During a Thanksgiving Day teleconference with members of the US armed forces, US President Donald Trump took the opportunity to exult over the intensified militarisation of the nation's southern border in response to the US-bound Central American migrant and refugee caravan:
"We have the concertina fencing and we have things that people don't even believe. We took [the] old, broken wall and we wrapped it with barbed wire-plus … We're fighting for our country. If we don't have borders, we don't have a country".
Nevermind that the United States' disregard for other people's borders is a major cause of Central American migration in the first place, as US political and economic meddling in the region continues to increase poverty and violence.
Now, the "barbed wire-plus" scheme has resulted in a situation in which thousands of asylum seekers are stuck on the Mexican side of the border waiting to have their cases processed, with black numbers written on their arms as part of an informal tracking system.
Even the ultra-Zionist Times of Israel - another country well known for its manic and deadly border fortification projects - felt compelled to note that the "marking of asylum seekers" recalled the "Nazi practice of tattooing prisoner numbers".
Nor has "barbed wire-plus" worked out well for some of Trump's fellow citizens as 32 people were recently arrested at a pro-migrant demonstration on the border, organised by a Quaker group. Time Magazine explains that the protest "was meant to launch a national week of action called Love Knows No Borders: A moral call for migrant justice, which falls between Human Rights Day on [December 10], and International Migrants' Day on December 18".
And as we mark this year's International Migrants' Day, right-wing efforts rage on to selectively criminalise not only migration but also human solidarity and empathy. After all, the prevailing capitalist system - in which the financial tyranny of the minority is predicated on the severance of interpersonal bonds - can't really handle love. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.