For anyone following immigration developments, it is hard to escape the steady drumbeat of media headlines (and political campaign speeches) about the so-called "Border Crisis" - referring to the recent increase of immigrants at the US Mexican border who are attempting to escape from gang violence, poverty, discrimination and dictatorship in Central America, Haiti and other mainly nonwhite areas of the world - just as their white, European predecessors did earlier in our history. The term "Border Crisis" is being used by many (though not all) for the purpose of a variety of political goals, including stereotyping immigrants as "criminals" (despite studies showing that native-born Americans have a higher crime rate than immigrants), as well as (on the part of some Republican politicians), stirring up fears that America will become a truly racially diverse and equal society, rather than one dominated by whites. The term "Border Crisis" is also being used by Republican politicians to make President Joe Biden look weak or incompetent in the hope of winning back GOP control of Congress this year, and the White House in 2024.

Amid all the hyperbole, it is time to ask ourselves what the "Border Crisis" really is. The answer is that it is a Human Rights crisis - one in which hundreds of thousands of people exercising their US and internationally recognized right to escape intolerable conditions in their home countries and seek asylum in the US have been and, to at least some extent, still are, being turned away at our Mexican border and forced to live in dangerous inhuman conditions in Mexico. There is also overwhelming evidence that the two main policies that have caused this massive, large-scale violation of Human Rights by the United States government, namely Title 42 and the so-called "Migrant Protection Protocol" a/k/a "Remain in Mexico" were both the initiated by Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's chief immigration advisor, in support of a white supremacist anti-immigrant agenda.

In this comment, I will discuss two recent articles dealing with this topic. One, appearing in SLATE on April 6, 2022 is entitled:

Why is the US supposed to care about Human Rights in Ukraine but Not at the Border?

htpps://slate.com/news/-and-politics/2022/04/u-s-human-rights-ukraine-mexico-title-42.html

The other article, published by Physicians for Human Rights on January 20, 2021, is called:

Forced inro Danger: Human Rights Violations Resulting from the Migrant Protection Protocols

https://reliefweb.int/report/united-states-america/forced-danger-human-rights-violations-resulting-us-migrant-protection

To be continued.

Roger Algase
Attorney at Law
Harvard Law School LL.B.
Harvard College A.B.