Anti-Immigrant Ideology from DHS
Not just the illegal kind. Just anti-immigrant.
On New Year’s Eve, the social media propaganda machine was in full swing in the federal government,* to include this from the Department of Homeland Security.
My initial reaction was as follows:
I do find the appeal to the older car–I am guessing later 60s (I am not a car guy, but it reminds me of a Pontiac my mother used to drive)–to again be part of a retrogressive, reactionary vision for the country. It is a call to return to a simpler, whiter past when everyone knew their place, dontcha know (and you could park on the beach?).
But let’s focus on two things: 100 million and the “third world.”
There are estimated to be roughly 14 million foreign persons in the country without proper visas. There are almost 38 million immigrants with legal status, of whom almost 24 million are naturalized citizens. To get to roughly 100 million, you would have to oust almost 50 million citizens born in the United States (note that the administration is trying to get rid of birthright citizenship).
Here’s the breakdown (source):
I know more than one foreign-born citizen who voted for Trump. I worked with some, and at least one is in my family. Some of them are brown (and some aren’t) and came from the “third world.” Indeed, I hate to tell all of those Cuban-Americans in South Florida, and any anti-Maduro Venezuelan-Americans, that you are all from the third world.
I have some technical things to say about the term “third world” that I will save for another post. But let’s be clear that when Miller and his DHS cronies use the term, they are simply sending racist signals. They mean non-whites. Note how the current administration talks about Somalis.
Someone may think that “100 million” is some kind of round-number hyperbole, but as Maya Angelou said, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.” The message is clear: these people are white supremacists who see people from the “third world,” meaning Black people from the African continent, brown folks from Latin America, as well as other non-white people from various Asian countries, as unworthy of being Americans.
And the point of that New Year’s Eve post, from a cabinet-level department of the US government, is that America could be made into an idyllic paradise if we could only oust 100 million non-whites.
To me, at least, that is a chilling message that needs to be taken very seriously.
They are telling who they are, over and over and over again, and not enough people are listening (and too many are cheering them on).
To add to all of this, the artwork is by a Japanese artist who certainly did not give DHS permission to use it (although the degree to which he would have to for a post like this is unclear). Regardless, like using the sons of immigrants for some purity propaganda, this is just yet again an example of people who supposedly think that some version of “real” Americans are the apex of development, continually demonstrating turning to the art output of the dreaded “other.”
*For example–you know, normal stuff.
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I think you need to back out of the 38 million migrants all the white ones because, by definition, they are not from the third world and therefore just fine.
As with many of their other posts, they’ve stolen a property from a real person who did not give them permission to use it as an advertisement for their racist policies.
I hope he sues the ever-loving shit out of these people.
@Joe: ‘White’ is subject to change without notice, as many Latinos and Indian Americans are now finding out.
You know, I looked at all those tweets and as cringe-worthy as they all are, I also thought that in my life, there’s no better way to make a point of view unpopular and uncool than to have the government say it.
Adding to the weirdness/irony: the illustration is by by Hiroshi Nagai, a Japanese artist born in 1947.
At the risk of detracting from a serious as death topic, “in some old car you found”, facing a tidal wave.
A few observations:
– Yes it’s an expression of racism above all else. I guess it’s some tribute to the last few decades that they still feel they need to dogwhistle it.
– As conservatives do, they make it out to be a choice between open borders and extreme repression. Surely there are options of tightening border security and following proper legal processes with people actually here illegally.
– GOPs make out like Biden shut down ICE, withdrew the Border Patrol, and threw the gates open. They claim he let in 50 or a 100 million “illegals”, but I’ve seen statements the number in the country went up from 11 million to the 14 number Dr. T mentions. There seems to have been little press coverage and I find I am unsure what happened and why under the Biden admin. Anybody have a good source?
– Despite the above admission of ignorance, it seems a big miss for Biden to have not one way or another effectively addressed the politics of immigration.
ETA – the links for the embedded Xits work, but the Xits don’t appear. (iPADOS 18.6.2). And isn’t the last questionable wrt/ the Hatch Act? Like that matters anymore.
@James Joyner: At the link – sold for 19 fripping grand? Weird indeed.
@gVOR10: Not that much for an original work from a semi-famous artist. While I’d never heard of him, he’s apparently renowned for some album covers he created for some “city pop” artists in the 1980s.
@gVOR10: Despite the above admission of ignorance, it seems a big miss for Biden to have not one way or another effectively addressed the politics of immigration.
It was hard to tell under Biden whether the lack of apparent action was journalistic malpractice* or political malpractice.
* Not in the sense of “they buried it because they hate meeeeee!”, but in the sense that 2022-2024 there seemed to be a concerted effort to appeal to the rising far-right monstrosity, which meant taking their arguments seriously even when they were operating in obvious bad faith. Border security was one of the big ones, with journos taking it as a given that immigration was destroying communities because of loud reactionary racists.