule, about all being created equal in the eyes of God, we’re all God’s children, not following false prophets, that money is the root of all evil, thou shalt not kill, as well as not lying, and the spirit of love and empathy.

These tenets have a border; they only apply to those with a specific citizenship, or is it about the color of their skin?

People who prioritize a singular political loyalty and their policies over the greater good and the humanity of helpless individuals have never been on the righteous side of history.

The oligarchs have so successfully conned this country into supporting the millionaires and billionaire CEOs and executives of insurance companies, who are nothing more than middlemen extracting as much wealth from the population as they possibly can, it’s the only reason they are in business, not to help you. They’ve convinced so many that this is better than universal healthcare for all of us. Same goes for the for-profit hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, supplementing big oil and corporate farms and all the rest, as well as settling all the police brutality and murder cases with our tax money, and the police who are guilty do this with impunity. It is a great system for those on top; this is what we should be referring to when people say “the system is rigged,” and it is, against us. We have everything we need to make this country healthy, solvent, and housed, but there’s no money in it for them.

Meanwhile, every one of our representatives in Congress is far wealthier than the average citizen, but for some reason, we continue to pay for both them and their eligible family members excellent healthcare as well as pensions for the rest of their lives, while for millions, a hospital stay can render them homeless.

Until the citizens of this country grow the balls to dismantle this ruthless, unfair, and unregulated oligarchical system, the standard of living for the average citizen will continue to decline, along with the wealth gap continuing to expand as it has for over 50 years now. These levels of inequity haven’t been seen in this country since the Robber Baron era, where monopolies ran free in the late 19th century, which eventually led to the Great Depression in 1929. We need to wake up and fight to get our country back to something resembling a democracy, or we will lose this republic, as Ben Franklin warned.

In 1787, outside Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin was asked by Philadelphia socialite and political figure Elizabeth Willing Powell, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic if you can keep it.”