Candidates must be honest about harmful U.S. role in fueling refugee crises
The Democratic candidates for president have an opportunity this week to address an issue that Floridians know well, but both national political parties willfully ignore: Bipartisan U.S. policies regularly force people to leave their homes in Latin America and the Caribbean and head to the United States. If we are to challenge rising bigotry and dehumanizing antiimmigrant policies at home, it’s time that we also have an honest conversation about the U.S. role abroad as well.
After he left office, President Bill Clinton famously admitted to making a “devil’s bargain” in which he forced Haiti to lower tariffs on rice imports. He noted that while the move was “good for some of my farmers in Arkansas,” it forced Haitian rice farmers out of business and reduced the country’s ability to feed itself. Today more than 4 million Haitians — one third of the population — need food assistance, and hunger drives Haitians to flee throughout the hemisphere.
U.S. economic policy did that in Haiti, by design.
Floridians know that same story parallels the plight of people in Mexico’s rural communities, many of whom today work in the fields of Immokalee and Homestead. In Mexico, NAFTA consolidated a 20-year process, guided by the United States, to open markets for highly subsidized U.S. farmers by lifting tariffs, especially on corn. The less-subsidized Mexican farmers could not compete and, overnight, lost their livelihood, forcing many to seek a new livelihood in Florida and other states across the southern United States.
But it’s not only economic policies. The tens of thousands that have fled Honduras since the 2009 coup d’état can attest to that. The fact is that the ouster of Manuel Zelaya by U.S.-trained generals has resulted in a massive refugee crisis that drives tens of thousands to seek asylum in the United
States each year, regardless of the legal obstacles we erect.
Meanwhile, the United States contributes to climate change by discharging 20 percent of global carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and yes, global warming also leads to displacement and migration. Floridians know that climate change contributes to hurricanes that wreak misery in the southeast, but it’s much worse in our less-prepared neighbors. This includes Bahamians displaced by last September’s Hurricane Dorian, and Nicaraguans and Hondurans impacted by Hurricane Mitch that President Trump is trying to strip of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and have deported.
Unsurprisingly, the Florida government has sided with Trumpism and enacted one of the most draconian anti-immigrant laws in the country, SB168, trying to utilize local sheriffs to target our immigrant neighbors. The policies, promoted by hate groups like FAIR and
CIST, thrive on assumptions and lies about why people leave their homes and come to the United States.
It should not be controversial, for instance, to speak plainly and honestly about the affects of U.S. military interventions. It’s time for Democrats to be honest and to show leadership, kickstarting a real conversation on immigration. That means going beyond limited talking points about an omnibus immigration bill with no path to becoming law. It means talking about real inclusion at home and about the concrete measures to stop U.S. policies that force people from their homes to begin with.
They could follow the lead of more than 50 immigrant and civil-rights groups calling on national leaders to endorse a new unity blueprint on immigration, the Migrant Justice Platform, that addresses all of these issues, at home and abroad. It’s a conversation worth having because, as many humanrights activists have said before, “We are here, because you are there.”