Illegal Immigrants: Trump’s ‘Final Solution’

Illegal immigration in the United States is a central issue for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the current presidential campaign — just as it was for President Joe Biden and the businessman-turned-Republican Party leader.

Without a doubt, it is a complex issue involving many factors that we must analyze and understand: the secular and economic crises of the countries where immigrants are coming from; the obligation of receiving nations to plan and control immigration; and the limitations of receiving countries to meet the needs of the migrant population in terms of employment, health, education and social security.

Trump does not account for that complicated situation when he speaks about illegal immigration. As is often the case with this political outsider, his answers are based on clichés born from a chauvinistic, racist and supremist perspective; therefore, his “solutions,” if implemented, would only exacerbate conflict. This is true especially on the southern border where most migrants enter the U.S., the greatest number coming from Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia, as well as Cuba, Haiti and other regions in Central America.

Trump has not yet dared to speak about concentration camps to contain the millions of people, including children and the elderly, who have entered the United States illegally. However, he continually speaks about mass deportation of creatures he calls less than human who have crossed borders without authorization.

Trump’s crude, isolationist rhetoric is accompanied by lies: for example, that immigrants have contributed to increased violence and posed a personal threat in many states. He directs his claims with particular viciousness at Venezuelan immigrants. There are no official figures to support his charges.

The Republican candidate comes from the world of show business and is skilled in building images; thus, he has constructed a myth about the increasingly harmful presence of the Aragua Train, a criminal gang from Venezuela, whose members, of course, didn’t enter the U.S. through any immigration office to have their passports stamped. As part of the legend, the Tren de Aragua, which allegedly extends throughout the continent and has branches in Europe, has made the New York City Police Department and even the FBI shudder in much of the United States.

That exaggerated version of the criminal group is aimed at reaffirming Trump’s premise that illegal immigrants are a dark species that bring death and desolation, and only a brave and determined man like himself is in a position to root out such a plague.

Trump should remember that the underground or informal economy, as it is known, in whose world millions of illegal workers move, contributes to an important part of the gross domestic product in the United States. Immigrants who are in the United States illegally perform many jobs that Americans and legal residents don’t want to do: domestic work, agricultural work, cleaning large skyscrapers, the rougher work of road and highway construction such as building access roads to agricultural zones and cleaning toilets. The list is endless. A good part of this workforce is paid below minimum wage and works under conditions likened to modern slavery. They are not the ones who assault society, it is society that assaults, isolates and marginalizes them, despite the important role they play in maintaining the economy.

Trump’s speeches never mention human rights or labor protections for this vast group of people who, for various reasons — most of them linked to poverty and violence in their native countries — have chosen to migrate to the United States to improve their quality of life.

The “final solution” that Trump proposes, mass deportation of illegal immigrants, will only make it more challenging for these people to enter the United States. Criminal gangs that traffic in human beings will use Trump’s program as an excuse to increase profits. Trump will not solve this turbulent situation, but will make it more risky and increasingly more inhumane.

Trump’s Manichean worldview simplifies and distorts a problem that should be considered holistically, as has been proposed by organizations and researchers who specialize in the study of immigration. The prevalent view is that illegal immigration must be prevented by strengthening the economies of those countries that force their people to flee. There are many plans with this objective in mind; governments need to implement them. The next U.S. administration should work with the governments of the region in this effort.