Stand Up Against Nativism ! Trump !

“All Right Then, We Are Two Nations.” That’s what John Dos Passos wrote in his great USA trilogy, recounting the divisions in the country at the time of the 1927 execution of Sacco and Vanzetti—another season when nativism was running high and Italians were viewed by many “older stock” Americans as an inherently dangerous population.

Plus ca change:  In a survey released yesterday by the Pew Research Center, Americans opposed expanding what we have in the way of a border wall by a 58 percent to 40 percent margin, but that 58 and that 40 couldn’t be more entrenched. Not surprisingly, given the centrality of nativism, racism and Trumpism to the modern GOP, “Republican support for the wall,” Pew reports, “is at a record high, while Democratic support has reached a new low.” Moreover, Pew continues:

Nearly nine-in-ten (88 percent) opponents of expanding the border wall say it would not be acceptable to pass a bill that includes President Trump’s request for wall funding, if that is the only way to end the shutdown. Among the smaller group of wall supporters, 72 percent say a bill to end the shutdown would be unacceptable if it does not include Trump’s funding request.

I take these numbers to fairly represent what has become an unbridgeable divide between our two nations. I take them as an indication that those who are seeking the “center” in American politics will fail to find one. Neither side has any significant political incentive to plant a flag in midfield; neither side believes in the other side’s facts, epistemology, or sense of right and wrong. For the sentient American majority, the only long-term solution is to mobilize and enlarge our ranks to overcome the anti-majoritarianism of both the Republicans and the Constitution, and thereby win the political power that would strip from Republicans their capacity to inflict their bigotry on their fellow Americans. ~ HAROLD MEYERSON

The (Re)emergence of Nativist Mobilization along the U.S.-Mexico Border

By Matthew Ward

With much of the national media attention directed at the Trump administration’s (1) increasingly restrictionist policy measures, such as: the travel ban from predominately Muslim countries, family separation, and the potential denial of birthright citizenship, (2) it’s xenophobic and racist campaign advertisements, and (3) it’s punitive use of ICE, which recently set records in both deportations and detainments (see here), one might be forgiven for overlooking the relatively quiet resurgence of grassroots nativist mobilization occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border. Since Trump’s election, national news outlets like the Washington Post (see article here) and local outlets like the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson (see article here) have documented the return of armed citizen patrol groups to the U.S.-Mexico border. Proximately spurred by the Trump administration’s portrayal of migrant caravans as an invasion, citizen patrol groups feel a renewed sense of urgency and purpose.

But nativist mobilization along the U.S.-Mexico border is nothing new. Vigilante and state-sanctioned groups have roamed the borderlands since at least the mid-1800s (Spener 2009). And few would be surprised to hear that members of the Ku Klux Klan had an official, ‘Klan Border Watch Program’ in the 70s and 80s. During the mid-90s, under the U.S. government’s new ‘prevention through deterrence’ strategy (Andreas 2009), growing numbers of U.S. residents began taking up patrol efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border (Doty 2009). From the mid-90s through the early 2010’s, numerous grassroots patrol organizations—such as The Border Solution Task Force, U.S. Citizen Patrol, Voices of Citizens Together, American Border Patrol, Ranch Rescue, and Civil Homeland Defense—took to the border. Among the most well-funded, media savvy, and influential of these organizations were (the still active) Minuteman Project (website here) and (the now defunct) Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (old website here). During the early 2000s, these minuteman border patrol organizations garnered national attention by bringing hundreds of volunteers to the U.S.-Mexico border to observe and report unauthorized immigrants crossing through the desert. However, in some cases, minutemen volunteers engaged in detainment and even outright murder. These organizations’ goals were multi-faceted but largely revolved around raising awareness among the public and policy-makers about the growing threat of unauthorized immigration. Of course, they also wanted to send a powerful message directly to migrants—continue to break the law and you will be met with force!

The movement would eventually expand beyond the border states of California, Texas, and Arizona. According to data collected by the Southern Poverty Law Center, by 2009 grassroots nativist organizations totaled over 300 and could be found in most states (Beirich 2010). Much of the growth during this period centered on interior enforcement measures targeting migrants where they worked as well as their employers. After losing the battle over HR 4437 (the ‘Sensenbrenner Bill’), which among other things would have criminalized violations of federal immigration law and placed the onus of immigration enforcement on state and local authorities, the movement shifted its focus to reshaping local and state immigration policies. This change in strategy proved quite successful in that the nativist agenda was largely normalized across the country as various local governments considered or passed restrictive ordinances (e.g., Arizona’s SB 1070).