Cold War Daily

Call it a firehose of undocumented immigration, aimed right for the US border.

This speech from the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken includes some details highlighting how dramatic undocumented immigration into the US has become.

In much the same way the US had been paralyzed by acting on disinformation for fear of violating the free speech of the public, including, strangely, hostile foreigners, a similar pattern may be playing out. This time the blind spot is American (and more specifically, Biden Administration) humanitarian values.

Here are Blinken’s words (emphasis mine):

“I’ve been working on these issues for 30 years.  This moment when it comes to migration is something totally aberrational in terms of the historic import that it has.  We have more people around the world who are on the move, forcibly displaced for one reason or another from their homes, than at any time since we’ve been keeping the numbers on it.  More than a hundred million people; in our own hemisphere between 20 and 25 million people on the move.

“It used to be that when there was a migration crisis, it tended to be one – maybe one source country at a time.  Maybe it was Haiti.  Maybe it was Cuba.  Maybe it was Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador, the so-called Northern Triangle countries.  Now it’s all of the above, plus Venezuela, plus Nicaragua, plus Ecuador.  And on top of that, we’re seeing an upsurge in migrants who are coming from entirely other parts of the world through our own – countries of our own hemisphere toward Mexico and toward the United States.

“So the dimensions of this are unlike anything we’ve ever seen.“

If it seems weird, maybe it’s for a reason.

Taking a deep breath here…It’s entirely possible that global public’s embrace of the internet allows people from much further to be aware of life in the US and to coordinate ways to arrive illegally.

Also, given Russia’s track record in trafficking migrants for political effect (something we’ve seen Republicans emulate) isn’t it worthwhile to dig into information flows to ensure Moscow is not somewhere in the background on this? If that becomes apparent, wouldn’t the US have the responsibility to act rapidly to disrupt this cooperation going on via the internet.

How many undocumented migrants from Uzbekistan or Senegal showing up on the US border does it take for someone in the US government to investigate? If they found something, they would need to act decisively. Because it would be plainly about political power, not values.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Rice University, Houston, October 3.