In a flurry of policy moves, Trump focuses draconian migration measures on domestic population
For decades the U.S. has used violence to enforce its borders: but that security apparatus is now being turned inwards
The Sonoran desert, which stretches across swaths of Northern Mexico and Arizona, is a vast an inhospitable region dotted with dry bushlands, high plains and rugged mountains. The harsh landscape has a stark — if dangerous — beauty
The picturesque landscape, however, is notoriously unforgiving when it comes to human survival. Sources of water are virtually nonexistent. In the Summer, temperatures can reach 120 F (48 C), and the terrain — which includes rugged mountain passes and vast stretches of open desert — is treacherous.
Between January of 2000 and March 2024, officials documented more than 4,300 migrant deaths in the Sonora border region — principally from dehydration and exposure, but also occasionally from violence. Experts who study the issue believe the real number is far higher, as most of the remains of those who succumb in the perilous journey are never found.
Border researchers from the University of Boulder, who spent a year in the region between 2023-2024 as part of a study on the conditions of migration in Sonora, venture the official tallies may be undercounts by a measure of thousands.
They explain that many of the bodies are scattered by animals who inhabit the region, while many more deaths occur in remote areas not immediately near the border that aren’t regularly patrolled.
In 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded the deadliest year in the U.S-Mexico border region since records have been kept. The U.N, much like researchers in North America, believe this is severely undercounting actual figures.
U.S. border policy, which has long criminalized the movement of humans from poor countries, has turned the region into a graveyard. But the deadly impact of migration enforcement stetches far beyond the U.S. border. “Borders kill”, I often write, and they do so across all of the Americas. The migration land corridor that runs from Colombia, through the Darien Gap, to Mexico, is the deadliest in the world.
The U.S turns its violent border policy inwards
Studies, as well our own reporting here at PWS, clearly show that militarized borders and draconian migration policy don’t stop migration. Wherever those policies have been implemented in the world, they have simply forced migrants into more dangerous routes, and often into the hands of criminals.
All of this was true long before U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
But since he assumed office on January 20, migration policy in the U.S. has turned increasingly more violent. It has also increasingly found ways to turn that state violence inwards on the domestic population.
Back in January, we predicted that with border arrivals at an all-time low, and pressure to get deportation numbers up rising, the administration would start going after other vulnerable populations within the U.S.
Those efforts are well underway.
A policy of cruelty as spectacle
As the media continues to learn the names of many of those sent to the CECOT El Salvadoran mega-prison (and denied any due process of law), increasing numbers of those accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua have been found to not only possess no criminal record, but also to have entered the country through asylum processes like the now-defunct CBP1 app.
That is to say: a large number of those now being held in 80-prisoner cells and subject to forced labor and conditions that amount to torture in El Salvador entered the country “legally”. The administration itself admitted this week in sworn testimony to U.S. courts that “many do not have any criminal records.”
On Saturday March 22, U.S. officials also announced plans to revoke the migration status of more than half-a-million Latin American and Haitian migrants under the Biden-era sponsorship process known as the CHNV parole program.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in their official communique, announced that Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans who entered the country via the program after finding sponsors in the U.S., will lose all deportation protections on April 30.
The 532,000 people who entered the country as part of the CHNV program did so after Biden dismantled laws meant to allow those who enter the country at ports of entry on the U.S. border to legally apply for asylum.
Trump promised to go after those on CHNV visas during his presidential campaign. Before leaving office, Biden announced that he planned to sunset the program, urging those here on the work visas to apply for other migration protections such as the TPS (Temporary Protected Status) program.
The Trump administration dismantled TPS for most countries in the first weeks of his presidency.
A flurry of laws that affect the domestic population
On March 19 the Washington Post revealed that the Trump administration is considering declaring a 60-foot buffer zone along much of the border a “military installation.” The declaration would empower U.S. soldiers to hold migrants in the “Roosevelt Reservation,” the narrow strip of territory along the two-thirds of the border that is federal land, largely in Texas and New Mexico.
The move, which would place military personnel in a position of holding migrants, would require major and open-ended exceptions to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act— which prevents U.S military from performing civilian law enforcement duties.
“By militarizing the buffer zone, the theory goes, any migrant apprehensions made by service members would be tantamount to catching trespassers on a military base: The troops involved would simply hold them until law enforcement arrives,” the Post explained.
The Trump administration has already deployed more than 9,000 soldiers to the border. Further militarization will push even more migrants into more dangerous corridors, like the Sonora desert.
The administration is also in the process of developing a number of domestic proposals that will target migrants living in the U.S. to be rolled out in coming weeks, including a complete travel ban on the countries of Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.
The ban would also place severe restrictions on entry from Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Turkmenistan.
In addition, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly close to a data-sharing deal with DHS that would provide the personal information and adresses of migrants who entered the country informally but willingly pay taxes.
The IRS has allowed immigrants without legal status to file income tax returns with individual tax numbers, or ITINs. These immigrants contributed $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes using borrowed or fraudulent Social Security numbers, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Migrants in the U.S, pay considerably more in taxes than they take in services. An ironic side effect of the potential deal is that Republicans, who have often made false claims that informal migrants are a drain on the government treasury, seem to be providing further evidence that they know full well their arguments ring hollow.
The administration has also hinted that it is looking for ways to strip naturalization from migrants accused of crimes, and residency from greencard holders. Critics have pointed to situations in which the Trump administration persecutes political opponents as part of tactics that would almost certainly cause a Constitutional crisis.
The U.S. has been building a militarized apparatus across the continent for decades. Citizens and residents there are about to experience firsthand what that machine was built to do.
In terms of the erosions of civil rights and authoritarian creep, the panorama looks darker by the day.
The Big headlines in LATAM
Peru has declared a state of emergency after a wave of violence in Lima. The move, which will deploy military personnel to the streets, was announced by President Boluarte after a popular singer was killed during an extorsion attempt in the capital city.
Peru has seen an increase in killings, violent extortion and attacks on public places in recent months. Police reported 459 killings from January 1 to March 16, and 1,909 extortion reports in January alone, according to Al Jazeera.
The measure grants broad powers to police including the ability to perform arrests and searches without judicial warrant.
Ecuador, which has also been under a state of emergency for over a year, has asked U.S. and European countries to join his “war” on crime in the country. President Naboa asked Donald Trump to designate Ecuadorian criminal organizations as terrorist organization, as he has done with the Tren de Aragua and Mexican cartels.
He further asked that Brazil, the U.S. and European countries conduct joint operations in the country.
Naboa has been criticized for “iron hand” security policies that have resulted in human rights abuses, and failed to stem rising crime.
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Spanish Word of the Week
desaliñado/a: Joshua thought this meant “without salt”, but nope. It means “disorderly or disheveled”. To be fair, Joshua is often quite desaliñado.
