It is not a secret that when Donald Trump announced he would run for president his speech was laden with xenophobic remarks that villainized immigrants and in particular “Hispanics”. Since then he has doubled down on his diatribe against immigrants.

A cursory visit of U.S. history will quickly show that during times of real or imagined crises, the country has fallen into anti-immigrant xenophobia.

The Italians and other southern Europeans, the Chinese, Japanese and other Asian groups, as well as waves of immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa have all experienced the xenophobic rabid violence of the “melting pot”.

But what immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean face today is different in several ways. First, the “border and immigration crisis” have become a determining factor in presidential, congressional, and state gubernatorial elections.

Second, the anti-immigrant rhetoric morphed from the usual vilification (presenting them as uneducated and illiterate, vermin and disease-carriers, criminal and rapists) into a narrative that describe immigrants as a military invading force.

‘They Are Storming Our Country’: Trump compared the “Migrant Surge” to an Invading Army at Texas Rally just a few weeks before the 2024 elections, at a rally in Robstown, Tex., 130 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico. “We have immigrants coming in. It’s like an army,” Trump said. He added later, “They are storming our country. They are storming our borders.”

And Trump’s and MAGA pundits’ narratives have had an effect. As reported in the Huff Post  The Most Common Dehumanizing Immigrant Trope That Trump Is Empowering Others To Use | HuffPost Life  “Trump’s political speech has even been connected to violent acts of hate. The white supremacist who killed 23 people in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart in 2019 said he did so because he was defending his country against a “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” according to his online confession.” As much as MAGA leaders and GOP leaders deny it- the whole anti-immigrant campaign is aimed at Latinos and their audience knows it.

Third, political, social media, and popular parlance have adopted and mainstreamed that narrative. Even referring to immigrants as “males of military age”. Marjorie Taylor Greene Compares Invading Russians to U.S. Migrants  “Greene made the remark during a press conference on her resolution to investigate U.S. aid to Ukraine on Thursday. The Georgia Republican called for aid to the war-torn country to end, while accusing the U.S. of fighting a “proxy war with Russia.” She argued that Americans should be more concerned with migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, which she has described as an “invasion.”” The use of this language serves to both demonize immigrants and to call for the use of the military- in domestic soil- to go after them.  Not Just Trump: GOP Members Warned of Immigration ‘Invasion’ From House Floor 2019

Fourth, and most importantly, this language is now being used by elected officials, appointed government agency directors (such as DHS), and their propaganda machines to secure billions (up to 75)  in federal funding to augment the military capacities of ICE and to recruit former ICE and military personnel. And they are doing this using some of the most iconic figures in US propaganda history.

While most immigrant waves have faced some kind of backlash and were accused of being incompatible with “American” (read- white) culture, the sheer number of immigrants from mostly Spanish-speaking countries has triggered racial anxieties at a level that dwarfs other historical moments when xenophobia engulfed the United States. Hence the need to convince the public that Latino immigrants are a military threat and thus, an existential danger.

We are witnessing how ICE has been turned into a paramilitary force operating within the United States itself. And how they are trying to attract military veterans. This is wrong in several accounts. Of course, the militarization of a heavily indoctrinated ICE poses a threat to the continuation of democracy in the United States.

There is also the whole immoral issue of engaging in what can only be described as a racist anti-Latino campaign.

And there is the issue of both using Uncle Sam iconography originally created for recruiting campaigns and war-time propaganda for our public and our military to vilify and dehumanize immigrants as invaders, and at the same time trying to recruit military veterans to carry out such immoral and racist mandate.

It is wrong because the US military has historically served as a conduit for immigrants to achieve full citizenship or to simply find a better opportunity in our society, or just to serve the country that host them.

It is also wrong because it preys on the hundreds of thousands of combat veterans, many of whom have PTS or moral trauma issues. It is not a secret that one of the main causes of depression among veterans is the sense of lacking purpose- a mission- after returning to civilian life.

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE are deliberately targeting these veterans to augment their ranks. Uncle Sam recruits ‘soldiers’ for the war on immigration ICE has launched a hiring campaign claiming they are targeting retired agents to carry out the largest deportation effort in history, as ordered by Trump and orchestrated by Steve Miller. But their iconography and narrative is clearly aimed at military veterans.

CNN reports DHS posted an image calling for help locating ‘all foreign invaders.’ It was previously circulated by far-right accounts  The Department of Homeland Security posted a graphic on its X account, depicting Uncle Sam putting up a poster that reads “Help your country… and yourself…” onto a wall. Written under the poster is the sentence “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,” with the ICE hot line.  Department of Homeland Security

Ironically, the figure of Uncle Sam has been used in the past and in recent times to enroll the American public in the war against fascism and militarism. For example, take the iconic posters from WWI when Uncle Sam asked for help to stamp out the militaristic German kaiser.

Or the iconic WW posters aimed at Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. Which have been revived in present days in the fight against what is perceived as the entrenching of fascism in the United States.

The famous posters of WWII have had a revival with many sharing them in social media updated versions of Uncle Sam fighting Nazis and white supremacists at home.  

 One can only hope that this campaign to demonize Latino immigrants using military language to describe them as invaders, securing funding to militarize ICE and threatening our democratic institutions, and putting in march an inhumane and xenophobic deportation campaign falls flat on its face.

Despite our recent history, I still have faith in the American public, our remaining democratic institutions, the vigilance of the people, and in our service members and veterans’ commitment to uphold our constitution.  

We are going through a very dark time, and we face formidable odds. But we beat them before. And we will again.