Kamala Harris has made it clear that, while a new name is now at the top of the Democratic ticket in the 2024 elections, the party policy on immigration and the border has not changed and will not change. At the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Harris and other speakers continued to adopt the language of Donald Trump and Republicans when speaking about immigration policy and the “crisis” on the US-Mexico border. Harris also declared her commitment to signing the Bipartisan Border Security Bill, which Republicans and six Democrats killed in the Senate earlier this year, into law; the bill would, among other things, require hundreds of millions of dollars of unspent funds to be used to continue building a wall on the border. However, prominent voices within the Democratic party are speaking out and urging the Biden-Harris Administration and the Harris campaign to change course on immigration and border policy. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Juanita Martinez, chair of the Maverick County Democratic Party in Texas, about how the so-called “immigration debate” is shaping this election, and who and what is being left out of that debate.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: David Hebden
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
We’re back here in Baltimore after an intense week of filming inside and outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The 2024 DNC concluded on August 22nd with Kamala Harris officially accepting the party’s nomination, and addressing the convention laying out her platform and her vision for the country. But one of the things that was made abundantly clear in Harris’s speech is that, while a new name is now at the top of the Democratic ticket in this election, the party policy on immigration and the border has not changed and will not change. To loud applause, Harris declared her commitment to signing the bipartisan border security bill, which Republicans and six Democrats killed in the Senate earlier this year, into law. Take a listen.
Kamala Harris:
Last year Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The Border Patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security, and here is my pledge to you. As president, I will bring back the bipartisan board of security bill that he killed and I will sign it into law.
Maximillian Alvarez:
The border security legislation would grant presidential administrations greater power to turn migrants away from the border in mass. And it would require hundreds of millions of dollars of unspent funds to be used to continue building a wall on the border. Moreover, as Chris Walker reported for Truthout earlier this year, “The bill expedites the processing time for those seeking asylum which can sometimes take several years to just six months. It also removes the process from immigration courts potentially denying asylum seekers their due process rights. And would raise legal standards by which asylum seekers can apply for temporary or permanent entry in the US.”
Democrats openly admitted that the bipartisan border security bill was a political gambit. It was an attempt by Democrats to counter criticisms from Trump and the Republicans that the Biden administration is too “Soft” on immigration by effectively adopting the Republican platform on immigration. And it was a stunt designed to offer Republicans what they say they want on immigration and border policy just to prove that Trump would direct the party to kill the bill so as not to give Democrats a political win. But who exactly would win if this bill is signed into law? And what are we as a country, as a people losing? Who is “Winning” now that there is a clear bipartisan consensus on the “Border crisis” and the “Immigration debate?” And that the terms of that consensus have been set largely by Trump and the far right themselves.
So to talk about this I’m honored to be joined today by Juanita Martinez, chair of the Maverick County Democratic Party in Texas. I got to meet Juanita at the DNC in Chicago. And while we were unable to find time to record an interview at the convention, we felt an urgent need to have a post-convention discussion here about the role the so-called immigration debate is playing right now in shaping this election, and about who and what is being left out of that debate. So Juanita, thank you so much for joining us today on The Real News Network, I really appreciate it. And I wanted to just jump right in here and ask, now that both conventions are over, the Democratic Convention and the Republican Convention, what role do you see immigration playing in this election? What is each party offering to address it? And what is not being addressed here?
Juanita Martinez:
Well, to be honest, I did read most of the immigration bill that they were trying to pass. Many of us that have been involved with immigrants and seeing their strife and seeing their suffering here directly, eyewitnesses on the border, we’re not happy with it at all, at all. But I understand why we had to do something drastic. Not this past October but the October before, I went to the DNC meeting. It was held in Philadelphia. Yes, it was in Philadelphia. I stood there because I was going to shake President Biden’s hand but he actually let me speak. And I told him, “Mr. President, there’s a humanitarian crisis on the border we’re going to need help. And you know the Republicans are going to use that against us during the election.” And, of course, he was very kind. Oh my gosh, he is the kindest person in the world.
I mistakenly called him Joe because there were signs … There were posters everywhere that said Joe. And then I was just so embarrassed and I said, “I’m so sorry I meant Mr. President.” And he just tapped my shoulder he said, “You can call me Joe.” Such a simple, nice, everyday guy. I just fell in love with him at that point. I advised him that the situation on the border was getting worse and we needed to do something about it because that was going to be a weapon against us during the election by the Republicans. Of course, nothing was done. Exactly as I had said, that’s the only issue that they have running on. Making people afraid and telling people how there’s a invasion on the border, there’s a crisis on the border.
We have been living it here in Eagle Pass because Governor Abbott has decided to make this his stage for his political propaganda. For people to vote Republican just to keep us safe because there there’s a crisis, we’re getting invaded, they have to protect the United States. That’s bull shit. This thing about continuing with the border wall, I can tell you right off … My daughter, Dr. Adriana Martinez out of the Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, she was doing an article way past … Way before this. We spoke to some immigrants and I went with her.
And she was interviewing some immigrants and asking, “What did they think of the border” which was at that time barely being built. I’ll never forget one man that said, “They can build the border” … He had been deported from Austin, Texas. In Austin, Texas he had his family, he had his children and they had deported him because he was illegal in the US. And he told my daughter, “They can build the wall all the way up to the heavens and we’ll just dig under it like a gopher. There is nothing they can do to keep me from going back to my family where I have to support them, where I have to work for them.” That just tells you their determination.
The concertina wire is just brutal, and just vicious, and inhumane. Because this bill has that as part of it, a lot of the Democrats … I’m serious that I’ve talked to several people, especially those of us dealing with the actual situation here, we were very sad about it, about many parts of that bill. Because you hear these people that came from Venezuela, and the harshest part, the hell that they go through crossing Mexico, and then finally reaching the river where there’s some hope for a better life for their children. How is it that now they’re just going to turn them back, on this river, to where they came from? There has to be a better solution, sir. There has to be a better solution. And this bill is not the right way to go. It is my personal opinion. Of course, I 100% support Kamala Harris and I am going to work like crazy here to get … To make sure that monster Trump does not get near the White House.
However, when you talk about that issue I do have a problem. What can I tell you? This issue is very close to our heart. When you saw me there at the … Doing the interview outside the stadium at the convention, I was reaching out to a family that we helped them get there, her name is [inaudible 00:09:52]. I lost contact with them. But one morning I woke up to a message from her that said, “I am [inaudible 00:09:59], Mrs. Martinez. I want to let you know that we’re in Chicago and my husband is already working, the children are in school, and I’m going to go interview for a job at a cafeteria.” This family is the family that their little boy has a horrible scar, has a terrible scar on his leg. Their identical twins. And I always do the speech and say they are no longer identical because one of them bears the Abbott scar from that concertina wire.
Now when I went to the national convention … To me, I went for a purpose. And I felt like there’s a reason why I’m the first person from my community, from my county to represent the congressional district, it’s because I had a message and I had to spread it, I had to say it to everybody there at the convention. I took my canvas because I paint a little bit. I painted a canvas and I attached a piece of actual concertina wire from the Rio Grande, from the edge of the river so people can see what Abbott has put in our river. Besides militarizing our river he has put that and it’s just plain wrong. That’s why I feel very passionate about this.
And there’s a reason why I was there. I always think there’s a reason for things to happen the way they did. And that’s when you saw me interviewing with that Spanish network outside, that’s exactly what I was telling them. And I say this, and I want people to listen and know what’s happening on the river here, what Abbott is doing to us, to my small community. Nobody knew where we were until he decided to make us his stage for his false propaganda. I have seen a father and his daughter face down in the river where he was still holding onto her. And all these people want is to cross into the US and have a better life for themselves and their children. That’s why they risk it all because they’re suffering from hunger. Who wouldn’t do that? Me as a mother, if my children were hungry, my children were facing war violence, of course, I would risk everything I could for their future. That’s just something I feel very strongly about, sir.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And I could hear it in your voice there in the United … Outside the United Center and here now. It affects me deeply, as I told you there in Chicago, as well not only as the son of immigrants but as the foster father of an undocumented daughter myself as well. But also I think just as a human being with a heart to see what people are going through, flesh and blood human beings are going through to cross the border, to find that better life, to see the conditions that they are fleeing. And our own country’s complicity in creating those conditions and seeing the humanitarian crisis across the board. I just feel like you can’t have a heart and not want to approach this in a human way. And yet on the policy level that is not what we are getting.
And I wanted to ask you just two questions here because I know I got to let you go in a minute. Is first, could you just say more about the reality that you and your neighbors are seeing there on the ground, on the border over there in Texas? And the disconnect between what you’re seeing and experiencing and what you’re hearing in the media, what you’re hearing from Trump and the Republicans, but also what we were hearing on the Democratic National Convention stage. Can you talk a bit about that disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality on the ground? And what would a more humane immigration and border policy look like for the Democrats? What would you like to see this party do to counter the fear and hatred that Trump and the Republicans are pushing right now?
Juanita Martinez:
Well, just to give you an example. There was a caravan that came from North Texas, I don’t know how far they were from … That they came down because they heard of the invasion on the border, and it was in Eagle Pass. When they got here guess what? They were so disappointed. They even told the reporters, “Well, it’s not what we expected.” Well, duh, pendejos, of course, it’s not. You’re being lied to, you’re being lied to. They were very disappointed. They saw themselves with their rifles going up next to the river, fighting off the immigrants that were trying to rush into the United States.
These people are poor, these people want a better life. They are humble, poor people they sure as hell don’t have weapons. They don’t have weapons, they barely have what they can survive on. You’ll go to the edge of the river and find the wet clothes. Where they had another set of clothes that was dry in a plastic bag where they change right by the river. You’ll see little kids shoes just filthy with mud where they trotted across the bank of the river and they leave them there. And just searching for a better life.
They were very disappointed, let me tell you. And they went back knowing that they had been lied to. If it’s true, if it’s true that immigrants do not hurt our economy, and do not hurt the United States, and that if … And that they’ve proven they’re the ones that are bringing the drugs across … It’s US citizens that are drug traffickers. And if it’s a blatant lie that they’re all liars and murderers like the Republicans say then what the hell? Let’s make a process where they can come across without risking their life but without them having to cross all that Mexican territory. Come straight from Venezuela into the United States, if that is the process, if they want to come work.
There’s a big problem in Venezuela, what are we going to do go after the government in Venezuela to make their situation better? Climate change. A lot of this has to do with climate change. A lot of this has to do with climate change, that … What’s happening down there. There has to be a better process. But this turning them back from the river when they struggled so hard and they fought their way through Mexican cartels and Mexican deserts to get to the river and then to turn them back, that’s just inhumane, inhumane. That should not be happening. There has to be a way to take care of this. And if it’s not turning them away let them in. Every single worker at the hotel where I was staying, there in Chicago, were from Guadalajara, Venezuela. All of them were immigrants, okay? There was a real nice chef, his name is Robert, who was super nice, he was from Chicago. But every other worker that was working there was from Guatemala, from Guadalajara, from Mexico, from South America mostly. So they’re here and they’re working. We need them here.
So there has to be a better way than what is proposed in that bill. That bill should not, should not happen. But like I said, it was a forced bill by the Republicans. Because just as I told President Biden to his face, “That one time in Philadelphia, this is going to be their only weapon, the only issue they have to run on, and they’re going to juice it.” And that’s exactly what they’re doing.
Maximillian Alvarez:
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