[Politics] This is how the trafficking of immigrants works as a political weapon in the United States

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Between the southern border of the United States and New York there are more than 1,800 kilometers. A trip that, by road, would take two days and 14 hours. Despite the enormous distance, the mayor of this city declared an emergency last week in the face of the tide of immigrants who have arrived from this remote area of the country.

They are mostly Venezuelans, but also Colombians, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Central Americans. Although New York is not strange to the arrival of foreigners seeking to crown the American dream, it is an unusual and unprecedented phenomenon in the country's recent history.

The explanation dates back to five months ago when the governors of two border states, Texas and Arizona, began busing thousands of these illegal immigrants to other cities in the country. Among them Washington -the capital- Boston and Chicago, which, as in the case of New York, are considered enclaves of liberals and are controlled by authorities of the Democratic Party.

A few weeks ago, Florida joined the operation, which despite not having a border with Mexico hired two planes to pick up some 50 Venezuelans in Texas and deposit them on Marthas Vineyard (Massachusetts), an island on the east coast where they have its recreational houses recognized figures of this party, such as former president Barack Obama.

“If they don't want to come to the border to see what's happening, but want to take action to deal with this immigration crisis, then we're going to send the border over to them so they can see it firsthand. And a lot more is coming,” Texas Governor Gregg Abbott said, explaining his decision.

(He may be interested: The implications of the new US measure. to control Venezuelan migration).

Abbott was also defending the sending of several of these buses directly to the residence in Washington of Vice President Kamala Harris, who was specifically charged with dealing with the immigration issue.

In total, according to informal calculations, in these five months more than 15,000 immigrants have moved from the southern border to these cities. People, it should be clarified, who are legally in the United States because they were released by the authorities while their immigration procedures are progressing before the country's courts after having requested asylum.

The situation reported by Abbott and the governors of Arizona and Florida (Doug Ducey and Ron DeSantis) is very real. This year all previous records have been broken in terms of the arrest of illegals: there are 2,150,000. Those are 400,000 more than last year, which was already the previous mark and despite the fact that the data for the last month of the fiscal year is still missing.

(Also: United States: Republicans send migrants to the north of the country, why?).

The explanations are of various shades. But the main one is associated with the hardships that covid-19 has caused in the region and the political and humanitarian crises in countries such as Venezuela and Nicaragua.

In any case, the authorities cannot cope with and process this tsunami of people whose initial burden falls on these two border states.

The problem has been magnified because unlike other waves, almost half of the current one is made up of citizens from countries other than Mexico or Central America, something that makes their deportation more complicated since it has to be by air.

But regardless of that, many have come out to criticize the transport of migrants to liberal cities, or that have declared themselves sanctuaries, considering it a crude political maneuver that ignores human suffering.

“This is a dramatic escalation of the use of immigrants as a political tool and symbol. The idea that these are human beings who are escaping terrible situations and seeking a better life in America for themselves and their loved ones has been replaced by the idea that they can be used as pawns moving on a chessboard. . It's really terrible to use these human beings to score political points,” says Donald Kettl, a professor and former director of the School for Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

Congress at stake
Kettl is referring to the current context when the United States is less than a month away from the mid-term legislative elections and control of Congress is at stake. Something notorious in the cases of Abbott and DeSantis, who are in the midst of an electoral campaign as both are seeking re-election.

Santis' move has sparked even more controversy because the migrants he sent to Marthas Vineyard weren't even in his state, which doesn't have a border with Mexico. He is even being investigated because the funds he used for the transportation of migrants were not intended for this type of operation but for the movement of migrants within the state and as long as they agreed.

According to various press reports and testimonies of the migrants themselves, there could even have been a premeditated deception, since they were told that in these cities they were waiting for them with “open arms”, when they did not even notify the authorities that the migrants were on their way. .

In that sense, his move was seen more as a strategy to motivate the vote of the base of the Republican Party, which usually responds well to the heavy hand on immigration issues.

The use of illegal migration as a political weapon in the United States, of course, is not new.

In fact, Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric in the 2016 campaign was one of the main reasons behind his victory in the Republican Party primaries and then in the presidential elections that same year.

And it goes without saying that both DeSantis and Abbott are considering candidacies for the 2024 elections and are aware of this an issue that offers dividends. Especially if Trump launches and uses the issue again as the axis of his campaign.

But according to Kettl, the strategy of mobilizing migrants is much more cynical and represents a new depth in US politics.

Adam Isacson, of the NGO Wola, equates it to pure political theater because although the 15,000 displaced are a considerable number, they represent a minimal fraction of the problem.

Likewise, according to the University of Maryland professor, it is hypocritical to hold the Biden administration responsible for a crisis that has been under construction for years and that is due to factors external to the United States such as the pandemic, natural disasters or internal conflicts in other countries.

According to the library of former President John F. Kennedy, the baseness behind the recent transfers of migrants in the United States is only comparable to another embarrassing moment in history known as the Reversed Journeys to Freedom, when southern states in the years The 1960s gave bus tickets north to thousands of African Americans with the false promise that good jobs and better living conditions awaited them.

Democrats Rise
The phenomenon also responds to the current political climate in the United States. Since the beginning of the year, the Republicans have focused their electoral message for these elections on the bad moment of the US economy, which is facing record inflation figures. But in the summer two events changed the trajectory of the contests.

On the one hand, the court's decision to abolish Roe v. Wade, which ended constitutional protections for abortion, and the massacre of 19 children in a school in Uvalde, Texas.

Both issues revived the moribund Democratic Party, which found in defending women's rights and gun control a way to perhaps retain Congress. Surveys in Texas, for example, make this clear. Beto O'Rourke, Abbott's rival in the gubernatorial elections, is preferred by citizens when asked about these issues.

(Also: He increased the number of migrants detained at the US border.)

But they trust Abbott much more to control the border crisis. And from there, say his critics, the idea of sending migrants to Harris's house.

“Here it is not about looking for substantive solutions, but rather about creating a media spectacle to appear strong and weaken a rival. Five or 10 years ago these things would have been intolerable. But unfortunately the United States has become radicalized and these types of maneuvers end up being applauded by a sector of the po[CENSORED]tion, ”says Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University where she studies the impact of rhetoric.

At the legal level, there are already several lawsuits under way to determine if migrants' rights were violated or if other regulations were violated in the process of relocation to other states. But both Abbott, Ducey and DeSantis have indicated that they will continue to send people to other states until the situation improves.

The political impact of the strategy, on the other hand, is difficult to measure. While it has proven po[CENSORED]r at the local level, it is unclear if the same is true at the national level. What is clear is that illegal immigration is an issue that worries many. According to the latest Gallup sample, 60 percent of the country says they are alarmed by the current situation.

(You can read: New York declares a state of emergency due to 'crisis in the influx of migrants').

A figure that explains why it is a strong point for the Republicans and a weak point for the Democrats, who, being in charge of the White House and Congress, are seen as responsible.

And that allows us to understand, in part, Biden's tough position on the immigration issue and his decision to preserve some of the controversial measures of the Trump era.

In this sense, the program announced this week, under which 24,000 Venezuelans will be allowed to enter as long as someone in the United States is responsible, but all citizens of this country who appear at the border will be expelled immediately, It was seen as a move by the president to show firmness in this final stretch of the legislative elections.

“But nothing justifies – says Kettl – the degradation of human beings and their militarization for political purposes. It's something that says a lot about today's society and the values we stand for."

https://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/eeuu-y-canada/estados-unidos-por-que-gobernadores-trasladan-migrantes-a-nueva-york-710149