‘A scapegoating’: racial equality expert on how public health is weaponized against immigrants | US immigration

In one of Donald TrumpIn numerous executive orders and proclamations issued on day one, he cited not only safety and national security as reasons for cracking down on immigration — but also public health.

This is not the first time the president has used it publicly health To prevent Immigration. In the early days of Coronavirus disease pandemicHis administration used the Dormant Law of War from 1944, known as Address 42to invoke public health restrictions for returning migrants at the US-Mexico border. It expired in 2023, during the Biden administration, but experts believe it is possible to revive it, as Trump’s advisors did. It is said They spent months trying to find a disease that would help them close the borders.

Using fears of disease as a weapon against immigrants has a long history in the United States. To understand it better, The Guardian spoke to a historian from Columbia University Merlin Chokwanyonwhich examines the history of community health and racial inequality, on how public health can once again be used to help close borders, the looming threat of bird flu and how it might be used against immigrant communities. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

In one of President Trump’s recent statements StatementsHe cites public health as one reason for cracking down on immigration. How could this happen during his second administration?

Title 42 was something he took off the shelf during his last term. Stephen Miller He is very good at revising outdated rules and regulations and taking them out of the specific context for which they were created and used. So he found this thing that could be used as a weapon. We know that during Covid, there has been a lot of anti-immigrant and anti-nationalist rhetoric, especially against Chinese and Asians more broadly, coming from the White House such as the use of “China virus“Rhetoric about the migrant crisis has intensified in many major cities in the past few years, due to this administration’s overall hardline approach to immigration and immigration threats. [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Raids, I’m worried again that if he can find a disease and a scapegoat, it could be really bad.

The use of fears of disease or “invasion” against immigrants has a long tradition in the United States. What impact does this have on communities that are scapegoated by politicians and other leaders?

Illness has been used as a rationale for all sorts of oppressive things, and immigrants and African Americans tend to get the short end. In Jim Crow Baltimore, outbreaks of tuberculosis were used to justify segregation decrees in extreme cases. In San Francisco Chinatown In the early twentieth century, infectious diseases were used to justify incredibly harsh inspections. Most of the immigrants came from China Angel Island They were poked and punctured during searches. In the United States, Return homeAs the government was forcing people onto buses and taking them back to Mexico, it was a mild form of deportation and one of the rationales for this was illness. Foreign policy and public health decisions at the highest level, especially when there is the specter of a foreign threat, tend to have a ripple effect on populations at home. Coronavirus disease It was one example of this.

Their public health experts He said We are not doing enough To confront Bird flu and other threats. Trump The administration has already withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization and the future of the White House office pandemic Prepare and answer Politics is uncertain. How does that make you feel?

I am very upset. The Biden administration has been confusing to me when it comes to public statements about the pandemic, like when Biden went on TV and said pandemic I finish. There has been minimal investment in next-generation vaccines, and the typical behavior of wearing masks in crowded settings has largely ended. You actually get that from a president who has at least accepted the basic scientific consensus about the disease and how it spreads, so having a President Trump, who in some ways rejects the scientific consensus, is very troubling.

I’m very worried about Bird fluwhich has been a threat for 20 years. This is the closest we have come to human-to-human spread of infection. If that happens, based on his record during his first term and COVID, I would be very concerned about the seriousness with which he takes it. Neither administration has done a great job of keeping infectious diseases and pandemics at the forefront of the public’s attention, so I think there is a general fatigue on the part of the public to accept things like restrictions.

If Robert F kennedy jrA vaccine skeptic with a history of spreading false medical theories has been confirmed as health minister. What implications could this have for public health?

There is a decline in confidence in vaccination. If you look at the booster Rates Or the annual uptake of the COVID vaccine, it’s incredibly low, like 20-25%. And this with a president who believes in vaccines and has been very good at promoting them and continuing government support for those who can’t afford them. I’m really concerned that someone who represents the American face of the anti-vaccine movement could actually undermine vaccination efforts overall through a knock-on effect.

How do these looming threats of bird flu and vaccine skepticism play into Trump’s anti-immigrant stance, especially when it comes to people who work on farms or in agriculture?

I can see someone whose statements and pronouncements about viruses, which are not always based on the best evidence, resort to insinuations and unproven assertions that lead to some kind of narrative about bird flu originating from somewhere that is not the United States. Considering the combination that appears to be most susceptible to bird flu is people who have direct contact with poultry on farms. It is very likely that many of these people are illegal workers or immigrants. If a high percentage of some of the early cases were in non-white immigrants of any kind, I could easily see that as an opportunity to do the kind of scapegoating that happened with Covid, and has also happened with other infectious diseases in history.