By Chris Jennewein
Times of San Diego
SAN DIEGO — Former President Trump vows to erect giant “deportation camps” if re-elected. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott muses about ordering law enforcement to shoot migrants. The Republican Party’s rhetoric around immigration is growing increasingly vile.
Trump tells rallies that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” in an echo of Nazi rhetoric and plans the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” with the military providing support.
In a radio interview last week, Abbott said Texas is doing everything it can to stop migrants short of murder. “The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border, because of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder,” he said.
That many Americans don’t support large-scale immigration is no surprise. Nor is politicians’ eagerness to leverage this opposition. But concentration camps … and murder?
The problem with this rhetoric is that over time it stokes fear and eventually will normalize deplorable, inhumane actions.
Rhetoric is particularly dangerous because the immigration debate is primarily emotional rather than logical. It is unfortunately instinctively human to fear people who are different, whether in culture, religion, language or race. This fear overwhelms the facts.
Study after study shows that immigrants are hard workers who become assimilated, building businesses and enriching our culture. They aren’t here for handouts or to commit crimes. But many don’t believe that.
Some raise an economic argument, saying immigrants compete for jobs and cause wages to fall. But in fact immigrants take jobs that native-born Americans avoid. If Trump deports all the migrant farm workers, it’s not obvious that Americans will flock to agricultural jobs.
You also hear about America becoming too crowded. But with birth rates falling, why not take advantage of immigration. With our major international rivals, China and Russia, facing demographic decline, it’s logically a good thing to have more people.
There’s also a status element. Immigrants from the last wave often want to shut the door on the next. Indeed, Trump’s mother was an immigrant from Scotland, and two of his wives are immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Trump’s “deportation camps” and Abbott’s casual talk of murder evoke the horror before and during World War II. The Nazis first sought to contain undesirable people in camps. Ultimately they murdered them.
There’s nothing wrong with opposition to immigration and efforts to secure the border. But when politicians enthusiastically discuss camps and murder, we’re on a slippery slope to inhumanity and genocide.
Chris Jennewein is editor and publisher of Times of San Diego, with which San Diego Jewish World has a story-sharing arrangement under auspices of the San Diego Online News Association.