The Art of Anti Indigenous and Anti Immigrant Deception: The Pope and Sophie Cruz

I feel like people are going to throw tomatoes at me for the blog I am about to write.

I can’t stop thinking about Sophie Cruz. An amazing little girl, so smart, so brave, and yet so misled by the nonprofits set up to lie and deceive. 

Did it bother you that I said that? Did it seem like I’m saying not nice things about a beautiful little girl who only wants the best for her parents and her family? I really, really hope not. The truth is I have a lot of admiration for Sophie Cruz. I feel for her parents and want them to be together and live and work in peace. I want to be fighting along side her to make that happen. But I can’t, because I know the truth about comprehensive immigration reform and exactly what is happening.

We don’t exactly live in a philosophical era where truth is highly prioritized. I don’t see a lot of critical discussion surrounding indigenous people and how they are affected by comprehensive immigration reform. And it seems like many people I know and love also fall for the theatrics that tell them that it is a good thing. I don’t know how to tell them what I know. I don’t know how to tell them that this has been done before.

There are patterns in colonialism, and there are tactics that have been used since the dawn of the colonial era to subjugate indigenous people. The divide and conquer tactic is the most prevalent and effective. The dream of manifest destiny paved the way for deception. When settlers set out to take land, many indigenous people were lied to in order to get them to make concessions. Early settlers repeatedly and continually made false promises in the form of treaties and other agreements. On numerous occasions, colonists would pick specific community members to con into accepting deceptive promises. These selected persons would in turn bring the lies back to the community. They often did this thinking they were helping their people, not knowing that the settlers intended a more sinister plan of action.

It breaks my heart to see this tactic used today, and to see so many fall for it. Sophie Cruz doesn’t know that the reform proposed serves to harm indigenous people. She doesn’t know that its passage would make immigrants go through a very complex process that could result in deportation. She doesn’t know the truth—that comprehensive immigration reform is anti immigrant and anti indigenous.

The powers behind the theatrics knew exactly what they were doing. They knew that many indigenous people were protesting Junipero Serra that day. They know that a big part of CIR is militarization, and that increases migrant deaths. They know that it is a bad policy solution for indigenous people and migrants, but they don’t want us to know that. They intentionally chose a bright, amazing, adorable little girl to carry on their message of deception, and she has no idea.