In the June issue of Sicilia Libertaria, we outlined the Latin American
migration situation, particularly the influx of migrants to the UnitedStates over the past twenty years. The United States' population has
been shaped by waves of migrants arriving, during the second half of the
20th century, from Latin American countries, especially Mexicans-the
Hispanics, as they are defined by both the white component of the
population and the subgroup of African origin, the descendants of
slaves. We concluded by alluding to the new Venezuelan presence in the
United States since 2015, the year of the onset of the great political
and economic crisis, further exacerbated by US sanctions imposed by both
"democratic" and "republican" governments. Thus, the Venezuelan presence
in the United States has increased exponentially, primarily due to
clandestine entries from the Mexican border, to approximately 800,000
individuals, both "legalized" and "illegal." It is precisely in this
aspect that Trump's new administration stands out: failing to
distinguish between different statuses, its policy of indiscriminate
expulsion targets all immigrants, both newly arrived and established,
with jobs, homes, and children, even if they hold some form of residency
or work permit (for example, a Green Card).
The case of Venezuelan immigrants is particularly important because
Trump has targeted them, using them as a "laboratory" to test his model
for solving the "problem" represented, according to his perception, by
the uncontrolled arrival of individuals from other poor nations,
especially from the Americas itself, speciously overlooking the use made
of them for labor: low-cost labor. The problem is not new to the US
administration and dates back to Chávez's arrival in power in the late
1990s, with an explicit political agenda of opposition to gringo
influence in Latin America, derived from a blend of populist nationalism
and a left-wing revolutionary project influenced by Fidel Castro. As
always, the underlying problem was economic, involving Venezuela's vast
oil fields, which were traditionally entrusted to US oil companies.
Chávez imposed a nearly 50% increase in the tax burden on the Venezuelan
state. Like his Democratic predecessors, Trump imposed or increased
sanctions on Venezuela in an attempt to isolate the Latin American state
by preventing oil sales. This was unsuccessful (China and Russia support
Venezuela), so much so that, for example, the US-based Chevron managed
to obtain exemptions from Trump to continue exploiting the oil fields,
albeit to a lesser extent than in the past. The result of these
imperialist processes has been the increase in poverty in Venezuela,
which directly fuels the new migratory flows.
As the bard would say, there's a method to Trump's madness, something
that many don't seem to perceive. He promised a very tough crackdown on
immigrants, and that's exactly what he's carrying out, making it clear
that his plan is much broader: to make America great again... for
whites! (A plan clearly visible even in his European emulators). Indeed,
in the case of Venezuelans, it's not just a matter of expelling illegal
immigrants, but also those with documents, and if that works, he'll
continue with other minorities. In the Venezolano case, since he was
held back by some state judges while he continued to load those captured
on the streets by police and military officers in chains onto planes
bound for a maximum-security prison in El Salvador (whose conditions
bear no resemblance to Meloni's in Albania, which remained new due to
the lack of expatriates), he invented a convoluted strategy: he
resurrected an eighteenth-century law that allowed the US government to
deport citizens of foreign countries at war with the United States. And
since it was difficult to establish the existence of a war with
Venezuela in the courts, they came up with a story that we might call
ridiculous if it weren't so tragic: the invasion of the United States by
the Tren de Aragua (the Aragua Train).
Let me explain: this name refers to a Venezuelan criminal organization,
of a mafia nature, whose leader and many members were locked up in a
"maximum security" prison, so to speak, in a Venezuelan region called
Aragua. A few years ago, thanks to some parodic reports, it was
discovered that this prison was completely in the hands of criminals,
evidently with the connivance of the guards, who had transformed it into
a kind of luxury resort. The government decided to intervene, but before
this could happen, many of the inmates escaped through a long tunnel
that led to a house in the neighboring village. Under pressure from the
police and military, a large portion of the members of the Aragua Train,
as the bandits had called themselves, emigrated illegally abroad, across
the porous border with Colombia. From there, they spread to various
Latin American countries and, it seems, even to the United States, where
they rebuilt their network (also involving Venezuelans present in
various territories).
Although it hasn't been proven that the Aragua Tren operates in the
United States, Trump first accused Venezuela of knowingly sending
criminals to cause disruption, to the point of considering it a
full-blown invasion, thus legitimizing the application of the laws of
war. This ridiculous soap opera has had dramatic real-world
consequences. First of all: how can you differentiate a Venezuelan
belonging to the Tren from someone who has nothing to do with this
criminal group? A group of experts-journalists, sociologists, or
anthropologists-is formed to study the case and, within weeks, churn out
criteria to provide to the police forces of the various states. And
since for the gringos, everyone living south of the Mexican border is of
mixed race, the primary criteria seems to have been skin color and, of
course, self-identification as a Venezuelan citizen (you certainly don't
ask in the street whether or not you belong to an international criminal
gang!). Apparently, they realized that this generality didn't help them
identify themselves, so they developed a series of new criteria: ten
tattoos that they somehow identified as characteristic of that gang (for
example, a watch or a tiger). Thus, raid after raid, they began
"legally" expelling thousands of men and women to El Salvador or
Guantanamo (Cuba) (their children are left unattended or locked up in
child prisons), many of them Venezuelan, but also Mexican or Ecuadorian,
guilty of having a tattoo similar to those identified by the experts.
Finally, given that many judges' reaction was to attempt to block the
deportation, Trump appealed to the Supreme Court and has just secured
two rulings that expand his power over the judicial system: the priority
of presidential orders over local judges' decisions (this is what Meloni
is seeking in Italy) and the partial derogation of ius soli, that is,
the suspension of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted
in 1968, which definitively resolved the historic disputes of the North
American federation, stemming from the infamous 1857 ruling, when the
then Court denied African Americans the right to citizenship. The
gravity of this ruling is enormous, as it allows it to target
second-generation immigrants, who theoretically, by holding citizenship,
are fully American citizens, with a job, a home, and children, perhaps
already adults. It seems clear to us that Trump's plan and its
implementation give us a clear indication of the direction taken by some
European governments, including Italy.
Emanuele Amodio
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
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