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What Would Hitler and the Nazis Do with America’s Refugee and Migrant Crisis? Printer friendly page Print This
By Dallas Darling
Submitted by Author
Monday, Jun 24, 2019

As President Donald Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement guards wait two more weeks to target America’s refugees and migrant families for roundups and mass deportations, it might be time to ask a crucial question: What would Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party do? In fact, a more urgent question is: What did Hitler and the Nazi Party do with a similar plight of refugees and migrant families living in Germany? Urgent in the since they were both quite conscious and praiseworthy of the racist strain in American law and society, having lauded America’s treatment of Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and other non-white nationalities.

Little Difference
In “Hitler’s American Model,” James Q. Whitman documents how the Nuremberg Laws, crafted in an atmosphere marked by the same kinship Hitler had for America, led to refugee and migrant roundups leading to mass deportations. Hard though it may be for us to accept it today, the Nuremberg Laws were moreover the product of many months of Nazi discussions and debates that included regular, studious, and often admiring engagement with the race laws of the United States. Consequently, when comparing the rhetoric of Hitler’s “Party Rally Freedom” and Trump’s recent” Keep America Great” reelection bid, there’s little difference.

It’s important to know that a refugee is defined as a “person” who is living outside their country of nationality or usual residence because of a fear of persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group. In more recent times, it’s included those fleeing global warming and climate change which has created natural disasters, resource scarcity, and extended periods of droughts like the current one in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. They have therefore sought sanctuary or asylum in a second country and cannot or do not want to return home.

As a consequence, the person will have lost their home, livelihood, community, even family and are in need of help to re-establish their lives. What’s more, 80 per cent are women, children or elderly. Of course, such circumstances are not confined to individuals, but can affect any number of people; as in the case of the U.S.-led wars in Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya. The same is true for those living in the U.S. Indeed, Edward Snowden, who exposed the National Security Agent’s secret war against American citizens, is now living in Russia. So too are thousands of other Americans who’ve fled political and racial persecution or debtor’s prison.

In contrast, leaves a resident country or place of residency with the intent to settle elsewhere. Though there’s a desire to escape negative circumstances, such as shortages of land or jobs, violence, political upheaval, militarization or military draft, and unfair treatment, immigrants are not considered refugees. Still, some warn the definition of refugee and migrant are anomalous, as it excludes the millions of displaced people who suffer similar privations without leaving their home country. This is true for people who are recognized as facing persecution or severe social and economic deprivation as a group within the country of their birth.

Seeds of Destruction
President Trump’s and ICE’s previous predawn raids to conduct mass roundups of refugees and migrants that have received deportation orders have been deemed great successes. Along with arresting thousands of families in cities to be held in “holding cells,” the Department of Homeland Security said it’s captured several criminals. The targeted operation detained families that were provided with attorneys but had dropped out of the legal process and absconded. Others warn the operation to arrest refugees and migrants in their homes and at work sites sets a dangerous precedence for others to also discriminate against and exclude the most vulnerable of society.

For now, it’s not known where these latest families plan to be held. What is known is many of the detention centers face overcrowding and have been likened to internment and concentration camps. Indeed, Human Rights Watch reported a team of lawyers finally gained access to 60 children in one facility. They found 250 children in a cage-without their families or any adults-and held in squalid, dangerous surroundings. Fifteen had the flu with another 10 quarantined and kept out of sight. Signs of sleep deprivation, hunger, stress, dehydration, even bruising were evident. At least six children and dozens of adults have died in federal custody over the past year.

Roundups and mass deportations were conducted in Germany as well. The difference is that along with targeting refugees and migrants, Hitler and the Nazis targeted the disabled and Jewish-German citizens too. Thousands were arrested and deported to ghettos where they were kept under guard by the Jewish Police until the arrival of the Gestapo. Some were murdered outright, accused of committing sabotage or having transgressed Germany’s naturalization and citizenship laws. Once in the ghetto, many died of neglect, sickness, and starvation. Others were later deported to concentration camps where they were either forced to work or executed.

Deeply moved by America’s racial laws against blacks and refugees and migrants, especially the Chinese and Japanese Exclusion Acts, some say this was the “seed of destruction” which gave rise to the Jewish Holocaust. The same Citizenship Law proclaimed at Nuremburg was, to be sure, grounded in both America’s racial and immigration laws and the movement’s bible: Hitler’s Mein Kampf. It was a vision that not only drew on German blood and nationality but schemed against migrants and refugees. Ideology was just as important: a racial, healthy, exceptional, and nationalistic population based on legal degradation and population engineering.

Managed Democracy
What would Hitler and the Nazis do with America’s refugee and migrant crisis? Answers will vary. Trump and his supporters are determined to go forward with separating families unless Congress can solve a “border crisis.” This includes his most recent pledge for “millions” of deportations. Hitler and the Nazis went forward with their pledge too. A pledge that also created novel forms of de facto race-based and de jure second-class citizenship laws for refugees and migrants. It’s moreover an unpleasant truth that throughout this effort to degrade, demonize, and expel the “inferior elements from Germany” American law remained a regular Nazi point of reference.

Meanwhile, more are criticizing the targeted roundups and deportations. It entails overcrowded detention camps and squalid cages where refugees and migrants are awaiting deportation and which some have called concentration camps. “Don’t be outraged” they say, “but be outraged they exist.” This goes for thousands of family separations, denying food and water, and dozens of deaths. Not that they’re the same as Hitler and the Nazi’s “death camp” but they have the potential to be. To be sure, others warn history may not repeat itself the exact same way but it does repeat itself. Especially in managed democracies and socially engineered societies.


Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling. 



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