Democrats punch left on immigration
What else is new?
With midterms fast approaching, Democrats have decided that it is a better strategy to punch left and smear communism rather than actually delivering material gains for the working class. The kids remain in cages that are now “immigrant detention facilities” and largely ignored since a Democrat is in the Whitehouse. Kamala’s “Do Not Come” speech in Guatemala did not succeed - immigrants are still coming. And rather than blaming it on US foreign policy and attempting to do something to fix that, the Biden regime has decided to blame communism.
In a press conference on September 20, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said:
I would make a larger point here, which is that I think the American people need to understand that a significant part of the reason why we’re seeing an increase in the number of people who are coming to America’s southwestern border is because people are fleeing three repressive dictatorships: Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. And citizens in those three countries are struggling under the weight and yoke of the repressive governments of those three countries, and they are trying to get out.
And in the same conference, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said:
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, let me just give you — just to put it into context and talk a little bit about the facts of what — of what you just mentioned, the numbers that we have seen that was announced by DHS yesterday.
So, first, these people are fleeing communism, as we have said, as you heard DHS say as well. Falling authoritarian regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are causing a new migration challenge across the Western Hemisphere. So what we’re seeing is a new — definitely a new pattern. So not just our southern border as well, but our Western, clearly, Hemisphere.
But meanwhile, migration from Mexico and northern Central America has come down for three consecutive months and is down by nearly half. And what we saw — the increase with Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba — is up by 121 percent. So there is a change in the pattern that we have seen most recently.
Karine Jean-Pierre brings up quite a few statistics here. They are not actually accurate; they are being used to spin a false narrative. As of August 2022, here are the actual statistics for border encounters by country of origin this year, from lowest to highest:
China: 1,582
Myanmar: 4,176
Romania: 7,044
Turkey: 17,464
Ecuador: 19,457
Russia: 32,596
Canada: 43,038
Philippines: 50,949
Haiti: 51,429
Brazil: 54,934
India: 56,698
Ukraine: 81,010
El Salvador: 91,501
Colombia: 116,470
Nicaragua: 146,331
Venezuela: 155,553
Other: 189,932
Cuba: 197,870
Honduras: 200,286
Guatemala: 217,541
Mexico: 757,860
It is easy to notice that the three countries that were singled out by Ms. Jeane-Pierre did not include the top three countries: Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Ms. Jean-Pierre has also cherry picked her statistics on Mexico. She claimed that migration from Mexico has gone down for three consecutive months. Let us look at the actual statistics for 2021 and 2022 for Mexico, the single largest source of migration into the US:
January 2021: 42,539
February 2021: 45,710
March 2021: 64,311
April 2021: 67,415
May 2021: 72,393
June 2021: 66,316
July 2021: 61,548
August 2021: 57,933
September 2021: 61,593
October 2021: 48,680
November 2021: 45,508
December 2021: 40,793
January 2022: 61,498
February 2022: 72,755
March 2022: 88,984
April: 83,602
May: 78,718
June 2022: 68,005
July 2022: 56,967
August 2022: 61,789
From this we can see that in fact the numbers for Mexico have not gone down for three consecutive months and the numbers are greatly increased overall from last year. The numbers from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala have decreased for the last three months, but not by almost half. From a peak of 48,077 in May, the monthly total from these three countries has decreased to 34,774 in August. If Mexico is included in these statistics, the total decreases from 129,317 in May to 100,533 in August. There is no mathematical way that this number could be considered “down by nearly half.” The only conclusion that can be made after looking at the actual data is that Ms. Jean-Pierre is lying.
Why is the Biden regime lying to us?
When government officials lie to the public, there is usually a reason. On this issue, we need look no further than the fact that they chose to use the word “communism.” This is part of an overall media cold war attempting to revive red scare tactics. There is no statistical truth in the claims of the Biden regime.
Three more times during this press conference Karine Jean-Pierre specifically referred to the migrants as “fleeing communism.”
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Let’s remember, these folks are fleeing communism. When you think about Venezuela — what’s going on in Venezuela, when you think about what’s going on in Nicaragua, when you think about what’s going on in Cuba: They are fleeing political persecution only to be used as a political pawn by the Florida governor. And that is something that the people in Florida should be asking the governor: Why is he doing this?
What I can tell you is that our heads-up did not come from Governor DeSantis, because his only goal is, as he’s made it really quite clear, is to create chaos and use immigrants fleeing communism as political pawns. So, it’s about creating political theater for him. It’s not about getting to a solution.
So, the way that we see it is alerting Fox News and not city or state officials about a plan to abandon children fleeing communism on the side of the street is not burden sharing. That is not the definition that we see of burden sharing. It is a cruel, premeditated political stunt. That is not what they’re — that is what they are doing.
The repeated mention and framing of the situation in this manner indicates this was a clear talking point. Blaming communism for the crisis was clearly being emphasized, even though it does not fit the actual data. This is an age old tactic of the ruling class - red baiting or anti-communist talking points. Michael Parenti covered this bias extensively in Inventing Reality.
Rightwing governments that deny their people basic human and political rights but which are accommodating to Western corporate investments generally are subjected to a benign neglect or at most an occasional criticism by the U.S. news media. But communist governments and any revolutionary or leftist movement at home or abroad which proffer a competing way of using the land, labor, resources, and capital of a nation are treated with a fairly persistent hostility by the U.S. government, business and the media. Anticommunism has long been an unremitting media theme, an ideological bias that pervades both the news and entertainment sectors. - Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality, pg. 113
And again:
For the better part of a century now, successive administrations in the United States have talked about bringing democracy and economic advancement to the "less-developed" peoples of the Third World, when in fact, the overriding goal of U.S. policy toward these countries has been to prevent alternate noncapitalist social orders from arising, ones that would use the economy for purposes of social development and for the needs of the populace, rather than for the capital accumulation process. - Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality, pg. 173
Rather than focusing on the failures of their administration on immigration, they are distracting and attempting to blame communism.
Why are there so many migrants?
To understand the instabilities in central America, it is necessary to understand that the US has a history of intervention there spanning back more than a century. As reported by Multipolarista, the United States has been involved in 469 US military interventions since 1798 that Congress admits to in a report released in March 2022.
According to this report, US troops have entered these countries in the following years:
Mexico: 1806, 1836, 1842, 1844, 1846-1848, 1859, 1866, 1870, 1873-1896, 1913, 1914-1917, 1918-1919
Guatemala: 1920, 2017, 2020
Honduras: 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, 1925, 1983-1989, 2017, 2018, 2020
Cuba 1822, 1823, 1824, 1825, 1898, 1906-1909, 1912, 1917-1922, 1933, 1959-1960, 1962, 2016
Venezuela 2019
Nicaragua 1853, 1854, 1857, 1867, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1899, 1907, 1910, 1912-1925, 1926-1933, 1983-1989
This list does not include black ops and other interventions - just direct troop involvement. As it states:
Covert operations, domestic disaster relief, and routine alliance stationing and training exercises are not included here, nor are the Civil and Revolutionary Wars and the continual use of U.S. military units in the exploration, settlement, and pacification of the western part of the United States.
While the number of interventions is serious, it has been largely the covert operations and non military interventions that have wrecked the stability of Central and South America. These actions alongside direct military interventions, trade embargoes and sanctions have been used by the United States to support capitalist exploitation throughout the world.
Conspicuously missing from this list of military interventions are the US operations in Guatemala in 1953-1954 and 1960. As described by William Blum:
The offensive began in earnest on 18 June with planes dropping leaflets over Guatemala demanding that Arbenz resign immediately or else various sites would be bombed. CIA radio stations broadcast similar messages. That afternoon, the planes returned to machine-gun houses near military barracks, drop fragmentation bombs and strafe the National Palace. - William Blum, Killing Hope, pg. 77.
Castillo Armas celebrated the liberation of Guatemala in various ways. In July alone, thousands were arrested on suspicion of communist activity. Many were tortured or killed. In August a law was passed and a committee set up which could declare anyone a communist, with no right of appeal. Those so declared could be arbitrarily arrested for up to six months, could not own a radio or hold public office. Within four months the committee had registered 72,000 names. A committee official said it was aiming for 200,000. Further implementation of the agrarian reform law was stopped and all expropriations of land already carried out were declared invalid.40 United Fruit Company not only received all its land back, but the government banned the banana workers' unions as well. Moreover, seven employees of the company who had been active labor organizers were found mysteriously murdered in Guatemala City. William Blum, Killing Hope, pg, 80
And again in 1960:
In Guatemala, meanwhile, the CIA decided upon a solution to the dilemma that was both remarkably simple and close at hand: American and Cuban pilots took off from their training ground and bombed and strafed rebel headquarters outside Guatemala City, and bombed the town and airfield of Puerto Barrios. Caught completely by surprise, and defenseless against this superior force, the rebels' insurrection collapsed. - William Blum, Killing Hope, pg. 147
The US does not officially admit that this was a US military intervention in Guatemala, even though it has been well documented. The same is true of Cuba where former head of Cuban intelligence, Fabian Escalante, documented 638 attempts by the US government to assassinate Fidel Castro. Many of these were described in the documentary 638 Ways to Kill Castro. And these interventions continue today.
2021 Color Revolution Cuba
In the summer of 2021, the US attempted to foment a color revolution in Cuba. It was a spectacular failure.
The Democratic Party supported these protests. Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado was interviewed by The Nation:
“Well, I mean there’s a point. The embargo is, the ultimate goal is to bring some level of democracy to Cuba.”
This is absurd since Cuba has more democracy than the United States. A recent nationwide referendum on LGBTQ+ and family rights shows this to be true. Meanwhile, the United States does not even have the option to have a nationwide vote on abortion or other essential rights such as universal healthcare.
The “anti-government protests” were a sham orchestrated by the US for the benefit of media. There was never any real widespread support. According to an eye witness who was in Cuba at the time:
On 11th July, there were not thousands of anti-government protesters in any Cuban city at any point in time. There were barely hundreds in a country of over 11mil people.
The western media did not cover this but instead had to use pictures from Miami and actually used a picture of pro-government protesters to try to create the illusion of a mass protest.
The Guardian, Fox News, New York Times, and others posted a picture of protesters with “26 Julio” banners claiming it was an anti-government protest. In fact, the 26th of July movement was the name of Castro’s vanguard party which overthrew the Batista dictatorship. Anti-communists would never use these banners.
But this failed attempt to create a color revolution was enough for the Biden administration to continue the sanctions of the Trump and Obama era. They did not remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. As CBS news reported in April of 2020:
Regarding Cuba, Biden said he would restore the Obama policy of engagement.
"Yes, I would. In large part, I would go back," Biden said. "I'd still insist they keep the commitments they said they would make when we, in fact, set the policy in place."
This was lie, like so many of Biden’s campaign promises. In fact, the Biden administration imposed three rounds of new sanctions on Cuba following the July protests.
In recent weeks, the United States imposed sanctions on Cuban military and security leaders and units in response to the Cuban regime’s violent suppression of peaceful protesters on and after July 11. Today, we are enacting additional sanctions in connection with this repression. - Antony Blinken, August 13, 2021
Biden has repeatedly called Cuba a “failed state” even though Cuba has exceeded the United States in many quality of life measures. Cuba has a longer life expectancy, lower child mortality rate, higher literacy rate, lower homelessness rate, and a better overall response to the pandemic than the US. All of this while being under a massive trade embargo. If Cuba is a failed state, what does that make the US that performs so poorly compared with it?
The Democrats are bankrupt when it comes to actual progressive policies. Their only strategy is to punch left, enabling the right to continue to build strength. It is not communist dictatorships that are the root cause of immigration into the US, but rather aggressive US foreign policy which has destroyed economies and nations throughout the world. Rather than looking to their own policies, the Democrats double down on red baiting and McCarthyesque Cold War rhetoric. They offer only blame and no solutions.
Thanks, Birrion. Excellent article. It's the US that's the real failed state--Biden is just trying to distract the gullible from fully understanding that by pointing fingers at Cuba. Pitiful, really. Keep up the great work!