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Expert Says Border Fight Distracts From Real Issue: Why Migrants Come Here

Cross on the ground
Gregory Bull
/
AP
Jesus Salvador places crosses in a pauper's cemetery where hundreds of unidentified migrants are buried Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017, in Holtville, Calif.

An anthropologist who’s studied life and death on the U.S.-Mexico border says the fight over the wall distracts from a much more difficult conversation that Americans don’t want to have. 

Jason de Leon, a professor at the University of Michigan who runs the Undocumented Migration Project, delivered the Robert G. Bone Distinguished Lecture on Wednesday at Illinois State University. He grew up on the border and has applied his anthropological expertise to better understand how migrants die as they enter the U.S. 

De Leon said the fight over President Donald Trump’s demand for the border wall—he was rebuffed by Congress and now plans to do it using a national emergency declaration—baffles him.

“I feel like we’ve taken a step back 40 years in this current political moment,” he said. “The Trump era has reminded us that there’s a big segment of the American population that has literally no idea what’s going on at the U.S.-Mexico border or the history of our immigration policies.”

Instead of a wall, U.S. leaders should be focusing on why migrants are coming here and how much the U.S. economy relies on them to do the jobs Americans won’t, De Leon said.

“You don’t need $5 billion to build a wall. If you truly believe that (illegal immigration needs to stop), police the workforce,” De Leon said. “We love migrants when they’re working here in the shadows. It seems we hate them at the border.”

While immigration issues have flared up during the Trump administration, De Leon’s research focuses on a U.S. border enforcement strategy called “prevention through deterrence” that dates back to the mid-1990s, under then-President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

“For the last 20 years, the border patrol has attempted to funnel people away from urban parts of the country towards the depopulated areas where migrants have to walk for 50 to 60 miles to the United States illegally,” he said. “They have been using this policy in hopes of slowing people down. Over the last 20 years, it hasn’t really slowed people down, but it has killed thousands of people and caused millions of people to cross through these inhospitable landscapes.”

Listen to De Leon’s full interview below:

migrantsexpert-long.mp3
GLT's full interview with Jason de Leon.

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Ryan Denham is the digital content director for WGLT.
Darnysha Mitchell is an Illinois State University student and reporting and social media intern at WGLT.