▲ Oscar Chacón, veteran strategist and analyst of the civil and political rights movement of migrants in the US, made an assessment of the immigration policies of the White House, in an interview with The Day.Photo Alliance Americas
David Brooks and Jim Cason
Correspondents
The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, August 21, 2024, p. 25
Chicago. The Democratic Party has been left without a compass, without a clear sense of direction practically since the end of the 1970s.and not only on the issue of migration, but on almost all social issues, by adopting the neoliberal consensus, says Oscar Chacon when answering how he sees the debate on migration in the context of the Democratic National Convention in his city this week.
Chacón is one of the veteran strategists and analysts of the civil and political rights movement for immigrants in the United States, someone who knows both the international and national debate as well as the local struggles on the issue, and for the last few years he has been director of Alianza Americas, a network of organizations led by immigrants, and offers his assessment of the situation, in an interview with The Jornadto.
When I told you that the Democratic Party lost its compass since the 1970s, and has not managed to rethink it, a symptom of this is the migration issue. In view of A deeply racist, xenophobic bet against Mexicans and all those who look Mexican.promoted by the right during the last decades, The Democratic Party sits on its hands.
Chacón argues that “the problem with the Democrats is that they have tied themselves up. If you look at the economic, political, social, and cultural evidence regarding the impact of migration on American society, you have to be a real moron not to realize that it is a net gain in all fields… Migration has always been used to be transformed into a winning argument, to be transformed into a positive narrative, to reaffirm what even the American Declaration of Independence offered to propose. But it didn’t succeed. It is a case of total negligence.”
Chacón says: “I think the reason why the Republican Party, and to a certain extent the Democrats, have decided to use the immigration issue for political and electoral marketing is because, unfortunately, it is an issue that allows the most extremist forces in society to combine many other prejudices that have always been present. For example, the feeling of white supremacy, that is, the ideology of supremacy… Xenophobia is nothing new, it has been present since non-Anglo-Saxons began to arrive in the 13 colonies. The contempt for non-white people, beyond the fact that they were not Anglo-Saxons, also has a very long history.”
Now, he says, “what you have is a reality where we are on the way to being a country where the majorities are going to be a group of minorities headed by Mexicans. That is the majority of foreigners. Now, what is necessary in the last, I would say five or 10 years, is to refine the bet towards an American version of apartheid”which includes a reconfiguration of the ultraconservative political forces.
At the same time, Democrats also adopt a logic of containment at an international level, outsourcing US immigration policy to Mexico, Central America and other countries, something that began with the government of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Asked about the response of pro-migrant and immigrant groups to all this, Chacón says: “We have a problem… the pro-migrant rights movement was a set of forces relatively independent of the party leadership. This was something that the Democratic Party detected… and it set about realigning the movement under a scheme that did not challenge the political group, basically. So, in practice, what has happened is that this movement, when asked: Should we protest against the Democratic Party?, the first question is not: Does the community want that? No. The first question is: Does this suit the party? And that is the underlying problem.”
Chacón points out that changes may not be seen first at the national level, but at the state and local level, where various coalitions are making progress to change the living conditions of immigrants.
But he emphasizes that this problem of political stagnation is not only around the immigration issue, and that the dynamics that lead to this situation must be understood. Chacón points out that the Democratic Party really succumbs and becomes a version of more of the samelike the Republicans, under the leadership of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the latter has only been a continuation of the same. And to the extent that Kamala Harris has been the vice president, well, that’s true. We have to be very clear about that, even though reality demands a rethinking and requires the adoption of a new direction. And I say that based on the different social movements that have emerged, not only the historical ones like the union sector, but also the issue of the fight for gender equality, particularly for LGBT people, women, the fight for black vindication, especially strengthened since 2020. But despite being vigorous movements, in isolation, they fail to forcefully propose a reorientation of the party..
Trump and the discontent of the white population
Indicates that This is where we have to understand the rise of neo-fascism, the rise of the Republican agenda, which crystallized with Donald Trump’s campaign of 2015-2016, which essentially managed, very successfully, to gather the discontents, mainly of white people, of little education, of rural, semi-rural living, who undoubtedly are the largest number of discontents. A bit like what Stiglitz said: globalization and its discontents..
Chacón explains all this as the reason why he does not expect major changes either in general or in particular regarding immigration policy. I think that when asked if we are in a moment of potential transformation, I would say probably not. I have described the change, which became imperative from Biden to Harris, as someone who presented you with a gift, but the gift was horrible in terms of appearance. I mean, with ugly paper, it didn’t even have a bow. And now, you have the same gift, but repackaged, with very flashy paper and with multiple additional decorations. But it is the same gift, nothing has changed..
In fact, for Chacón the only moment of potential change within the Democratic Party was Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2016. Bernie presented the Democratic Party with the real possibility of rethinking not only the discourse, but also what we want. For a greater commitment to the logic of a social democracy much more committed to repairing the damage caused by the concentration of economic power..