The brouhaha that Trump created with ICE roundups and deportations without any semblance of due process finally resulting in media attention getting action in Los Angeles has brought to the fore again the entire issue of undocumented immigrants. Trump’s consistent lies from his first political campaign and continuing about immigrants, whom he generally lumps as illegal aliens, although immigrants fall into many categories. For the purpose of this discussion, let’s look only at undocumented immigrants, and Brown undocumented immigrants. Why Brown? So they can be differentiated.
Let me be clear right now: Race is not a biological reality. Nevertheless, racism exists as a socio-political human-made reality. When I use the term Brown, I generally am using it in the context of racism. To complicate the issue further, racialization and racism are not quite dehumanization according to some definitions in this field of study. David Livingstone Smith, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England, is an interdisciplinary expert about and, I believe he would say, a continuing student of dehumanization. He has written extensively and is often quoted and interviewed on the subject. His podcast is excellent: https://davidlivingstonesmith.substack.com/
In this quote from a recent interview, he differentiates racism and dehumanization (albeit with different spellings): “To racialise people isn’t to dehumanise them. They’re not less than human. They’re lesser humans. Dehumanisation demotes them more thoroughly and excludes them from the category of human altogether…. When we dehumanise others, we push them below the threshold of those who count as fellow human beings, and that licenses and motivates much worse behaviour towards them.” Note the phrase, “licenses and motivates much worse behaviour towards them.” That will become critical as the situation is escalated by the government expecting a response that they can then pounce on, as they are doing in Los Angeles right now.
There are many concerns today in the United States about the entire undocumented immigrant situation because:
- it is affecting more than undocumented immigrants, but many legal immigrants and US citizens;
- it is ignoring the rule of law, due process, and major tenets of our judicial system, a serious implication that that system is now severely broken;
- the language used to justify it is both dehumanizing and fascist in nature leading to potentially greater problems on the slide into fascism;
- it is allowing the president to usurp powers that are not his based on a made-up emergency including ordering the illegal use of the military against US citizens;
- it is intensifying the battle over freedom of speech; and
- it emphasizes the ignorance and cowardice of Congress, which has/had the authority over immigration, of not fixing the immigration system, which has been broken for years.
For years, estimates of this ‘hidden population’ of undocumented immigrants were based on the Census’s American Community Study , which generally came in at about 11 million. A mathematically based study from researchers at Yale in 2018 found a considerably higher number, probably around a mean of 21 million.
Either way, the number of criminal undocumented immigrants is exceptionally low, and much lower than the native-born US population. In fact, if the 21 million number is accepted, the rate of criminals in that hidden population is half what it had been considered, which, again, is low compared to those who are US citizens. There are many reasons for this including fear of deportation and tight social networks and sense of community among immigrants, both undocumented and documented. As well, undocumented immigrants often work in the jobs US citizens don’t want including day laborers, janitorial jobs, household help, low-scale service industry positions, and are usually paid less than the ‘going rate.’ They are not stealing jobs from US workers, and their low labor costs allow many small businesses to survive. Their employers want them here.
One of the issues in determining undocumented immigrants’ criminality is that immigration crimes are included. These are not violent crimes against US citizens. Immigration crimes include: entering the country illegally (in that sense almost all undocumented immigrants are criminals), illegal re-entry, document fraud, marriage fraud, asylum request fraud, employment fraud (lying about skills or potential job offers), identity theft in connection with illegal entry, refusal to depart after receiving a deportation order, and attempting to or procuring illegal naturalization. Undocumented immigrants arrested for any of these federal crimes are considered criminals.
There is no reliable collected data to identify the number of undocumented immigrants who have committed a crime against US citizens or their property. Any such individuals that have committed such a crime are immediately ‘front-page news,’ and certainly proclaimed loudly and widely by the present administration. There are not many, or we would know.
The available facts are supported by extensive ongoing research from a variety of respected organizations and institutions. So why this extreme MAGA/Trump/Project 2025 position to exaggerate the problem of undocumented immigrants, crime, and their usurpation of jobs, and to make their rounding up by ICE without due process or any semblance of following the rule of law a major theatrical production and supposed necessity?
The reason is that it is a necessary factor in the slide to authoritarianism and fascism. While Project 2025 doesn’t use those terms and its focus is more on Christian Nationalism, authoritarianism is necessary for that to happen. Trump could care less about Christian Nationalism; he wants power to stroke his severe narcissism and exhibit the one thing he is good at: showmanship, but also to accumulate more money, a fact that gets hidden behind the theater of the absurd curtain.
It’s necessary for the MAGA crowd/cult/followers to be angry, to have fear, to believe only one strongman can save the situation and them. It is ironic that other than this vilification of a Brown Other, the majority of this group is being and will be even more damaged by the policies of this administration. It’s this racism that Trump has used from the beginning to create his following.
In fascism, there is a necessity to have a hated Other. This is needed to ‘rally the troops.’ One must feel oppressed and victimized by this Other to allow a government to slide into a dictatorship in which only this one powerful person can save us all. The corollary is they can then do whatever is necessary to accomplish that, such as destroy democracy, disband any checks and balances that may have existed, corrupt the judiciary, bring the military under control of the newly confirmed dictator/president/king/, end any semblance of free speech or opposition, and control or stop voting altogether.
The language used to create this vilified Other is part of the dehumanization process as exemplified by the Nazis against the Jews, the Roma, people, especially children, with certain disabilities, and anyone perceived as an enemy of, not the state, but of Hitler, himself. The language being used, especially by Trump, himself, is critical. There is an emphasis on the ‘racist’ or physical differences of this Other so they can be recognized, and the reasons they should be hated and destroyed. Then there is the dehumanization. Here are some examples, all of which can be found online, and all of which are false, dangerous, ludicrous, and absurd. The emphasis is mine.
“I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country.” This specifically focuses on white supremacy and differentiates this Other. [12/16/23, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyqQDW_Ixws]
“They’re rough people, in many cases from jails, prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums. You know, insane asylums, that’s ‘Silence of the Lambs’ stuff. … Hannibal Lecter, anybody know Hannibal Lecter?” This is really extreme in building fear. [3/4/24, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqbGhgudvYQ ]
“The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals. They’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans. They’re animals.’” This is classic dehumanization. [4/2/24, https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-speech-political-rally-green-bay-wisconsin-april-2-2024/ ]
They’re taking Black jobs, and they’re taking Hispanic jobs, and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.” Building economic fear among specific groups. [6/27/24, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/19/us/politics/trump-rnc-speech-transcript.htmlhttps://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/politics/read-biden-trump-debate-rush-transcript ]
“We also have an illegal immigration crisis, and it’s taking place right now, as we sit here in this beautiful arena. It’s a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease and destruction to communities all across our land.” Blaming this Other, undocumented immigrants, with everything that’s wrong. [7/19/24, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/19/us/politics/trump-rnc-speech-transcript.html ]
“They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in, practically. And these people [Democrats] are trying to get them to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them into our country,” Undocumented immigrants can not and do not vote. Again, typecasting them as this Other that doesn’t speak English, which will spill over to people speaking with an accent. Also, this sets up fears about the voting system, itself. [9/10/24, , https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/presidential-debate-philadelphia-pennsylvania ]
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating–they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” They being immigrants referred to earlier in the quote, which rambled. This, of course, was patently ridiculous, but people believed it, and many probably still do, just like the other quotes. [9/10/24, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/presidential-debate-philadelphia-pennsylvania ]
There are consequences to the use of dehumanization language. It’s not ‘just words.’ As Smith states above, it is easily used to rationalize discrimination even violence against this Other, who may or may not be undocumented immigrants. It instills fear of the Other enabling the fascist strongman to step in, just as Trump has done.
If you are interested or concerned with my use of the term fascism to describe Trump and the direction of his administration, check out SNIPPETS-An AI Take on Fascism on this same site.
PS: If you want a photo, just watch the news.