written 4 August, 2024
published 11 August, 2024
From a unity perspective, all borders are relative illusions. The climate crisis proves the physical reality that we really are all in this together. No one country can effectively deal with the crisis, because weather patterns sweep around the globe, without regard for borders.
Similarly, human populations ebb and flow around the world, creating pressure at the borders. Over time, there have been multiple drivers. Changing climate, diminishing food supplies, population pressures, wars of conflict, economic collapse, desire for economic improvement, or lust for adventure: all have spurred waves of humans to pull up roots and move. With very few exceptions, everyone now in America had ancestors who moved here from some other country relatively recently.
Immigration has always enriched the US society, bringing people eager to work hard, with drive and creativity, doing essential jobs most legal citizens avoid. Migrants today pay over $100 billion in taxes. But immigration has also been a source of conflict with those already here, who fear they will "lose" something.
Our economic system is designed to extract wealth and resources from other areas of the planet, for our limited domestic benefit. US foreign policy supports autocratic governments overseas which favor US corporate resource extraction, resulting in massive structural poverty in those countries. The US is 4 percent of the world population, but represents almost a quarter of the global economy. The global average wealth per adult is $85K, but in the US, the average wealth per adult is $551K, a distortion further amplified by local inequity, which is growing everywhere.
In addition, the US produced a quarter of all the CO2 ever added to the atmosphere, driving the climate crisis, which falls disproportionally on countries that never received the economic advantages. The increasingly extreme economic and environmental global impacts, are powerful drivers of immigration today. Given we have collected more than our share, is it a surprise people want to come here?
Being the party of the extremely wealthy, the GOP has always been threatened by immigration. Trump promises to "terminate every open border policy of the Biden administration", "begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history", and "end birth right citizenship." Project 2025 outlines more changes in detail.
Temporary work-visa programs that allow seasonal employers to hire foreign workers will be phase out. Processing and application fees for migrants will increase. "T" visas, for victims of severe human trafficking, and "U" visas, for victims of crimes that occur in the US, will be eliminated. The plan calls for adding a citizenship question to the next census to further "conservative principles".
Project 2025 will dismantle the DREAM Act, which grants conditional residency and work permits to immigrants who entered the United States as minors. It will restrict the DACA program, which allows immigrants who were children in the US in 2012 to be deferred from deportation.
Homeland Security grants Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to immigrants already in the US who are nationals of a country experiencing ongoing armed conflict, or environmental disaster, that would prevent them from returning safely. Project 2025 would repeal all active TPS designations, affecting over 700,000 individuals, many of whom have been in the U.S. for decades.
Project 2025 directs the DOJ to assist Homeland Security in collecting information about aliens across the United States, and impose financial punishments on "sanctuary cities" that do not follow federal immigration laws. It will increase the authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize “the civil arrest, detention, and removal of immigration violators anywhere in the United States, without warrants" which could affect over 10 million people. It would “bar U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.”
This harsh authoritarian agenda would create an intrusive police state, and disrupt essential food and service sectors of the economy, without any element of "Christian" compassion
Think about how this impacts you, or your relatives, or your friends. Is this a world you want? Educate yourself about the GOP Project 2025, and then talk about it to everyone you know. Share this information with people outside our local area. The more people learn about these GOP plans, the more motivated they become to work to ensure they never comes to pass. Make sure you are registered, and on election day, get out and vote!
