An image of boltcutters cutting barbed wire on a chain link fence, signifying the violence of borders.

Carrying out “the largest deportation operation in American history,” as Trump has explicitly pledged to do, will wreck the US economy. It will deliver no material gains to the vast majority of his supporters, who benefit from the underpaid labor of the undocumented and the resulting cheapness of commodities. From a purely economic perspective, exploiting the labor of the undocumented inside the borders of the United States provides more material advantages to Trump’s supporters than deporting them ever could.

And by any measure, it’s a waste of resources: deporting a million people in one year will cost eighteen times more than the entire world spends annually on cancer research.

In other words, mass deportations are a costly luxury indulgence that Trump’s supporters regard as worth the expense because they experience the need for violence so intensely.

The solution to low wages is solidarity among all workers—employed or unemployed—on both sides of every border against the billionaires who seek to exploit and oppress us. Deporting people is chiefly a form of performative violence intended to channel anger away from those who are the true cause of our suffering.

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/mass-deportation

https://crimethinc.com/sacrificialviolence

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An image of boltcutters cutting barbed wire on a chain link fence, signifying the violence of borders.

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