Whether immigrants are good, bad, legal, illegal, etc. We're debating the wrong thing. We need to be debating whether or not our core Social Contract of 'We hold these truths to be self evident: that all [sic] people are created equal and endowed by their creator by certain inalienable rights.'
Obviously, it is self evident that the Trump administration does not (reusing the phrase) hold these truths to be self evident. The question is - do the rest of us?
I'm genuinely curious where the NYT keeps finding these people. I'm not trying to make fun of them necessarily; all people come with contradictions, they just have the misfortune of living when our leaders tell them being irrational is okay, and where reality makes it very much not, more than ever. But shnikeys, there are so many of them these days.
I feel jealous. I too would like the freedom to be irrational.
On the Holocaust language, I really liked how you frame it here. "Alligator Alcatraz is not a death camp and Trump’s mass deportations are not a Holocaust. But the parallels to the early stages ought to have our attention." I wonder why people are so driven to call the ICE detention centers concentration camps, but increasingly I also wonder why I'm so resistant to it. Talking about "good immigrants" really does reek of "Arbeit macht frei," and the lies so persistent in the ghetto leaders' thoughts that the best way to survive was to prove how useful you were. Maybe that's my own bit of irrationality; if I don't name it the same way it can't possibly get so bad. Hope. Magical thinking. Something along those lines.
Of course it can get every bit that bad. We are way further down that road than I ever thought this country would get; though there's still time to change paths. And every day I seem to get another reason I wish I knew less about early Third Reich history. It's good motivation to stay busy (now is the time for good trouble!), even as it's truly disturbing and concerning.
As JVL says on the pods: Good luck, America. But I'm glad to be going through it with my fellow Bulwark readers/listeners. It feels a little less like we're in it alone somehow.
Hi JVL, I saw your podcast with Sarah, so the Allred part of this Triad is already known to Me. But thanks for writing, "The Fighter." I think I remember this - probably from This American Life - and I will listen again. Thanks for the heads up.
Are garden variety stupidity and incipient genocide mutually exclusive? I think one helps foster the other. Unfortunately, this country has cultivated a very large garden of stupidity over my lifetime. I remember when W because president, I thought, “I want a president who’s smarter than I am” aka Clinton, Obama, JFK. You get the idea. At least W had a functioning soul *sigh*.
I am so tired of blaming the workers but never the employers who are actually the ones breaking the law. The memes that immigrants didn’t take your jobs, billionaires did is shorthand for automation and outsourcing. We shouldn’t be subsidizing the largest corporations by letting them not pay their employees a living wage and proper benefits so that they’re employees are the ones getting Medicad and food stamps which WE pay taxes to support. Meanwhile these corporations pay almost (and sometimes actually) nothing in taxes. So wrong.
Thanks for letting me rant. I feel slightly better for getting it off my chest even though it changes nothing.
The aligators’ camps will serve as work camps, similar to what we saw in Germany during the WWII. There is not enough immigration lawyers, it means those immigrants round up by the (gestapo) ice agents will stay in those camps.
People like Mr Allred make me crazy 🤪. Immigrants to the U.S. didn’t take factory jobs or many other jobs that have been outsourced to other countries over the last 4+ decades. Cheap labor and greedy corporations did that. I would like Mr Allred to go to any fruit orchard at 5 a.m. during harvest and watch the work being done. I doubt he would want that work. Immigrants are willing to do back-breaking work for little money because they love this country and want to make a life here. I live in fruit country-apples, cherries, pears, peaches, etc. The harvest workers have a giant bag hanging around their neck on their chest where they put the fruit picked. They get paid per pound of fruit picked so they work as fast as they can. The packing plants are also paid per pound of fruit packed and they stand all day at conveyor belts. Our citizens need to be educated! Dems need to create ads showing videos of the thousands of workers in fields and orchards all around this country. The economy where I live is always better than the national average due to immigrants.
I have a friend who worked on a truck farm in California for a long time. It was a super tiny operation, basically two US citizens and a bunch of field workers*. As the owner's assistant, he oversaw these workers and sometimes worked in the fields with them. He said he (mid-30s and in above average physical shape) was not physically able to work the full week that they did.
But what was most interesting to me: He also said they had a lot of knowledge. That even if Americans decided to pick up ag work, they wouldn't be able to do it well because they lack a lot of knowledge about how to do it efficiently, how to do it so that the produce that reaches the stores is in good shape, etc. He said when they hired these folks, they taught them tons of things they did not know, and that their business could not have succeeded without that knowledge.
It reminds me of my experiences working where the bosses never do the jobs, so they don't actually know how to do them. In this case, the business was small enough that they noticed the skills and know-how of their workers.
*Visas were involved but I don't know to what extent.
I have been imagining future history students reading about how the US once had work camps all over the country until authoritarianism was quashed in 2032 thinking "Wait...why are they called Alligator Camps???"
I believe white Americans have not suffered enough. Until they FEEL the consequences of illegal deportation or denial of constitutional rights. And I mean f-ing FEEL it. The hunger the terror the lack of freedom they’ll (we’ll) endure maybe just maybe we’ll be able to appreciate the life we’ve been lucky enough to have.
Mr Alfred reminds me of the victim speak I listened to from an alcoholic friend. It was never his fault. Someone else was always to blame. His life hit the skids. But he won’t take responsibility for the mess he made. Always letting himself off the hook, blaming scapegoats.
That’s what cult leaders offer: easy absolution, and a villain to blame. Sad.
It seems to me that Mr. Allred and possibly his father overlooked jobs in industries active in Arkansas that could have kept them employed. I am referencing agricultural opportunities in fields planting and harvesting crops. Additionally, the United States Military has suffered a recruitment deficit which could have employed Mr. Allred after he failed out of college and helped him regain his focus and capabilities, provided the adequate mental health support he needed and perhaps enabled him to engage himself of leadership skills and confidence. But I guess, he just did not believe someone of his level/color should have any source of duty to his nation even given the lack of options in his geographical locale. He could have moved... but I suppose that would require more effort and essentially, acquiescence that he may need to lower himself to nightshifts at a thruway gas station and moonlighting as a dishwasher at a local restaurant to bank that move.
Of course, Arkansas did appreciate the migration of factory jobs from the North/Northeast to their environs prior to the 90's migration to offshore factories that offered those stockholders/private equity investors an increased return on lower labor costs. So he blames the immigrants rather than the RBs. (Key: RB= rich bastards). So yes, he is stupid and an ignorant bastard and deserves whatever the F he gets.
Another problem with Allred's logic is that the companies that moved the work to Mexico <chose> to move that work for the cheaper labor (and for "globalization" sometimes, too - you trade with us, we trade with you, etc.). This false narrative of "they" are taking away our livelihoods and things that "belong" to us drives me nuts.
Perhaps this is mean spirited, but having read Allred's job history, I would be truly shocked if he hadn't been on some sort of public assistance than helped him get back on his feet. It's very interesting to me that when someone born here needs assistance it's fine but when it's someone who immigrated from elsewhere, it's parasitic. Or is the thought that Americans have a greater right to gainful employment and assistance? Or some combination of this? Even if you accept the premise that there's some crowding out effect from immigration (there isn't), why do people feel like they're more entitled to a good life than people who went through great hardship to make it to America? Maybe it makes me a radical, but I think it speaks to immigrants having a greater appreciation and love of our country that they risk so much to be here than someone who was born here through an accident of fate. Sadly, I think part of his attitude is seeing the whole world and a zero sum game and I think there's another part of this that is, forgive me, racism. I think there's a group of people who can't stand the idea that they or their white neighbor is struggling while someone "other" comes here and makes a decent living.
Today is the anniversary of the publishing of "To Kill A Mockingbird" in 1960. The poverty+racism+ignorance through-line in that novel lives on. The powerful & wealthy who benefit from it are happy to cultivate it. They get to retain their wealth & power without really having to try to earn it. Not sure if America will ever learn how to break the prongs on that un-holy triad since it has proven so successful and enduring. But shining a light on it is the only way to start breaking it. Thanks JVL and The Bulwark!
Did anyone actually read the entire NYT story on Allred? I ask because in it, it seems that Chris Allred experiences some real reflection and change of heart, albeit slight.”
From the last half of the story,
“For Mr. Allred, it was the end of a two-year journey into an unfamiliar world. He has been to court hearings, paid legal fees and seen firsthand how hard it is to get legal status.
“[The reporter] asked if it had changed him. He said it had made him, “a little softer, a little more aware, a little more compassionate.”
“He said he learned that the law was so slow and so restrictive that it was difficult to follow. He gave an example of a Haitian woman with her teenage son waiting ahead of them in line in Chicago. She was given a court date two years out. He said the legal limbo that creates is dangerous for immigrants.
“‘You work black-market jobs,’ he said. ‘You can’t have a bank account. You’ve got to carry cash. You’re extremely vulnerable.’
“[The reporter] interviewed dozens of people in northwest Arkansas, and many expressed discomfort with the way Mr. Trump was going about reducing the numbers of illegal immigrants in the country. They liked the goal in the abstract, but the particulars of courthouse arrests and workplace raids rubbed many the wrong way.
“This was also true for Mr. Allred. He called the arrests at courthouses a “dirty trick” played on people who were trying to follow the law.
“‘ You show up, you think you’re trying to do the right thing, and ICE is right outside the door — no warning, no nothing,’ he said. ‘I think if a person takes the responsibility to show up, they deserve a chance to at least go through the process.’
“He said the number of illegal immigrants should be brought down, but not in the way it is happening now. His mind still contains a split screen: Yes, illegal immigrants are parasites, he believes. But no, they should not be treated inhumanely.”
It's good to know his views shifted. Maybe there is hope for all the other Allreds out there who haven't figured it out yet. This is encouraging to me.
Whether immigrants are good, bad, legal, illegal, etc. We're debating the wrong thing. We need to be debating whether or not our core Social Contract of 'We hold these truths to be self evident: that all [sic] people are created equal and endowed by their creator by certain inalienable rights.'
Obviously, it is self evident that the Trump administration does not (reusing the phrase) hold these truths to be self evident. The question is - do the rest of us?
"Trump’s mass deportations are not a Holocaust."
When you send people to a Salvadoran gulag, it's pretty damn close.
I'm genuinely curious where the NYT keeps finding these people. I'm not trying to make fun of them necessarily; all people come with contradictions, they just have the misfortune of living when our leaders tell them being irrational is okay, and where reality makes it very much not, more than ever. But shnikeys, there are so many of them these days.
I feel jealous. I too would like the freedom to be irrational.
On the Holocaust language, I really liked how you frame it here. "Alligator Alcatraz is not a death camp and Trump’s mass deportations are not a Holocaust. But the parallels to the early stages ought to have our attention." I wonder why people are so driven to call the ICE detention centers concentration camps, but increasingly I also wonder why I'm so resistant to it. Talking about "good immigrants" really does reek of "Arbeit macht frei," and the lies so persistent in the ghetto leaders' thoughts that the best way to survive was to prove how useful you were. Maybe that's my own bit of irrationality; if I don't name it the same way it can't possibly get so bad. Hope. Magical thinking. Something along those lines.
Of course it can get every bit that bad. We are way further down that road than I ever thought this country would get; though there's still time to change paths. And every day I seem to get another reason I wish I knew less about early Third Reich history. It's good motivation to stay busy (now is the time for good trouble!), even as it's truly disturbing and concerning.
As JVL says on the pods: Good luck, America. But I'm glad to be going through it with my fellow Bulwark readers/listeners. It feels a little less like we're in it alone somehow.
Hi JVL, I saw your podcast with Sarah, so the Allred part of this Triad is already known to Me. But thanks for writing, "The Fighter." I think I remember this - probably from This American Life - and I will listen again. Thanks for the heads up.
It’s difficult to have sympathy for an individual who refers to a large group of people he hasn’t met as “parasites.”
Are garden variety stupidity and incipient genocide mutually exclusive? I think one helps foster the other. Unfortunately, this country has cultivated a very large garden of stupidity over my lifetime. I remember when W because president, I thought, “I want a president who’s smarter than I am” aka Clinton, Obama, JFK. You get the idea. At least W had a functioning soul *sigh*.
I am so tired of blaming the workers but never the employers who are actually the ones breaking the law. The memes that immigrants didn’t take your jobs, billionaires did is shorthand for automation and outsourcing. We shouldn’t be subsidizing the largest corporations by letting them not pay their employees a living wage and proper benefits so that they’re employees are the ones getting Medicad and food stamps which WE pay taxes to support. Meanwhile these corporations pay almost (and sometimes actually) nothing in taxes. So wrong.
Thanks for letting me rant. I feel slightly better for getting it off my chest even though it changes nothing.
The aligators’ camps will serve as work camps, similar to what we saw in Germany during the WWII. There is not enough immigration lawyers, it means those immigrants round up by the (gestapo) ice agents will stay in those camps.
People like Mr Allred make me crazy 🤪. Immigrants to the U.S. didn’t take factory jobs or many other jobs that have been outsourced to other countries over the last 4+ decades. Cheap labor and greedy corporations did that. I would like Mr Allred to go to any fruit orchard at 5 a.m. during harvest and watch the work being done. I doubt he would want that work. Immigrants are willing to do back-breaking work for little money because they love this country and want to make a life here. I live in fruit country-apples, cherries, pears, peaches, etc. The harvest workers have a giant bag hanging around their neck on their chest where they put the fruit picked. They get paid per pound of fruit picked so they work as fast as they can. The packing plants are also paid per pound of fruit packed and they stand all day at conveyor belts. Our citizens need to be educated! Dems need to create ads showing videos of the thousands of workers in fields and orchards all around this country. The economy where I live is always better than the national average due to immigrants.
I have a friend who worked on a truck farm in California for a long time. It was a super tiny operation, basically two US citizens and a bunch of field workers*. As the owner's assistant, he oversaw these workers and sometimes worked in the fields with them. He said he (mid-30s and in above average physical shape) was not physically able to work the full week that they did.
But what was most interesting to me: He also said they had a lot of knowledge. That even if Americans decided to pick up ag work, they wouldn't be able to do it well because they lack a lot of knowledge about how to do it efficiently, how to do it so that the produce that reaches the stores is in good shape, etc. He said when they hired these folks, they taught them tons of things they did not know, and that their business could not have succeeded without that knowledge.
It reminds me of my experiences working where the bosses never do the jobs, so they don't actually know how to do them. In this case, the business was small enough that they noticed the skills and know-how of their workers.
*Visas were involved but I don't know to what extent.
Suggesting we begin referring to the American concentration camp in the Everglades as Croc-a-Lago.
I have been imagining future history students reading about how the US once had work camps all over the country until authoritarianism was quashed in 2032 thinking "Wait...why are they called Alligator Camps???"
I believe white Americans have not suffered enough. Until they FEEL the consequences of illegal deportation or denial of constitutional rights. And I mean f-ing FEEL it. The hunger the terror the lack of freedom they’ll (we’ll) endure maybe just maybe we’ll be able to appreciate the life we’ve been lucky enough to have.
Mr Alfred reminds me of the victim speak I listened to from an alcoholic friend. It was never his fault. Someone else was always to blame. His life hit the skids. But he won’t take responsibility for the mess he made. Always letting himself off the hook, blaming scapegoats.
That’s what cult leaders offer: easy absolution, and a villain to blame. Sad.
It seems to me that Mr. Allred and possibly his father overlooked jobs in industries active in Arkansas that could have kept them employed. I am referencing agricultural opportunities in fields planting and harvesting crops. Additionally, the United States Military has suffered a recruitment deficit which could have employed Mr. Allred after he failed out of college and helped him regain his focus and capabilities, provided the adequate mental health support he needed and perhaps enabled him to engage himself of leadership skills and confidence. But I guess, he just did not believe someone of his level/color should have any source of duty to his nation even given the lack of options in his geographical locale. He could have moved... but I suppose that would require more effort and essentially, acquiescence that he may need to lower himself to nightshifts at a thruway gas station and moonlighting as a dishwasher at a local restaurant to bank that move.
Of course, Arkansas did appreciate the migration of factory jobs from the North/Northeast to their environs prior to the 90's migration to offshore factories that offered those stockholders/private equity investors an increased return on lower labor costs. So he blames the immigrants rather than the RBs. (Key: RB= rich bastards). So yes, he is stupid and an ignorant bastard and deserves whatever the F he gets.
Another problem with Allred's logic is that the companies that moved the work to Mexico <chose> to move that work for the cheaper labor (and for "globalization" sometimes, too - you trade with us, we trade with you, etc.). This false narrative of "they" are taking away our livelihoods and things that "belong" to us drives me nuts.
Perhaps this is mean spirited, but having read Allred's job history, I would be truly shocked if he hadn't been on some sort of public assistance than helped him get back on his feet. It's very interesting to me that when someone born here needs assistance it's fine but when it's someone who immigrated from elsewhere, it's parasitic. Or is the thought that Americans have a greater right to gainful employment and assistance? Or some combination of this? Even if you accept the premise that there's some crowding out effect from immigration (there isn't), why do people feel like they're more entitled to a good life than people who went through great hardship to make it to America? Maybe it makes me a radical, but I think it speaks to immigrants having a greater appreciation and love of our country that they risk so much to be here than someone who was born here through an accident of fate. Sadly, I think part of his attitude is seeing the whole world and a zero sum game and I think there's another part of this that is, forgive me, racism. I think there's a group of people who can't stand the idea that they or their white neighbor is struggling while someone "other" comes here and makes a decent living.
Today is the anniversary of the publishing of "To Kill A Mockingbird" in 1960. The poverty+racism+ignorance through-line in that novel lives on. The powerful & wealthy who benefit from it are happy to cultivate it. They get to retain their wealth & power without really having to try to earn it. Not sure if America will ever learn how to break the prongs on that un-holy triad since it has proven so successful and enduring. But shining a light on it is the only way to start breaking it. Thanks JVL and The Bulwark!
Did anyone actually read the entire NYT story on Allred? I ask because in it, it seems that Chris Allred experiences some real reflection and change of heart, albeit slight.”
From the last half of the story,
“For Mr. Allred, it was the end of a two-year journey into an unfamiliar world. He has been to court hearings, paid legal fees and seen firsthand how hard it is to get legal status.
“[The reporter] asked if it had changed him. He said it had made him, “a little softer, a little more aware, a little more compassionate.”
“He said he learned that the law was so slow and so restrictive that it was difficult to follow. He gave an example of a Haitian woman with her teenage son waiting ahead of them in line in Chicago. She was given a court date two years out. He said the legal limbo that creates is dangerous for immigrants.
“‘You work black-market jobs,’ he said. ‘You can’t have a bank account. You’ve got to carry cash. You’re extremely vulnerable.’
“[The reporter] interviewed dozens of people in northwest Arkansas, and many expressed discomfort with the way Mr. Trump was going about reducing the numbers of illegal immigrants in the country. They liked the goal in the abstract, but the particulars of courthouse arrests and workplace raids rubbed many the wrong way.
“This was also true for Mr. Allred. He called the arrests at courthouses a “dirty trick” played on people who were trying to follow the law.
“‘ You show up, you think you’re trying to do the right thing, and ICE is right outside the door — no warning, no nothing,’ he said. ‘I think if a person takes the responsibility to show up, they deserve a chance to at least go through the process.’
“He said the number of illegal immigrants should be brought down, but not in the way it is happening now. His mind still contains a split screen: Yes, illegal immigrants are parasites, he believes. But no, they should not be treated inhumanely.”
Here is the like to the full story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/us/trump-illegal-immigration-raids-arkansas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Vk8.HHF2.09vRW0KzOa4I&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Meh, he still calls the immigrants parasites, dehumanizing them.
Thank you for pointing this out.
It's good to know his views shifted. Maybe there is hope for all the other Allreds out there who haven't figured it out yet. This is encouraging to me.