Abolishing the Toxic “Tough-on-Immigration Paradigm”

In 2018, President Trump authorized the U.S. military to temporarily close sections of the U.S.-Mexico border, suspend asylum rights and fire tear gas and rubber bullets into migrants waiting on the Mexican side. These dire actions were in keeping with decades of bipartisan, tough-on-immigration policy that have dominated U.S. action, particularly since the Reagan administration. “Abolishing the Toxic ‘Tough-on-Immigration’ Paradigm,” published by the Harvard Kennedy School Journal of Hispanic Policy, critiques the sociopolitical construct of the “undeserving criminal alien,” the basis of the tough-on-immigration paradigm, and offers an alternative “reparative justice paradigm for immigration policy.” The author asserts that both political parties still use that paradigm to shape immigration policies. For instance, both parties insist on maintaining the “deportation regime” in their immigration policy proposals, emphasizing security, enforcement and criminality. The writer claims that U.S. approach to immigration “contradicts” and undermines the “mythical exceptional social vision” of the nation. The author, instead, proposes a new reparative justice model to replace the deserving-undeserving immigrant binary. In working toward a new paradigm, the author recommends that we strive for the abolition of for-profit detention, promote the ability of all workers to collectively bargain internationally, establish humane migration pathways, and “imagine a world beyond politically and economically constructed borders.” (Jasmina Popaja for The ILC Public Education Institute)

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