Concerns Over Proposed Mass Deportations and Their Historical Parallels

A recently elected Leader of a certain country plans to do mass deportation of illegal immigrants and is classing this as a national emergency.

I’m reminded of 83 years ago, when another equally loud and charismatic leader decided it was a good idea at the time to remove all people of a certain faith out of their country. Later, it was not just people of a certain faith, but people not deemed normal in a Biblical way and then finally, anyone who spoke up against this leader.

Deciding this wasn’t enough of a way to remove these people, internment camps were later built, and if you did your homework, have a good memory, or didn’t live on another planet, then you should know what happened from there.

If you still failed to connect the dots, at that time, over six million Jews lost their lives, not counting POWs, certain other ethnicities, people with disabilities, those who fought for resistance against the controlling powers and also the LGBTIQA+ community if any of them were recognised as such.

It feels like History is repeating itself. What happens when this new very loud and ‘charismatic’ leader decides just deporting them is not enough? Does he plan to build camps too? And then what?!?

Has he not thought this through? Somehow, I don’t think he has. To me, it feels like this idea is fueled on by hatred of anyone that doesn’t share his skin colour or his language. In the U.S alone, depending on who you speak to, there are believed to be between 10.9 million to 16.8 million illegal immigrants. By comparison, in Australia, over 70,000 live unlawfully, many arriving on either student or visitor visas.

Immigrants are the backbone of many countries globally. There will always be jobs that regular citizens don’t wish to do for a variety of reasons whether they’ve been sufficiently trained to chase their own goals, or they’re settled in one spot and refuse to move across country to start a new life with a job elsewhere. Granted, a few might up and move, but the majority more than likely choose to stay put.

Going by a 2016 graph that can be found HERE, most of the jobs taken up by illegal immigrants, or perhaps better identified as unauthorised immigrants are in the fields of Agriculture, Construction, Hospitality, Manufacturing and Labour force just to name a few. I imagine the same could be said for those living here in Australia as well.

If the American population is like our own Australian population, only a handful of people are willing to do the jobs that are filled by newer citizens waiting for paperwork. Here in Australia, not everyone who was born and raised in Australia are willing to do menial jobs like pamphlet deliveries, telemarketers, fast food restaurant workers, gardeners, harvesters and the like. Granted, a lot of these jobs are usually filled by school leavers or backpackers until they find better prospects, but as these jobs often have a very high turnover, more often than not, it’s the ‘New Australians’ that take on these duties.

Australia’s mass immigration brought on multi-culturalism which, granted, we’ve had our own teething problems when it came to community, but for the most part nowadays, we have accepted the wide variety of nationalities that have migrated to Australia to dream of a better life.

Yet this particular individual wants to do a mass deportation of every illegal immigrant in the country. Ok, so how many generations back then? What of their families? If you look back far enough, unless your ancestors intermixed with First Nation people, then you are basically an immigrant to the country even if you, your parents and your grandparents were born there.

In the article I linked above, Manuel Cunha Jr., the president of the Nisei Farmers League said it best: “If you took away my workforce, you wouldn’t eat. If you go into the San Joaquin Valley and you start doing what you’re saying, it’s over. The country will stop, literally stop because the food system won’t move”

Anyway, as this person is soon to be inaugurated within the coming months, there’s not much we can do, but I do hope that someone else near the top, within hearing distance of this person, is able to speak up and perhaps change his mind of this devastating plan to uproot people, destroying their dreams for a better future.

One extra food for thought here. What happens to those people who have got no homes to go back to, whether they escaped from war torn countries or extreme poverty in a drought-stricken area or just escaped because their lives were at risk. What of those people?