There is no other way to describe my immersion in the new cycle of the 2024 Presidential Election other than sudden, unprecedented, and intense. When Trump was planting the seeds of his anti-immigrant vitriol during his 2016 campaign, I was living and going to school in Shanghai, China. At that time, I would not describe myself as “political” in any sense of the word; I was far-removed from this political conversation. Yet, through these readings, the dramatic and sensationalist nature of Trump’s approaches to immigration policy—specifically, that pertaining to Mexican migrants—is starkly familiar to me. He has conjured up such an image and approach to immigration that has been a prevalent cultural and political message through the past decade.

In “Trump promises to deport all undocumented immigrants, resurrecting a 1950s strategy − but it didn’t work then and is less likely to do so now,” Burgess writes that Trump’s militarized approach to deportation of undocumented immigrants is “playing to unfounded and dehumanizing fears of an immigrant invasion” and “misrepresents the context and impact of Eisenhower’s policy while ignoring the vastly changed landscape of U.S. immigration today.”  Trump’s fearmongering of immigrants made the national stage during the presidential debate, as his comments on Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio gained internet virality.

His comments are rather reminiscent of Eisenhower “Operation Wetback” Era where the popular opinion of immigrants was much more hostile. However, in Fear & Hope: What’s It Take to Make Sanctuary Real? [NYC Immigration Stories], the immigration lawyer describes immigration as the pivotal driver of the economy, dynamism, cultural capital, and enrichment in sanctuary cities. Mass, sweeping deportations do not translate in the same way as the 1950s due to this dramatic shift in the immigration policy sphere: the undocumented population is increasingly dispersed and diverse, and many live in cities where sweeps are hard to carry out.

Additionally, these readings helped me gain a fuller perspective of Biden’s approach to the border. In the political conversation, democrats are often described as ‘unsure’ around the issue of immigration compared to their republican peers. Perhaps this manifests in the language that these reporters use to describe Biden’s history on immigration: ambivalent, a balancing act, mixed bag… Biden has come out strong on his support for migrants, in his 2020 presidential campaign stating that the U.S. must take on the role as a “safe haven for refugees and asylum seekers.” He retained Trump’s deportation policy, Title 42, during the beginning of his presidency and has also enforced more punitive orders that shut down the Southern border which originally directed migrants to seek asylum between ports of entry.

As Harris runs on a campaign that looks toward the future, I’m left wondering about how the departure from a Biden presidency may impact the intensification of regulation along the border.

In my opinion, the reading that provided me with the newest insight was “Will Mexico Decide the U.S. Election?” There is a general narrative that Mexico lacks strong immigration policy of its own, instead reacting to the continuous demands of the U.S. The impact of Mexico’s National Migration Institute suspension of deportation proceedings, and how it aided with American efforts is an interesting reflection on how the dialogue around Mexico-U.S. immigration issues is more symbiotic than we assume. This insight may be central into how the U.S. continues to develop border policy for the upcoming administration.