Kamala Harris gets a bum rap on migration
The problem is much, much, much larger than a vice president--any vice president
I’ve seen a few articles now that mention Kamala Harris’ role on unauthorized migration. I studied this topic for my dissertation[1] and I believe my view at the time she was tasked with this crisis was that she was set up to fail.
This crisis has many roots, but among them are U.S. policies on trade, climate, and illegal drugs:
Neoliberalism, with its disastrous so-called “free” trade policies which, among numerous deleterious effects, have cratered prices for many Mexican and Central American agricultural goods, is a moral imperative in neoconservatism (for all practical purposes, two sides of the same coin), which itself is the governing bipartisan “Washington Consensus.”
The U.S. failure to act meaningfully on the climate crisis has deprived Mexican and Central American farms of water, drying up any possibility for subsistence farmers to earn livings.
The ideological decision to treat drugs as a legal rather than a medical problem drives the trade underground, where it is dominated by gangs and cartels, whose recruiting is often accompanied by—you thought this was voluntary?—death threats.[2]
These are “push” factors, factors that drive people from home. But U.S. policy centers almost exclusively on “pull” factors, the factors that draw migrants to a particular country, in this case, the U.S. But a balanced policy requires that “push” factors also be addressed and this is simply impossible in the paradigm of U.S. politics: We are unwilling to face reality on these issues and the migration crisis is only a taste of what’s yet to come. I don’t know how much of this Harris actually understands, but to blame her for it is to blame her for not consulting me and to neglect the political impossibility of a proper solution.
[1] David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
[2] David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).