Zhang Mengxu
The United States has taken tougher policies and measures to enforce the law on migrants in the past two years, triggering bouts of international criticism.
I have recently revisited El Paso, a major border city in the southern U.S., to write an article on the status quo of illegal immigrant children. This was the third time that I had visited the U.S.-Mexico border in about one year.
I first came to the U.S.-Mexico border in June 2018, when the U.S. government reached its peak in cracking down on illegal immigration and carrying out the “zero tolerance” policy.
The infamous child detention center is located in the Tornillo Port near El Paso, Texas and the temperature there could reach as high as over 40 degrees Celsius in summer.
Undocumented immigrant minors, from several-month-old babies to teenagers, had just been separated from their parents by the U.S. officers and sent to the tents in the center to wait and find out their fate while suffering from the high heat.
The U.S. prides itself on freedom of the press, but no sooner had my partner and I taken a few pictures outside the camp’s barbed wire than the U.S. officers stopped us, checked our IDs and escorted us out of the camp.
In February of this year, the U.S. government declared a national emergency along the southern border in an attempt to circumvent the House of Representatives and secure enough funding to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
When I interviewed the local people in McAllen, a city along the U.S.-Mexico border, I found that most people think that it was nonsense to say that the southern border was faced with a security crisis. People who live in the peaceful city couldn’t understand why the government tried to demonize illegal migrants.
The U.S. is a nation of immigrants and more than two-thirds of the residents in McAllen are first- or second-generation immigrants, said an immigration lawyer in McAllen, adding that the evidence of the government has against illegal immigrants is by no means valid and is merely an excuse for political purposes.
Recent data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggest that an unprecedented amount of 69,550 unaccompanied migrant children were held in U.S. government custody between October 1, 2018 and September 30, 2019. So I once again came back to El Paso to dig more about the tragedy.
Americans are said to care for their own children, yet how come they treat the illegal migrant children as prisoners? Not to mention that during the period, seven immigrant children died when held in U.S. government custody.
The U.S. has always claimed itself to be a defender of human rights, but what it has done doesn’t quite agree with what it has said.
Many advocates for immigrant rights in McAllen criticized the government’s heavy-handed approach by saying that the data has put a moral stain on America, shamed the country and showed the world a U.S with no values.
The historical museum of El Paso, a frontier city that has thrived because of immigrants, has recorded the landmarks in its development since it became part of the U.S. in 1850.
In the second half of the 19th century, thousands of Mexican farmers would cross the border every day to toil on the American side of the border, promoting the prosperity of local agriculture. Later around the early 20th century, the completion of the railroad in the south of America started to make El Paso a boomtown along the border.
Today El Paso becomes a symbol of immigrant culture, with 83 percent of the city’s 680,000 people are from Latin America. Every year, about 10 million people cross through El Paso into the U.S. from Mexico.
Immigration is a profound reflection of America’s current political predicament, according to Martha Menchaca, professor from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.
The U.S. faces a series of challenges concerning governance, such as drugs, public security, the gap between the rich and the poor, said Menchaca.
She thinks that every time the U.S. politicians couldn’t solve these problems once and for all, they would play the card of illegal immigrants and turn their guns on the most vulnerable migrants.
As is seen already, the U.S. has repeatedly withdrawn from international conventions and the current American political climate is clouded by isolationism, racism and extremism.
The U.S. is marching towards a path far different from the one that it wanted to tread when it was founded, as pointed out by many insightful people.
Is the U.S. still the same as it was? That’s a question many Americans should be asking themselves. For many people, openness, diversity and inclusiveness were once the name cards of America.
Today, however, the mass incarceration of illegal immigrants, the inhumane treatment of migrant children, the arbitrary adoption or abandonment of international rules seem to have become the new labels of America.
Photo shows the border wall of Clint, a town in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Photo by Zhang Mengxu from People’s Daily)
移民难题拷问美国良知
张梦旭
近日，我再次来到美国南部边境重镇埃尔帕索市，采访非法儿童移民问题。近两年来，美国在移民执法领域的政策和手段都日趋强硬，一次次引爆国际舆论，成为众矢之的。屈指算来，这已经是我在一年多的时间里第三次踏访美墨边境。
2018年6月，我第一次来到美墨边境，正逢美国政府打击非法移民、推行“零容忍”政策的高潮期。得克萨斯州埃尔帕索市附近的托尼洛口岸，就是臭名昭著的帐篷营地所在地。这里夏季气温高达40多摄氏度，从几个月大到十几岁的非法移民儿童刚刚被美边境执法人员从他们父母手中夺走，送到搭建在沙漠中的帐篷，忍受高温炙烤，听候下一步发落。美国标榜新闻自由，可是我和同行的首席记者在帐篷营地的铁丝网外刚拍了几张照片，就被边境执法人员发现，遭遇了查验身份并护送离开营地的“贵宾待遇”。
今年2月，美国政府宣布南部边境进入“国家紧急状态”，以绕过众议院取得建造边境墙资金。我来到得克萨斯州边境小城麦卡伦采访，听到当地人评论最多的是：“南部边境陷入安全危机？哪来的危机！”在这座祥和的边境小城中居住的美国民众对联邦层面大肆妖魔化非法移民颇为不解，“我们本来就是移民国家，这个城市2/3以上的居民都是一代或二代移民。他们指控非法移民的罪证一条也站不住脚，只是出于政治目的的煽动罢了。”当地移民律师尼尼奥•佩奥说。
11月，在移民儿童遭关押人数创新高这一新闻不断发酵之时，我再次来到埃尔帕索市。都说美国人特别爱护孩子，然而自家的孩子是天使，非法穿越边境进来的孩子就要被当做“囚犯”？尤其是近一年里还有7名移民儿童在监禁中死亡，这无论如何与“人权卫士”的形象搭不上边。“让美国蒙羞”“美国的道德污点”“美国价值观何在？”……这所城市的众多移民权利倡议者对政府的粗暴做法大加鞭挞，但他们面对中国记者时总有点欲言又止，或许是不想在外国人面前扯下美国人权面纱的最后一块遮羞布吧。
埃尔帕索市这座美墨边境的边陲城市因移民而兴，其历史博物馆记录了它从1850年归属美国起的重要发展节点。19世纪下半叶，每天都有上千名墨西哥农民跨越边境到美国一侧打工，促进了当地农业的繁荣发展。20世纪初，美国南部跨洋铁路的竣工，让埃尔帕索市成为美国的边境重镇。今天的埃尔帕索市更是一种移民文化的象征：全城68万人中，拉美裔占到83%。每年约有1000万人次通过埃尔帕索市的边境口岸从墨西哥进入美国。
正如得克萨斯州大学奥斯丁分校政治学教授门查卡•玛莎所说，移民问题深刻反映了美国当前的政治困境。美国存在的一系列治理困境，如毒品问题、治安问题、贫富差距分化……每每难以从根本上解决时，政客就大打非法移民牌，把枪口指向最弱势的非法移民群体。人们还看到，美国近年来接二连三地“退群”，孤立主义、种族主义、极端主义声音在政坛回荡，以至于许多有识之士也在惊叹，美国正走在一条与其立国精神渐行渐远的道路上。
美国是否还是曾经的美国？这是许多美国人在扪心自问的话题。开放、多元、包容曾经是许多人心目中的美国形象。然而如今，大肆关押非法移民、非人道地对待移民儿童、对国际规则合则用、不合则弃……这似乎正成为美国的新标签。
克林特小镇的美墨边境隔离墙。 人民日报记者 张梦旭摄
两名中美洲移民站在埃尔帕索市的边境检查站前。 人民日报记者 张梦旭摄
