No US Troops on the US/Mexico Border!
Speech by Meredith Aby, Anti War Committee member, for 2/19/2024 MPAC/MIRAC protest against US troops to the border
We are here today to say NO to sending 5,000 active-duty U.S. military troops to the US/Mexico border. Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, testified Thursday to the Senate Armed Forces Committee that he expects the number of US troops to grow. In 2019 Trump sent troops to the border, so we aren’t here because we’re surprised – instead we are here because we are outraged.
The border strategy goes hand in hand with Trump’s mass deportation agenda. As of last Friday, government data reports that immigration authorities have arrested more than 8,200 people and issued more than 6,500 requests to detain someone under this new wave of Trump deportations. This strategy is something that the White House is actually proud of their deportation policies. They released an ASMR video yesterday of people being deported with the “soothing” sound of chains of migrants being forced on to airplanes deporting them.
We in the Anti-War Committee have seen the US border as an important place for solidarity because of our campaign to get the state of MN to divest from apartheid Israel. The state of MN has invested the pensions of teachers like me in companies that are complicit or profiting from Israel’s apartheid regime. How much money you might wonder? Well we have found $5.4 billion (of the SBI’s managed $146 billion total) invested to support genocide Israel.
$1.4 million is how much the SBI has invested in Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer that not only produces cluster bombs and illegal white phosphorus munitions but also develops surveillance technology used to oppress Palestinians in the West Bank. Elbit has also been contracted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to build similar militarized surveillance equipment as part of the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Members of MIRAC have traveled to the US Mexican border and seen the consequences to human life that Elbit Systems has brought to the SW.
Trumpers like to point to migration to the US as the “problem” but in reality US imperialism is the problem. US support for Central American death squads in the 80s pushed people out of Central America because of US sponsored violence. Then when the US cracked down on immigrants and deported them back to Central America – and we deported the US gang problem to unstable countries because of US sponsored warfare with lots of weapons. Now gang and gun violence – which the US created – are pushing people back to the US to escape this violence.
US imperialism is a KEY causal factor – not just in Central America. Similar stories happened in SE Asia during the war in Vietnam and with the recent wave of Afghani refugees because US wars create refugees.
It is crucial that the anti-war movement stands with the immigrant rights movements. Our issues are linked and as we can see at the border – US militarism is used here as well.
From Palestine to Mexico – All the Walls Have Got to Go!
