Half of border agents are Latino, and they are part of a long history of Hispanic support for – and enforcement of – harsh immigration policies
Why? Latinos have often occupied an uneasy middle ground in American society – subject to discrimination and exclusion, yet also susceptible to appeals that promise belonging, security and status. Like every other group, they can embrace political movements that harm others and sometimes even themselves.
This precarity is why Latinos join immigration enforcement agencies in such large numbers. For years, scholars and historians have tried to find other explanations, including economics and stable employment, a desire to serve their communities and seeking proximity to whiteness. But these capture only part of the story.
The phenomenon began as early as the 1950s, when prominent Latino leaders and organizations supported deportation campaigns such as Operation Wetback, which sought to remove hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants (and their citizen family members) from the country. Their support was often rooted in not entirely unfounded fears of labor competition; US employers routinely used migrant labor to undermine unions, suppress wages and break strikes.
While I can’t speak for others, as an immigrant, there are times when i hear of news of immigrants committing crimes and in my mind I say “oh jeez you are making us look bad!” Eventually, it dawned on me that one of the reasons as to why immigrants throw other immigrants under the bus is because the former think it’s signalling to locals that “we’re one of the good ones. See! Please don’t hurt us.” It’s like with any oppressed groups where they occasionally feel the need to sacrifice some of their members to the oppressors in the vain and pathetic attempt of self-preservation. It is a similar thing with “Jews for Hitler” group.