Democratic Party has no compass on migration: Oscar Chacon

Chicago. “The Democratic Party has been left without a compass, without a clear sense of direction, practically since the end of the seventies” and not only around the immigration issue, but almost everywhere by adopting the neoliberal consensus, says Oscar Chacón when answering how he sees the debate on immigration in the framework of the Democratic National Convention in his city this week.

Chacón is one of the veteran strategists and analysts of the civil and political rights movement for immigrants in the United States, someone who knows both the international and national debate as well as the local struggles on the issue. For the past few years he has been the director of Alianza Americas, a network of organizations led by immigrants. He offers his assessment of the current situation in an interview with La Jornada.

When I was telling you that the Democratic Party lost its way since the 1970s and has not been able to rethink it, a symptom of that is the immigration issue.” Faced with “a profoundly racist, xenophobic gamble against Mexicans and all those who look like Mexicans” promoted by the right during the last decades, “the Democratic Party is sitting on its hands.”

Chacón argues that “the problem with the Democrats is that they have tied themselves up. If you look at the economic, political, social, and cultural evidence regarding the impact of migration on American society, you have to be a real moron not to realize that it is a net gain in all fields… Migration has always been used to be transformed into a winning argument, to be transformed into a positive narrative, to reaffirm what even the American Declaration of Independence offered to propose. But it didn’t succeed. It is a case of total negligence.”

Chacón says: “I think the reason why the immigration issue is the one that the Republican Party, and to a certain extent the Democrats, have decided to use as a central political and electoral marketing, is because unfortunately it is an issue that allows the most extremist forces in society to combine many other prejudices that have always been present. For example, the feeling of white supremacy, that is, the ideology of supremacy… Xenophobia is nothing new… it has been present since non-Anglo-Saxons began to arrive in the 13 colonies. The contempt for non-white people, beyond the fact that they were not Anglo-Saxons, also has a very long history.”

Now, he says, “what you have is a reality where we are on the way to becoming a country where the majority will be a group of minorities headed by Mexicans. That is the majority of foreigners. Now, what is necessary in the last, I would say 5 or 10 years, is to refine the bet towards an American version of apartheid” that includes a reconfiguration of the ultraconservative political forces.

At the same time, Democrats are also adopting a “logic of containment” at the international level, outsourcing U.S. immigration policy to Mexico, Central America and other countries, something that began with the administration of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Asked about the response of pro-migrant and immigrant groups to all this, Chacón indicates that “we have a problem… the pro-migrant rights movement was a group of forces relatively independent of the leadership of the Democratic Party. This was something that the Democratic Party detected… and it set about realigning the movement under a scheme that did not challenge the party, basically. So, in practice, what has happened is that this movement, when asked: Should we protest against the Democratic Party?, the first question is not: Does the community want that? That is not the first question. The first question is: Does this suit the party? And that is the underlying problem.”

In light of this, Chacón points out that perhaps the changes will not be seen first at the national level, but rather at the state and local levels where various coalitions are managing to make progress in changing the living conditions of immigrants.

But she emphasizes that this problem of political stagnation is not only around the immigration issue, and that the dynamics that lead to this situation must be understood. Chacón points out that the Democratic Party “really succumbs and becomes another version of the same,” like the Republicans, under the leadership of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and that the latter is only “a continuation of the same. And to the extent that Kamala Harris has been the vice president, well, that too. We must be very clear about that. Although reality has been demanding a rethinking, it has been demanding the adoption of a new direction. And I say this based on the different social movements that have emerged, not only the historical ones like the union sector, but also the issue of the fight for gender equality, particularly for LGTQ people, women. The struggle for black rights, especially strengthened since 2020. But despite being vigorous movements, in isolation, they fail to forcefully propose a reorientation of the party.

He says that “this is where we have to understand the rise of neo-fascism, the rise of the Republican agenda, which crystallised with the Trump campaign of 2015-2016, which essentially managed to very successfully gather the discontents, mainly of white people, of little education, of rural, semi-rural living, who undoubtedly are the largest number of discontents. A bit like what Stiglitz said: globalisation and its discontents.”

Chacón explains all this as the reason why she does not expect major changes either in general or in particular regarding immigration policy. “I think that when asked if we are in a moment of potential transformations, I would say probably not. I have described the change, which became imperative from Biden to Harris, as someone who presented you with a gift, but the gift was horrible in terms of appearance. I mean, with ugly paper, it didn’t even have a bow. And now, you have the same gift, but repackaged, with very flashy paper and with multiple additional decorations. But it is the same gift. The gift is the same, nothing has changed.”

In fact, for Chacón, the only moment of potential change within the Democratic Party was Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2016. “Bernie presented the Democratic Party with the possibility of truly rethinking, not only the discourse, but also rethinking what we want. For a greater commitment to the logic of a social democracy much more committed to repairing the damage caused by the concentration of economic power.”