JULY 12, 2025 – Sorry. I can’t hold back any longer. “Project Zen” must be put aside to make way for the very opposite of “Zen”; for something that has long roiled my sensibilities, moral and intellectual: the hot button of immigration.
The original T-bone steak – red meat issue of the MAGA crowd has been so effectively leveraged as a cynical political ploy, even moderate Democrats have been ensnared in the red herring net of political rhetoric. Countless times in conversation with members of the latter crowd, I’ve heard said, “Okay, yes, we have an immigration problem, but this [e.g. Nazi-style roundups] is not the way to go about it.” – “NO!” I say. Even though the whole country is way over the dam and down the river on this issue, I ask, as a threshold matter, What exactly is the problem?
Okay, fine, fellow Democrats. I’ll stipulate that “we can’t just have people pouring into the country with no gate-keeping whatsoever.” And I’ll further stipulate to the straw-man propositions that “we” don’t want immigrants swarming into our backyards, peeing on the flowers and erecting a cardboard encampment around our koi ponds. But honestly, what is the huge problem that we’re trying to solve by our hyped-up rhetoric and cruel, costly, unconstitutional, thug-like policies?
Over time I’ve heard various arguments advanced. The top three are that (undocumented) immigrants are 1. Taking jobs away from ‘Mricans,’ 2. Sucking more benefits from the country than they are contributing to it, 3. Committing crimes. A fourth argument, often advanced by previous generations of immigrants is that it’s fundamentally unfair to lower admission standards for new immigrants when preceding waves of immigrants were compelled to comply with far more rigorous standards.
In the case of arguments one, two and three, where is the proof? By proof I mean cumulative evidence that by its weight and preponderance sustains the conclusions of any of these propositions. Statistical outliers isolated from overwhelmingly contrary data do not constitute “proof.” In fact, any evidence that undocumented immigrants are “taking jobs away,” are a “net economic load,” or “committing heinous crimes” are outweighed by proof of the converse: 1. Without undocumented immigrants working our fields, repairing our roofs, cleaning our buildings, we’d experience a severe labor shortage, 2. Undocumented immigrants as a group pay in far more in the way of payroll taxes than they extract in benefits, and 3. Exhaustive statistical research by multiple independent sources definitively debunks the assertion that immigration has led to an increase in crime.
Again, I ask, what, exactly, is the threshold problem we’re trying to solve when we talk about immigration? If the best argument we can advance is, “Well, [harrumph], we can’t just let everyone in willy nilly,” again, what is the down to the ground issue we seek to address? If it’s to keep non-whites out of the country, then please, let’s just cut to the chase and acknowledge two things: 1. We’re white racist, plain and simple, and thus, 2. We have a huge problem in the regard that 40% of the American citizenry is already non-white.
All the foregoing addresses only the first part of America’s three-part “immigration problem.” The second part, which is the most disturbing, is the arrest, detention and deportation policy that the Trump Administration, with the full-on support of a sycophantic Republican Party, has implemented with a vengeance.
If we are still a nation of laws, foundational to this supposition is substantive and procedural “due process.” Contrary to misconceptions to the contrary, under the Constitution, all persons inside are borders are entitled to “due process.” These people include undocumented immigrants. Yet “due process” is continually and contemptuously ignored, resulting in cruel and unconstitutional tactics deployed by ICE agents; the establishment of the shocking “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp; the outrageous deportation of arrestees to El Salvador, southern Sudan, and other countries looking for favors and money for holding detainees. The wholesale disregard for due process, not to mention basic decency, put every single one of us at risk—undocumented and documented immigrants, even full-fledged citizens. If we take full stock of the authoritarian methods deployed thus far and listen to the extreme MAGA rhetoric, it’s not far-fetched to believe that ever more emboldened, Trump and his minions will shamelessly attempt to rescind rights and citizenship of people who are known to oppose the regime. Every single one of us—immigrant and non-immigrant alike—should worry that we haven’t already stepped onto the proverbial slippery slope of authoritarian rule under which the end justifies the means.
The third part of the “immigration problem” is the most salient yet prompts the least attention: the root causes driving people to and across our borders. The immediate cause is the disparity in security and opportunity between prospects in the United States and in each person’s place of origin. Much of this disparity is driven by ostensibly insurmountable challenges “back home”: war, drug cartels, failed states, failed economies, authoritarian regimes, and climate change. In each case, until these underlying drivers of immigration are addressed satisfactorily, immigration pressures will continue. The interplay between conditions outside our borders and the inexorable migration pressure at our borders must be understood and addressed if we are to have any realistic chance at reducing the disparity of security and opportunity between the United States and countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, Honduras, and Guatemala—from which so many unauthorized immigrants are fleeing.
In any event, let’s not kid ourselves. Though America was built by immigrants, the country has long been xenophobic. Throughout time, Americans have found it all too easy—despite the inclusivity conveyed by the immortal words of Emma Lazarus on the base of the Statue of Liberty—to fear, hate, deny and repel the rights of newcomers to this country. Perhaps it is part of human nature to eschew, resist, condemn competition, but then again, maybe it’s simply the inevitable and ironic outcome of a political economy in which “winner takes all.” Under this system, newcomers with ambition and energy pose a threat to people already here trying to keep their financial nostrils above the waterline.
Will the current anti-immigration tactics abate before we are formally a police state? Will reason and justice return to the public square before we become a nation with net outflow of human and financial capital? In response to the decline of our country before our very eyes, will our farm laborers return to their countries of origin and let the crops rot? Will people engaged in scientific research retreat from their labs and equipment and emigrate elsewhere?
As I ponder our “immigration problem,” I worry far more about the consequences of MAGA solutions than I worry about the actual “problem.”
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
