As a scholar of borders and immigration, I am not at all surprised by the Democrats’ willingness to participate in the prizing of notions of “security” over human rights. After 9/11, the Homeland Security Act was signed, establishing Ice and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), framing immigration as a security issue, to be solved with security solutions. Since then,
$409bn has been spent on enforcement, in the form of removal personnel, detention facilities and all forms of
dystopian border technology – increasing steadily regardless of which party is in power, and reaching unprecedented levels this year.
But even as people are deported, even as the south-west border has become the
deadliest land route in the world, even as more money has been spent on the southern border than ever before, people continue to arrive in unprecedented numbers. The number of unauthorized people has shifted over time but stayed between
10 and 12 million people for at least the last decade. Continuing to adopt more violent solutions do little more than turn us into an autocracy that imprisons people on accusations, one that is willing to eject them at whatever cost.