Elections and Undocumented Immigrants in the United States

By Ilka Oliva Corado, teleSUR

13 April 16

Undocumented immigrants are used as election fodder in the United States.

n any country, undocumented migrants are always the hardest hit by the system. Invisible as people but visible as spoils. Undocumented migrants are taken advantage of by the country of origin that forces them to migrate; in exchange for this ingratitude they receive the remittances they send and that keep the country afloat. The intermediate country disrespects their human rights and freedom of transit. They kidnap, torture and disappear them. And finally, the receiving country that eventually becomes their country of residence also uses them.

A clear example of this is the crisis in Europe which as an example of inhumanity, is closing the doors and leaving migrants to their own devices. There is also the forced migrations from Latin America, especially from the northern triangle of Central America and those from Mexico who seek to reach the United States. It is a perennial crisis that is the result of U.S. overt and covert interference through the region and the neoliberal governments that they propped up in the process. Currently there is a system that marginalizes and oppresses these migrants, involving corrupt, lackey governments.

In the United States, undocumented immigrants areas indispensable as cheap labor, but excluded as human beings. They are denied employment benefits and their human rights are abused. Come presidential election time, they are notorious and become the most precious fodder for the Democratic and Republican parties. They are constantly brought up in debates, interviews and meetings. Some in favor and others against: but only in word, as in action because both parties abuse them and benefit from this form of slavery. The Democratic Party is not a leftist party, nor even center-left. It's as stubborn as the Republican Party, as demonstrated by the "legacy" that Obama – who should give back the Nobel Peace given to him – leaves.

The media aligned to the system want us to see the elections from the perspective that suits them. On the one hand, covering absolutely everything concerning Donald Trump. Trump as a political candidate is a creation of the media rather than the millionaires who support him. The media edits him, raises his tone, makes him popular, throwing him at and promoting him to the masses. One could argue that this is being done to benefit Hillary Clinton, and maybe that's the game – but they never imagined that Trump would arouse the racial hatred and xenophobia that has always existed in Anglo society. And it wouldn't be hundreds, but hundreds of thousands that support him. From that perspective, this was the play: create a wave of anti-Trump reaction, not cover Sanders and lead the masses toward Hillary Clinton.

At first they said he was crazy. No, Trump is not a madman. Perhaps Bernie Sanders is crazy and a dreamer, but Trump is an extremist fanatic just like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Sanders is not excellence, he is not the ideal candidate, but he is the closest thing to a government that would refrain from interfering in political affairs of other peoples. That is, to stop invading territories, conducting genocides and crimes against humanity on behalf of white supremacy. He also offers real solutions to domestic issues. Sanders is only followed by the left-wing idealists that are so scarce in the United States.

Quite another thing is happening with Hillary Clinton who some people support because supposedly "it's a woman's turn" to be president. Yes, it is time that the United States has a female president, but not Hillary Clinton. The cards are marked, and it is well known that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency. She is the candidate proposed and defended by the system to the hilt. U.S. society is one of the most polarized in the world, because the capitalist system uses consumerism as its lethal weapon. It has people too entertained in vanities to think and act politically.

That is, unless the youth react and change of direction of this election at the last moment by voting for Sanders, which is very unlikely to happen. A vote does not change from one day to the next and mentalities have been shaped for years to embrace a kind of fanaticism, which directly related to media coverage. And in this case, Hillary Clinton is carrying the torch because of her husband who was president and the role she has played in the U.S. government for decades.

Of course a very important factor, is the nerve she has in declaring herself a feminist and by doing so, won over thousands of American women who long for equal rights (unfortunately, even Dolores Huerta). She uses feminism in the same way she is using Immigration Reform and the subject of deportations. With these she has secured an advantage with both those sectors of society. Sanders has a lot more to say on these subjects but the media does not cover him. Why? Because his proposals are against the system and his presidency became a reality and he kept his word, many things would change for the majority in the United States and in that country's foreign policy.

Meanwhile Trump has declared himself completely against Latin American immigrants. No wonder that the Border Patrol declared their support for him a few days ago. The Latin American community is the largest minority in the United States and is vital in the elections. For that reason Univision, which is the most watched channel by the Latino community in the United States, conducted the Democratic debate in Spanish. Their owners are anti-Latin America and anti-Cuba Democrats.

Jorge Ramos (who was one of the moderators) had an ace in the hole and the crowd following the debate on television did not even notice that he coralled them into the Clinton camp and in the easiest way. He said at the start of the debate that his daughter worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign. And Jorge Ramos is a well-liked journalist by the community, and so his word makes puppets of the masses and submits them to his will. Ramos is anti-Cuba and anti-progressive governments; he is a journalist who is aligned with the system and defends it.

Aside from being unethical, the comment gave Hillary Clinton an advantage over Sanders. And I mention it in this article because it was a form manipulation and it must be called out. Hillary Clinton was in favor of deporting children and adolescents who entered the country last year in the so-called crisis of undocumented children traveling without an adult. Needless is to say that it was a crisis created to implement the Southern Border Plan and the Maya-Chortí, militarizing from the southern U.S. border to Honduras that has only served to allow Mexican immigration authorities to submit further migrants in transit to further dehumanizing treatment.

In the debate, Sanders left the moderators and the anti-Cuba attendees speechless when he spoke of Operation Condor in the region and U.S. interference in Latin America, specifically mentioning Nicaragua and Guatemala. He is against the blockade that the United States has on Cuba and calls for the closure of Guantanamo, while Clinton supports U.S. meddling in the region, such as her support for the 2009 coup in Honduras. What feminist would agree with that? No one that is a real feminist.

It is important to highlight the vital role played by the Guatemalan migrant Lucia Quiej, who denounced the mass deportations of parents. And there are thousands like her. We'll see how deportations increase when Hillary Clinton wins the presidency. She completely represents the continuity of the system, and the fact that she is a woman does not mean anything - both she as a women and Obama as a Black man, side with oppression.

Will the outlook change in the coming months? Will U.S. society wake up and opt for a big change by voting for Sanders? Will there be utopia in a country like the United States after Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Malcolm X? What is at store for undocumented migrants? When will the millions of undocumented workers awake and have their human value be felt?