"A few weeks after the Brexit referendum, a leave-voting friend of mine told me what the biggest benefit would be. We will never hear about immigration again, he said. If you give the people the control over the border they want, the logic went, then Brexit will finally dissolve immigration as an issue that politicians can exploit, and the country can crack on with all the other important stuff that needs doing."
"And, well, let's just say that this prediction did not pan out on such a colossal level that no follow-up conversation has been necessary. Because that's just not how the whole immigration thing works. The goalposts always move. Nothing clarifies that more than Nigel Farage getting everything he has said he ever wanted, the country heaving itself out of the EU and ending free movement, only for another boil to fester around the issue of immigration and guess what, only Reform UK can lance it!"
"Nothing is ever enough. One only needs to look at the escalating crackdowns in the US to see how the net keeps getting wider and wider. In a matter of months, immigration crackdown has expanded so rapidly that immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are afraid to leave their houses to buy groceries or go to work, as the national guard patrols the streets."
"It starts with the border, a boundary so porous that it must be policed with military levels of force and those crossing it treated with maximum levels of punishment. People crossing the border are portrayed as invaders intent on carrying out some criminal or exploitative act. Rightwing politicians in the UK have been speaking of invasion for years. After Donald Trump came to office for the second time, he codified that notion, expanding the constitutional protection of states from invasion to include immigrants."
Brexit and the end of free movement failed to remove immigration as a political issue. Control of borders did not satisfy anti-immigration demands because the goalposts keep moving. Nigel Farage secured Brexit but the issue reemerged with calls from Reform UK for further action. In the United States, crackdowns have escalated rapidly, widening enforcement and making documented and undocumented immigrants afraid to leave their homes. The response centers on border militarization, portraying crossers as invaders and deploying military-grade equipment and the national guard. Legal changes expanded state powers to treat immigration as an invasion.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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