The US Republican Party held its national convention this week and, as expected, nominated Donald Trump to be their presidential candidate. Speakers treated convention goers to a consistent frenzy of near-hysterical anti-immigrant rhetoric, squarely placing the blame for the influx of immigrants on President Biden. Speaker after speaker accused the Biden administration of opening up US borders to all immigrants, always referred to as criminals, murderers, rapists, child-sex traffickers and the cause of the deadly fentanyl epidemic in the US. One speaker even claimed that US President Biden was encouraging 3 million undocumented immigrants to vote in the coming election!

The convention was a diabolical festival aimed at convincing US voters, mostly white but also from communities of color, to vote Republican in November and sweep Congress, the Senate and the presidency. To make his case, Trump used the bogeyman “evil immigrants” allegedly brought into the country by Democrats to dilute the blood of "real" Americans.

Already, the US has forced responsibility for migrants onto Mexico with the “stay in Mexico” policy. Taking in and caring for a population of millions would impose an enormous economic and social burden on Mexico. But the danger to Mexico is much more: Republicans threaten to launch missiles into Mexico to take out the drug cartels. This could injure and kill thousands. In the current degraded state of US politics, these threats are evoking little media or political outrage.

The threats of military action and ethnic cleansing would place enormous pressure on president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s new administration as she works to implement a progressive people’s program in Mexico.

More than ever, we need a robust solidarity movement between the US and Mexico — unions and worker centers, environmental justice and mainstream environmental groups. Women, youth and cultural communities must also reach out to each other. As the great African leader Samora Machel advised us, “Internationalism is strategy, not charity.”

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