The International Migrants Alliance-USA condemns Trump’s attempt to further degrade and criminalize migrants through his declaration of a national state of emergency at the U.S. southern border. This declaration is nothing but another display of the Trump administration’s open war against migrants in particular, and against working people in general. The scapegoating of migrants and the spectacle of a crisis at the border is reprogramming federal funds from much needed social services which will impoverish working people in the U.S., all while continuing imperialist plunder in the Global South. In his declaration of a national emergency, Trump argued, “we have an invasion of our country with drugs and human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs,” and he also referred to the migrants as “sick” and “contagious.” Throughout his presidency, Trump has repeatedly used such words to legitimize his administration's policies and to agitate the white supremacist and nativists among his base. The ongoing militarization of the border and the repression of migrants has relied on fears and anxieties about immigration that have been fabricated by the U.S. government to divert attention from the real state of emergency - the ongoing crisis of imperialism. This is the true crisis that Trump and his base always fail to acknowledge, while instead focusing attention on only the border “symptom” of the real problem - that massive forced migration is caused by neoliberalism and war in our home countries. The manufactured emergency is attempting to redirect $8.1 billion dollars from federal funds to build Trump’s border wall. The construction of the border wall is not for national security. Rather, it is a ransacking of public funds for the benefit of private contractors, at the expense of public services. The construction of the border wall and Trump’s increasing military budget is using public funds, that could be used for public health, housing, education, and social welfare, to reinvest in an economic system based on private profits over public need. Militarized borders and privately owned migrant detention centers are only enhancing security for private investment. Border walls and detention facilities just feed capitalist growth. Trump’s 35-day government shutdown abandoned many federal and contracted workers while pandering to nativist desires for a border wall. As this was ongoing, further U.S. intervention in Central and South American countries like Honduras and Venezuela, as well as in Palestine and the Philippines, continued to exacerbate the conditions of desperation for the majority of the people, fueling forced migration. Migrants are putting their lives at risk to exercise their basic human right to survive; they are forced to flee their homes to seek asylum and refuge. When Trump instituted the Muslim Ban, people rose up in the tens of thousands across the country shutting down travel at most major international airports. When the Trump administration began caging children and separating families, the massive outcry from communities, churches, and everyday families insisted that #FamiliesBelongTogether, that children should never be inhumanely detained or traumatized, and now that ICE and the U.S. detention and deportation machine should be dismantled altogether. Most recently with the massive exodus of migrants from throughout Central America, the world is witnessing the global crisis of forced migration now amassing at the doorstep of the United States. As the U.S. continues to devastate political economies and the social fabric throughout the region through neoliberal economic policies, political coups, and blatant military intervention, this massive exodus is not surprising. But we are also witnessing the growing resistance of people in the form of the exodus itself, the humanitarian aid provided directly by people and organizations on the ground, and in protests and militant actions around the border and in cities across the U.S. and even around the world. IMA-USA has been there every step of the way, denouncing every attack, mobilizing people inside and also supporting the closing of detention centers, integrating in the encampment of the exodus in Mexico city during the 4th General Assembly of IMA in November and at the border in Tijuana last month, and building alliances and confronting Trump, Customs and Border Protection, and the Mexican Consulate in San Diego. We stand in solidarity with all of the forced migrants, their organizations, churches, and all peoples and formations building a powerful united front against the fascist attacks of not only the Trump administration, but all U.S. politicians and corporate lobbyists who are currently negotiating different degrees of militarizing the border, caging families, and repressing migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. We encourage everyone to join IMA-USA’s campaign to stop the militarization, repression, and fascism at the southern border, at airports and other ports of entry, and wherever the U.S. attacks migrants, especially with a manufactured national state of emergency. We will intensify our campaign against border repression and also against the trafficking of migrants in the U.S. and from our home countries, to build a more powerful international alliance with working class migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers at the center of our growing movement. Join us by emailing migrants.unite@gmail.com, as we return to the border to provide people’s relief, strengthen our protest and advocacy power, and build the powerful voices of migrants to overcome and outlast Trump’s fascist border wall, political and military repression in our home countries, and all neoliberal attacks until victory! No Ban! No Trump Wall! No State of Emergency! Abolish ICE! #migrantsunite #chingalamigra
Comments