I came up with this anti-attrition idea while attending Boston University’s Great Debate, a few weeks ago. The question was “Can Stricter Law Enforcement at the Border and the Workplace Solve the U.S. Immigration Problem?” (there’s a video in case people want to watch it). Leading the argument in favor of an enforcement-only solution was Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Though the media often mistakes CIS as a legitimate unbiased source, it has a restrictionist agenda and possible ties to white supremacy (it was founded by John Tanton).
Mark Krikorian didn’t dissapoint. Though the average observer might not have discerned it, he advocated for a unnerving policy of attrition through enforcement. As I mentioned before the connotations of attrition are terrifying, but in case people still don’t quite understand what it means, it is what the New York Times has described as “the misery strategy”:
Their one big idea is that harsh, unrelenting enforcement at the
border, in the workplace and in homes and streets would dry up
opportunities for illegal immigrants and eventually cause the human
tide to flow backward. That would be true only if life for illegal
immigrants in America could be made significantly more miserable than
life in, say, rural Guatemala or the slums of Mexico City. That will
take a lot of time and a lot of misery to pull that off in a country
that has tolerated and profited from illegal labor for generations.
If that doesn’t lay out how disgusting this strategy is, and it doesn’t put you in the anti-attrition camp, I don’t know how else to say it. The one big plan all these anti-migrant think tanks and organizations have, is to make migrants’ lives so miserable that they leave on their own. If anyone’s ever wondered how people can allow leaders who endorse massive human suffering to take power, it’s through ideas like these. Worst of all, it’s already happening. There are already millions of migrants in the United States that live in absolute fear. It has not gotten miserable enough to turn back the tide of migration, yet, but I don’t want to live to see that day. I can only hope that other U.S. citizens, and the rest of the world, feels the same way.
Watch the video to see how Krikorian justifies this horrific strategy, and fast forward to time stamp 1:26:12 if you want to see an inarticulate Gringo Chapin (your’s truly) oppose him. The good news is that the vast majority of the audience thought the pro-migrant side of the debate won. Now those BU students just need to call their political representatives.
