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The Real ‘Migrant’ Crisis

Rodney Clough
4 min readSep 28, 2024

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Why don’t Republican vote-getters focus more on the opioid epidemic than on the ‘migrant crisis,’ which, to be clear, is a xenophobic trope? It’s not ‘illegal migrants’ who are coming for our jobs; it’s multinational syndicates coming for our neighborhoods.

It’s drugs, not people.

It’s illegal trade and terrorism, not people. (1, 2)

Figure 1.2: State-based armed conflicts, by type, 1946–2017

Source: worldbank.orgm (3)

Whether they are drug cartels or oligarch monopolists or global energy multinationals pulling the strings, the ‘migrant’ crisis appears on the surface synonymous with crime, which nativist politicians stroke in their campaigns. Beneath the stats, however, beneath the xenophobia, is increasing private investment in the export of crime.

Figure 1.4: Global refugee population, 1951–2017

Source: worldbank.org

Recall The Panama Papers imbroglio which attempted to connect the dots between syndicates and their…

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Rodney Clough
Rodney Clough

Written by Rodney Clough

Refuses to nap. Septuagenarian. Cliche’ raker. Writes weekly.

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