In October 2018, a “migrant caravan” bound for the United States set out on foot from Honduras. The group was comprised of refuge seekers of all ages fleeing contexts of acute violence and poverty – a regional reality shaped by decades of punitive foreign policy machinations by none other than the US itself.
Then-president Donald Trump, never one to pass up an opportunity for overzealous xenophobic spectacle, took to Twitter to broadcast a “National Emergy” [sic], warning that “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in” with the caravan. In preparation for the pedestrian assault on the country, Trump ordered 5,200 active-duty US military troops to be deployed to the southern border along with helicopters, heaps of razor wire, and other “emergy” equipment.
Obviously, the US lived to tell the tale – although the same cannot be said for the thousands of refuge seekers who have died over the years while attempting to reach perceived safety in the country. Now, as Trump gears up for his second round as commander in chief of the nation, we’re in for another round of the anti-migrant “emergy”, as well, which the president-elect has taken the liberty of preemptively declaring.
After campaigning on a pledge to perpetrate the “largest deportation operation” in US history, Trump in November confirmed he was “prepared” to declare a national emergency and to utilise the US military to expel millions of undocumented immigrants from the country. The deployment of the armed forces in this particular task naturally leaves no room for doubt that this is, well, war – never mind Trump’s marketed image as a leader who is somehow antiwar.
Not that the US war on asylum seekers is anything new. Nor, of course, is it a war that is waged solely by Trumpites and members of the Republican party. Outgoing US President Joe Biden, for his part, did a fine job on the battlefield, overseeing more than 142,000 deportations in fiscal year 2023 alone. Then there was that decision by the Biden administration to waive a whole bunch of federal laws and regulations in order to expand Trump’s beloved border wall, in contravention of Biden’s own promises.
Rather than do all the dirty work himself, Biden increasingly enlisted the help of the Mexican government, already an established collaborator in making life hell for the US-bound have-nots of the world. And the more the US forced Mexico to crack down on migration, the more existentially perilous it became for people on the move – and the more profitable for extortion-addicted Mexican authorities and organised crime outfits alike.
After all, “border security” is big business on both sides of the border. And on the US side, it’s an entirely bipartisan affair that only becomes more transparently nefariously bonkers when Trump is at the