Politics

Republicans Are Intentionally Making Immigration Messy

From recent anti-immigrant laws to inhumanely using asylum-seekers as political pawns, right-wing politics grow more hateful and extreme every day

The U.S. Border Patrol packed Mexican immigrants into trucks when transporting them to the border for deportation | Source: Border Patrol Museum | Public Domain

When the prospect of Title 42 coming to an end became part of the national discourse, several states and many politicians adopted anti-immigrant language once relegated to the most extreme elements of our society such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). In echoing the language of the KKK, those same politicians have focused on Latino immigrants in particular — a shift from the routine targeting of all migrants from the Global South.

The history of KKK attacks on the Latino community is brutal and violent. The Klan’s resurgence around 1920 came with a broader focus from targeting freed enslaved Black people in the South. Their renewed popularity and intensity led them to target all other non-white groups starting with Latinos, or Hispanics. In “The Ku Klux Klan’s Campaign Against Hispanics, 1921–1925,” Juan Sanchez gives us a stark reminder of the chronology.

“The Klan vented its racial bigotry against Hispanics much as it did against African Americans,” Sanchez summarized. “Through the use of race, religion, and language, the Klan…