Commentary: We should keep in mind our role in creating the conditions refugees are fleeing.
For example, U.S. actions in 1954 had lasting impacts on Iran and Guatemala.
Mohammad Mossadegh became Iran's Prime Minister in 1951. A genuine national leader, popular and competent – and intent on land reform and nationalizing the oil industry controlled by Britain. The U.S. (C.I.A.) and Britain engineered a coup in 1954. The Shah of Iran agreed only when the U.S. told him it would go ahead without him. Many Iranian leaders were executed. U.S. and U.K. support for Shah Reza Pahlavi was a major factor in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Any surprise that (after overthrowing Pahlavi) Iranians held Americans hostage in our embassy for 444 days? And still distrust us? They remember a past we've forgotten.
Guatemala elected Jacobo Arbenz. He planned to distribute land more fairly. U.S. companies, huge landowners in Guatemala, didn't approve. The U.S. government orchestrated his 1954 overthrow. United Fruit Company board member Allen Dulles and the U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles were brothers. (Allen became head of the C.I.A.) The U.S.-backed coup caused a three-decade civil war featuring genocide against the country’s Mayans. During that period, the U.S. denied more than 98% of Guatemalan asylum requests.
Mexicans have always sneaked across our border to work. But two dominant forces affecting Mexico in recent decades are (1) the powerful and vicious drug cartels and (2) farmers displaced by NAFTA. Well, who buys the bulk of those drugs, creating the market? And which country's policies, including the idiotic “War on Drugs” have helped increase illegal drug use here? And whether or not Mexican or U.S. leaders intended it, NAFTA has made a lot of Mexican farmers landless and homeless.
Many current refugees come from El Salvador. Trump blames the MS-13 gang. Did that start in El Salvador? Nope. Try southern California's streets and prisons – which held many Salvadoreans in the 1990's. Why were so many Salvadoreans here? Fleeing a vicious civil war in which the U.S. heavily backed right-wing governments and paramilitary groups. MS-13's chief rival, Calle 18, also began life on the streets of L.A.
The Salvadorean community that developed here in the late 20th Century was primarily people fleeing a nightmarish civil war, complete with unspeakably violent death squads, in which the U.S. armed and assisted right-wing paramilitary forces, as we did in Honduras.
Our support of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista yielded Fidel Castro – and our overreaction to Castro strengthened his anti-U. S. position and helped impoverish the people, without weakening their support for him.
We're currently supporting Saudi Arabian proxies in a devastating war in Yemen – and we've imposed a travel ban that prevents folks from fleeing to join family here. UNICEF says 11 million children there need humanitarian assistance. That's nearly every Yemeni child.
We're not responsible for the world's vast and growing refugee crisis; but we've sure contributed to it.
Some argue that in penance for our national sins we should let everyone in. I don't agree; but our thoughts about the problem should include a good, long look in the mirror – and face our role in creating it.
[Note: after drafting this column, I learned that the film Harvest of Empire, which argues that much immigration results directly from U.S. maneuvering in Latin America, will show at the Fountain Theater at 3:45 this coming Saturday, September 22. I'll be watching.]