Anti-immigrant rhetoric flares in the United States

American conservatives’ anti-immigrant rhetoric hardens amid rousing rallies of Donald Trump, Challenges for Governors Joe Biden And a caravan of supposed patriots is moving toward border cities with Mexico.

Republicans have accused President Biden of pursuing an “open borders” policy that stopped nearly 10,000 migrants a day in December. The most radical speaks of “invasion”.

Democrats deny this, alleging that they deported about 460,000 people in just the seven months to the end of December because they did not meet the conditions for entry.

But his explanations fall on deaf ears among conservatives.

Trump, the favorite for the Republican Party nomination ahead of November’s presidential elections, hammers home the same idea at every rally: Biden is weak and has widened the margin.

Magnet promises “the largest internal deportation in the history of the United States” if he returns. The White House Because migrants “poison the blood of the country”, comments that have compared him to Adolf Hitler.

With this message he hopes to convince the Republican electorate, for whom according to surveys the immigration crisis takes precedence over the economy. But it can scare the most moderate and independent people.

At present he has the support of a good section of the party.

The most loyal have gone to work blocking Biden’s path to re-election.

Initially, they made the approval of aid to Ukraine in Congress conditional on tightening immigration policy.

Biden has softened by asking a group of members of Congress to negotiate a bipartisan agreement, but the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, has warned that he may not survive a vote “if the rumors about the content are true.”

The conversation takes place amid great secrecy.

“The text of this supposed agreement has been shared with virtually no one,” Democratic Congressman Greg Kasar said in a telephone press conference this Thursday.

What is little known has been announced by Biden, who said he would “give new emergency authority to close the border when it collapses.”

The Republican challenge

Trump can also count on another ally, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has erected razor wire along the border, bussed migrants to Democratic-run cities and, according to the Biden administration, barred agents from federal access in some areas.

In addition, he has challenged a United States Supreme Court ruling that allowed the removal of barbed wire installed to prevent the crossing of migrants, mostly poor Latin Americans or people fleeing insecurity.

You are not alone. Twenty-five Republican governors have expressed solidarity with him.

Images of migrants crossing the border or abandoned to their fate, sleeping on the streets of overflowing cities, flood social networks.

In a country highly polarized since the attack on the Capitol in January 2021 by Trump supporters, the situation is explosive.

“Widespread hatred against immigrants inspires some of the most dangerous elements in our society, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and anti-government extremists, and it doesn’t help that the governor of Texas (…) the federal government is reminiscent of the Civil War,” Heidi Berich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said in a telephone press conference.

“Agenda of Hate”

For Devin Burghardt, president of the Human Rights Research and Education Institute, “the confrontation between Texas and the federal government has become a magnet for far-right street surveillance.”

He takes a dim view of the “Reclaim Our Border” caravan, which has planned demonstrations in border towns this Saturday.

The organizers, who call themselves We the People, are urging active and retired members of the security forces, veterans, civil servants, business owners, ranchers, truckers, motorcyclists, the press and “law enforcement” to join them in the protest. “Peacefully”.

An initiative that led the League of Latino American Citizens (LULAC) to issue a national alert, the second in its nearly 100-year life.

“Governor Greg Abbott’s false and inflammatory political rhetoric is driving people to commit acts of violence and possible mass murder,” its president, Domingo Garcia, said in a statement, calling for “beware of out-of-state armed extremists.” An agenda of hate.