"The Slippery Slope" - Originally Published February 2017, A Sad Reminder

Fred McKinney, Ph.D.

Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Quinnipiac University School of Business

The early days of the Trump Administration have been the most politically disruptive days in recent political history. Every day there is some new directive, statement, policy, Executive Order, that both outrages his critics and mollifies and emboldens his supporters. The question on many minds is where is all of this going. A central theme of the Trump campaign, and now his presidency, is immigration and the control of borders. I think we are headed down a slippery slope that threatens American democracy in ways we have never experienced, without the benefit of public discussion of the roots of the immigration issue, and I hesitate to call it a crisis because that very loaded word accepts the premise of a problem that is spinning out of control, when in fact the “crisis” is manufactured by the unintended consequences of policy designed on emotion not fact. Policies created out of fear and victimization can lead any society down a slippery slope that can take years to recover from, if recovery is an option at all. 

Immigration is central to the American republic. The American revolution was the result of immigrants from England, Germany, France, Ireland, Spain, and the Netherlands taking up arms against Great Britain. Ever since that successful political separation, America has become the home of waves of immigrants. This history of immigration however is not a smooth, nor a consistent story of Americans welcoming people coming from other lands. 

Over 4.5 million Irish immigrated to the United States between 1810 and 1865, representing over fifty percent of all immigrants in the pre-Civil War years. Most of these Irish were fleeing a devastating famine. These immigrants experienced both a welcoming America and a nativist America that viewed these Catholic immigrants as incapable of being Americans because of their fundamental loyalty to the Roman Pope. While not academic history, I recommend the film “Gangs of New York” to get a glimpse of the very real struggle new Irish immigrants had becoming part of the American social fabric. 

The Civil War slowed immigration considerably. It was not until the late 1880's that immigration picked up again. In 1882, in response to the nativist fear that Chinese immigrants, who had settled largely on the West Coast, were taking jobs away from American workers, but were also spreading disease, crime and drugs (sound familiar), Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.

 Between 1880 and 1920, an additional 20 million immigrants entered the United States. This wave of immigrants was largely from Italy, and central Europe. Again a war, the start of the first World War resulted in a slowing down of immigration. This period also brought new Congressional action to slow immigration from Southern and Central Europe. The older immigrant groups from England, Germany and France were now the establishment fully in control of political and economic power drew distinctions between themselves and their poorer and newer European immigrant cousins. In 1917, Congress passed a law requiring adult immigrants to demonstrate literacy. The Immigration Act of 1924 established a quota that favored Western European immigrants and all but banned Chinese immigrants. This regime lasted until 1965.

But I want to go back to immigration of Mexicans. Many Americans are not aware that California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Texas, and Nevada were once part of Mexico. For a map of Mexico over the years visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Mexico . So what happened?

The answer to this question is war and the spoils of war. New borders were created after the Mexican War 1846-1848. To the victor go the spoils. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo reestablished the border that resulted in expanding American territory west and south to include California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Texas. The U.S. government agreed to pay Mexico $15 million for the damage we did to Mexico and the U.S. assumed the debts citizens in these new American territories owed to the Mexican government. 

It is one thing to establish a political border, but it is another thing to establish a border based on flows of people. One day people in these new U.S. territories were Mexican citizens and the next day they were Americans, at least nominally. 

Fast forward to today. Now we are engaged in a policy that will send Mexicans and Central Americans back to their countries and we plan on creating a physical barrier strong enough to restrict future access. There are practical questions that this policy forces us to answer. Where will all of the detainees be held? The Justice Department has already indicated that it would reverse the Obama administration’s ban on the building of new private for-profit prisons. Perhaps the plan is to create some jobs building new and expanding existing for-profit prisons for the newly captured immigrants. An estimated 11 million immigrants are threatened by these new policies – that represents a boom for these merchants of despair. Watch the prices of companies like Global Tel-Link, Corizon and Corrections Corporation of America that all make their money in the $70 billion dollar prison industry that requires ever increasing numbers of prisoners to make the numbers work. Building these prisons with tax payers money could tragically be one of the early “infrastructure” investments of the new administration.

The slippery slope that is a nightmare and thankfully not a reality (yet) is what happens next. Will the 15,000 newly employed immigration police turn their attention to other groups? Perhaps the same folks that are bringing you this policy want to clean up the mess in America’s inner cities. Trump has already described urban America a hellish cesspool. This is the kind of talk that is consistent with using federal force to engage in a war on legal residents under the ruse of fighting crime. The mass incarceration and the stripping of rights of American citizens is one way to reduce the voting population in ways that are consistent with concentrating power in the hands of the powerful, the rich and the white. 

Americans, particularly Americans who value diversity, must resist these attacks on immigrants who are here contributing to American society. There is no moral or economic justification for arresting mothers and fathers and separating them from their children. Supporters of diversity must stand with our immigrant neighbors and co-workers. We should not start down this slippery slope, I can guarantee you, we will not like where it ends.