Book Thoughts: April 2025
Everyone Who is Gone is Here
Reading Everyone Who is Gone is Here and have a few thoughts to expand on:
The folks who first started sanctuary churches and created the Underground Railroad for migrants must have had absolutely no clue how they fit into a trend that would become what it is today. The government itself expected between 2000 and 5000 asylum applicants per year, not the ~millions annually we see today. Those helping migrants also never thought it would consume their lives and communities.
Similarly, the Border Patrol would have no clue how things would escalate up to this point, and even though these two groups of people were opponents, could there have been value in re-framing these problems by imagining the scale it might eventually take?
Even in the 1980’s “the activists in Tucson were on the front lines of a low-grade humanitarian crisis.” I think about this crisis and compare it to Darfur in the early 2000’s. I feel like one got far more international attention than the other, and a lot more high profile activism as well. Why/How was it that this crisis at the border was not escalated in the same way? Over decares, the death toll from the Central American conflicts may have been higher than Darfur. If this border crisis had become inflamed at that time, how would history have played out differently? Would today’s media demonizations have taken place back then? This is right before conservative talk-shows became popular, so there was clearly kindling ready to light aflame. I had a great childhood and I feel really bad for kids growing up in the media and political culture of today. Was there value in having hidden the human cost of suffering in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s in order to keep American political life stable, to keep it from having to wrestle with these issues of migration, race, and sovereignty? How many current lives around the world are at risk because of the political climate in the US? How many crises will we create in the future? If Obama having a crueler border policy, or crueler LGBTQ policy, would have mitigated today’s political climate, would those have been better decisions to have made?
On another note, I’m reading about the opposing viewpoints between activists in Tucson and activists in Chicago. The folks in Tucson thought that “politicizing their work undercut its moral appeal. To the activists in Chicago, that thinking was precisely backward…they wanted [the refugees’] narrative to be aligned with the movement.” Both of these camps are correct in some way. The Tucson folk don’t fully understand what they are wreaking on American society due to their actions. Of course it is just and good, but I don’t think it’s possible to fully grasp the scope of what they have embarked on. On the other hand, The Chicago activists are trying to exercise a level of control over world events in which they are small pieces. If they were to turn away migrants who didn’t agree with them political, or try and sharpen the Sanctuary City Movement’s intellectual/political edge, the realities of the world (aka migrants fleeing) would simply arrive in some other form. Both of these groups seem to have conveniently stripped the migrants of their own agency, both over their own lives and in how they shape the world around them. Migrants are people too, with their own wants, needs, worldviews, and goals. These are human needs, and human needs won’t conform to a political group’s needs/prerogatives.
Similar to that thought above, reading the book showed the value of migrants themselves becoming embedded in the train that helped civilians escape. Because Juan himself lived in Mexico for a long time, he was able to learn about the operation in Tucson, and because he himself wasn’t crossing, he was able to pick up information about logistics, contact information, and aid the Tucson folk by getting them the information they needed. The place where he stayed in Mexico City was a safe house where Salvadorans themselves taught each other how to survive in Mexico City, how to escape notice from authorities, and how to keep the institution (the safe house) alive for future travelers. This is an example of people using their agency in a manner to aid the movement of humans from dangerous places to the US. So, maybe another way to have built a lasting political force and cultural Sanctuary City identity is by empowering the people who were fleeing violence, finding employment for them around the context of this underground train, keeping them in the orbit of the sanctuary operations, and having them set the direction of the operations. That way, these churches, local volunteers, and charity groups would be able to lend their political voice to a distinct group of people who could more effectively advocate for themselves.
Another thought: The demographics of the US were very different in the 2nd half of the 20th century. However, because of its racism, fear of leftist governments, ignorance, and selfishness, the US, a mostly white citizenry, created the conditions in Central America for hundreds of thousands of people to flee into the US. Americans couldn’t see the people of Central America as equals to them, and thus created the conditions for their own country to absorb the cultures of Central America. America today is far more Hispanic than it was in the 20th century and these are the reasons why.
Finally: The book spends some time talking about the Biden Administration having some difficulties working with Central American governments to shore up their asylum and migrant policies. A large part of the political system in these countries can be traced to US policy over the past 60 years. Namely, the anti-Communist policy goals of the US have resulted in entrenching conservative and corrupt institutions in power. Even Democratic presidencies such as Carter, Clinton, and Obama have kept policy continuity in these countries. (In some ways, policy continuity can be seen as a good thing if we take the eventual cessation of wartime hostilities as a consequence of the continuity)
There is a natural camaraderie between these powers and conservative governments in the US. The natural levers of the US government also find their equilibrium in enforcing the same actions that tend to support the governments in Central America. Because of the decades of policy alignment with conservative governments, US policy is much more difficult to implement when a liberal government comes to power, because the desired actions go against the grain of US policy implementers and the political ruling classes of the Central American countries. This means that for Biden to have gotten better results at the border, he would have needed to have taken more decisive action to steer Central American politics in a different direction.
Seeing the way Trump uses American power in a more raw form to achieve policy objectives makes me wish that Biden was not afraid to use American power more forcefully in Central America. What if we were willing to send troops in to enforce anti-gang operations? What if we applied economic pressure/sanctions to ensure aid money was being used for public health ? It could’ve been Afghanistan minus the Taliban, because everyone is on the same side here ! Also there’s way less area for a disaffected military brass to hide and form a resistance.
I’m also very disappointed that the progressive elements of the Democratic party saps the political ability of Democratic presidents to achieve more just outcomes. Because immigration was a toxic issue for Democrats to address, Biden was unable (or unwilling) to take actions that would alienate his base, even though the clear and present danger of a Republican presidency. Taking drastic actions (military action, sanctions, aggressive oversight) to begin addressing the corruption and violence issues in Central America while also keeping the border locked down could have been politically popular while also toning down the toxicity of border policy as a divisive issue.