Texas: The Military Against Immigrants

Texas Governor Rick Perry announced yesterday the deployment of 1000 National Guard troops to the border with Mexico starting next month in order to contain the flow of undocumented immigrants amid an unprecedented surge in the arrival of Mexican and Central American minors who entered U.S. territory by themselves and without the proper documentation.

The governor, who aspires to be the Republican party’s presidential candidate in 2016, denied that this measure means the militarization of the border with Mexico. Meanwhile, Texas National Guard Adjutant General John Nichols said that his troops will only be in charge of “deterring” immigrants.

While it is true that the National Guard is a group formed by volunteers under the command of their respective state governors, it is, in the end, a military agency equipped with maritime, land and aerial military means, several of whose units have been deployed in wars like the one in Iraq. One of the significant differences between this group and the other branches of the armed forces – Army, Navy or Air Force – is that the latter are forbidden to use weapons to enforce the law within U.S. territory, while the National Guard is authorized to shoot inside the country. Therefore, it would be extremely naive to believe that the deployed troops will limit themselves to “deterring” undocumented immigrants, and it is reprehensible that Texas pretends to minimize the extent of its own decision and hide from public opinion the severity of such a measure that implies, plain and simple, the militarization of the border.

On the contrary, Perry’s determination is a new twist on the policy of criminalization and persecution of immigrants by the authorities of the neighboring country. After the deployment of the National Guard, those crossing the Texas border in search of a better life will have to face not only the dangers of an inherently harsh environment, the human traffickers, the abuses of the police forces on both sides of the border, and the sadism of racist civilian groups devoted to man-hunting, they will now also have to face military forces trained for warfare and the physical annihilation of the adversary. Far from mitigating the dramatic situation faced by thousands of undocumented immigrants on a daily basis, this will become even more uncertain and dangerous.

While recognizing that the determination by Texas to deploy troops to the border is part of a Republican political strategy to use immigration issues in striking down Barack Obama’s government, and that Perry himself has shown signs of xenophobic and intolerant attitudes, it can’t be overlooked that the main responsibility for the circumstances experienced by immigrants, particularly children, in the neighboring country belongs to the U.S. president. After all, with a little over two years before the end of his second term, Obama hasn’t been able to fulfill one of his major campaign promises: immigration reform. He has done nothing to minimize the mistreatment and persecution that undocumented citizens suffer in that territory and, on the contrary, he has exacerbated these tendencies and deported more immigrants than any other U.S. president.

The so-called “human crisis” that has become the immigration phenomenon in the United States wouldn’t exist if the political leaders in Washington, starting with its own president, would assume once and for all that there isn’t a more sensible, constructive and congruent solution than to decriminalize immigration. For now, however, and for all practical purposes, the United States government continues to treat this phenomenon as a military threat, against all logic and the most basic humanitarian principles.