President's Letters
President's Letter: Immigration Was Supposed to Divide Us. Instead It’s Mobilizing America
Dear friends,
Demonizing minorities has long been an indispensable strategy in the global authoritarian playbook. Typical targets include racial, ethnic, and religious groups, LGBTQ people, and immigrants. By vilifying and dehumanizing these communities, authoritarians seek to rouse the animus on which authoritarianism feeds, redirect blame for real problems onto those who did not cause them, and create cleavages between people who share common concerns. In the United States over the past decade, immigrants of color have been the authoritarian coalition’s main — but not their only — target. This isn’t a new phenomenon in American history. But what is unprecedented is the response from civil society. Today, we are witnessing a large-scale, broad-based civic backlash to the state’s violence against immigrants of color and its cruel campaign of mass deportation.
What was previously the authoritarian coalition’s strongest issue has become one of its weakest. Sixty-nine percent of voters recently polled think that the administration is too focused on deportations — and not focused enough on the economy. In fact, disapproval of the administration’s handling of immigration is one of the top drivers of defections from its coalition. An issue deployed to build authoritarian power is beginning to erode it.
As a result, immigration has become a surprising source of power and recruitment for the pro-democracy movement. It drove historic levels of mobilization among everyday people in Minnesota, where residents showed up in huge numbers to provide food to neighbors, protect kids at school, and document abuses by federal agents. It’s motivated massive action from Washington, D.C., to Chicago to Los Angeles. And it’s not just big cities. Newfound surges are welling up in countless rural areas and small towns like Wilder, Idaho, Froid, Montana, and Kennett, Missouri, where neighbors are rising to defend and successfully protect their fellow community members.
At the same time, mass deportations are driving a wedge between the administration and civil society institutions, who are now speaking out forcefully against inhumane policies. Take the evolving advocacy of the Catholic Church; increasingly vocal home builders in Minnesota, Alabama, and Texas; and members of state and local law enforcement who see the actions of federal agents undermining their own work.
This shift reveals an important lesson for the broader pro-democracy coalition. It is a mistake to treat “controversial” topics like immigration as a distraction from “core” democracy issues like the right to vote or the rule of law. The vast, well-funded apparatus of immigration enforcement was never going to limit its activities to non-citizens — it was inevitable that it would become a tool for the suppression of constitutionally protected protest and peaceful dissent, as we saw in the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The struggle for the lives and well-being of immigrants of color is a frontline of the struggle for democracy because it’s where the authoritarians attacked first. There could be no saving democracy or the rule of law without engaging on immigration. By standing up for the rights of the most vulnerable, everyday people have roused energies of indignation, compassion, and care — the lifeblood of pro-democracy movements. The pro-democracy coalition grew stronger and found its voice by working on what seemed to be unfavorable terrain.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to overread the public’s reaction to mass deportation. Economic concerns remain at the forefront of most Americans’ minds. Immigration remains an issue that can inflame tensions in communities, even among groups that share many concerns. And even as Americans increasingly reject the brutal enforcement tactics being employed by ICE, they are not opposed to all enforcement. In fact, support for control of the nation’s borders remains strong.
Recognizing this reality is essential. Order in our immigration system is not incompatible with generosity. And pragmatism about the needs of the American economy can align with deeply held values rooted in faith about welcoming the stranger.
Despite extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, public opinion on the basic parameters of immigration policy has remained remarkably stable for decades. A vast majority of the public continues to support order and control in our immigration processes, safe and orderly options for legal migration, and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
The question we now face as a nation is whether a new, broad-based coalition reflecting this shared civic consensus can be forged out of the ashes of a deeply flawed immigration system. The challenge ahead is to move from the widespread “no” of revulsion against brutal immigration policies to a shared “yes” about the country we want to build together.
The thousands of Americans from every background, faith tradition and walk of life who have bravely stood up and spoken up for justice show us what such a coalition might look like.
In solidarity,
Deepak Bhargava
President
Freedom Together Foundation
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- We Have to Look Right in the Face of What We Have Become | The New York Times, Jamelle Bouie
- In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War | The New York Times, Lydia Polgreen
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