When I started writing this week’s column, I knew I wanted to address Colorado’s “migrant crisis.” What I didn’t know was how to talk about it. After all, how do you talk about something that doesn’t exist?
Then it hit me. You can’t, so I won’t.
Instead, let’s talk about how the Republican Party is once again weaponizing immigrants to advance their political agenda ahead of the 2024 elections — and that’s not my opinion, it’s a not-so-secret strategy expressed by the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
This is hardly the first time anti-immigrant sentiments have been exploited for political gain. In the mid-1800s, nearly 2 million Irish refugees arrived on U.S. soil only to receive backlash after fleeing political chaos and famine.
In the 1920s, anti-immigrant fear-mongering was lobbied at Italians and Eastern Europeans, prompting violence and massacres. Countless others have faced similar anger over the years, always with familiar tones: The so-called “others” will steal jobs, strain budgets, change religion and increase crime.
That there’s little truth to these claims seems to be irrelevant to those who believe them. Time and time again we’ve watched as bad actors repeat history and demonize core principles of immigration under a false narrative of citizen protection. In reality, it is almost always the migrants who need protection, not us.
This is not to belittle the very real issues facing some cities today, including Denver. The struggle to house and feed a rapid influx of people experiencing homelessness, including those legally seeking asylum, is absolutely one worth discussing and solving. Yet the current crisis has never been with migrants themselves. Rather, the crisis lies with those who are manufacturing it, and in this case, that’s the Republican Party.
Take, for example, Denver. Yes, there has been a recent and rapid influx of asylum seekers, and yes, it is straining the city’s resources. Yet the influx of migrants to Denver is largely because Republicans are forcing it to happen by refusing to work on bipartisan immigration solutions, refusing to accept migrants, and busing thousands of migrants to Democratic-led cities without coordination.
The result has been to force an otherwise not ideal but manageable situation into a crisis — one that makes news headlines and scares even the most well-meaning people into confusion — all to avoid scrutiny over their unpopular leader and to make a political point.
And make a political point they have, although I suspect it’s not one that will resonate with most of the electorate. By making their intentions to thwart immigration solutions for political gain public, Republicans are telling us they would rather cut off their noses to spite their faces. So, again, I ask, how can we call it a “migrant crisis” when it’s actively being created by a subset of Americans?
This difference in framing — and by that, I mean refusing to accept the Republicans’ attempt to mainstream a manufactured “migrant crisis” — makes a big difference. First, you can’t solve a problem without identifying what’s causing it, and the problem isn’t migrants — it’s political theater preventing good immigration policy. Second, blaming migrants does nothing but promote more violence and anti-immigrant sentiments, which hurts more Americans. Third, it allows a party with an extremely controversial presidential nominee to shift attention from them to others. Regretfully, a quick review of recent headlines suggests some of us are falling for it hook, line and sinker.
There’s a gem of a quote from a German newspaper that sums up perfectly the importance of combating such anti-immigrant framing: “Anyone who speaks of a “wave of refugees” conjures up a primordial force, suitable to wash away entire cities. This has little to do with reality — and a lot to do with political agenda.”
Keep this in mind the next time you hear a politician speaking about the “migrant crisis” and ask yourself what they stand to gain by conjuring up such fears. Because the anti-immigrant political strategy is a tired one in world history, and migrants are rarely the problem.
Today’s Republicans are.
Trish Zornio is a scientist, lecturer and writer who has worked at some of the nation’s top universities and hospitals. She’s an avid rock climber and was a 2020 candidate for the U.S. Senate in Colorado.
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