The political situation in the United States is critical; the former empire continues in clear decline. This is clearly reflected in the immigration issue, as illustrated by the recent events in Los Angeles, which led Donald Trump to decide to deploy 2,000 National Guard troops in response to protests against the raids carried out by ICE and CBP to advance the mass deportations that the current US president has been promising. Indeed, this appears to be an unfortunate "spectacle" that showcases an increasingly unstable, violent, and divided country. Trump seems to be failing, opening all kinds of fronts and confronting multiple actors on a wide variety of issues, leaving his country's society more polarized and vulnerable than ever. His recent actions have focused on what he calls "sanctuary" cities and he allocates large amounts of resources to the Department of Defense to enforce immigration laws, demonstrating very poor management of taxpayer funds.

Once again, Trump oversteps his authority and activates the National Guard without a request from the governor of California, whom he attempts to provoke by distorting his name to mock him on his social network, Truth Social. The United States government shows increasingly less seriousness and professionalism; furthermore, it denotes an inability to maintain social cohesion and confront problems together. The nation that was once an empire is losing its compass in the face of social discontent and divisions, clearly reflected in the back-and-forth in public spaces and the inability to resolve the most urgent problems facing citizens. In addition, additional problems are created and unnecessary spending is incurred on policies that clearly will not solve the real problems.

Undocumented migration has never been a problem for the United States, but quite the opposite. The reason unskilled workers enter the country without documentation has nothing to do with their desire to commit crimes or break the law,but with the fact that there are no legal avenues to do so, while there are countless job openings in spaces that are not valued by American citizens. Undocumented migrants receive much lower wages than other citizens, regularly pay taxes (often with Social Security numbers acquired on the black market), and furthermore, they do not receive the benefits or pensions to which they would be entitled in exchange for their contributions to the system due to their immigration status. This has been a profitable business for the United States. Trump will supposedly end this scheme—unfair to migrants and beneficial to American businesses and consumers—but he doesn't seem to have a Plan B.

It is unclear how he and his governing team intend to fill the vacancies in the labor market that will be left free by the detainees and deportees en masse. There is no sign that these positions will be filled in the future by desperate citizens; these are not the jobs that the neediest Americans or those individuals with legal status are waiting for. In this context, if the deportations Trump's government desires also materialize, the cost will fall on the citizenry, which as a whole will face shortages and will have to pay much higher prices for the goods and services it needs. The cost of the current immigration policy will be borne by American society as a whole, which is divided and more polarized than ever. On the other hand, it will perhaps face the authoritarianism and repression that characterize other societies around the world today, from which this country had been relatively spared. The new powers the executive branch has granted itself, the counterinsurgency, and the deployment of military personnel to the streets of large American cities do not bode well for freedoms or human rights in this country.

Finally, these types of policies redirect resources toward non-productive sectors, further concentrating income. The militarization of the streets of the United States to solve the immigration problem seems to be based on fallacies and a fundamental disregard for the real needs of "American" society. As with the construction of a border wall, mass detentions and deportations instead benefit Department of Defense contractors, that is, the so-called "military-border-industrial complex." This government spending increases aggregate demand, but it does not generate significant development or technological innovations that benefit large sectors of society. In the end, it will mostly generate inflation. The United States continues to dehumanize and deteriorate economically, politically, socially, and culturally. This is a process that has taken time; it is not all Trump's fault. However, The latter and the movement he leads—which emerged from the previous regime's dismal results—seem to be dealing a fundamental blow to an already decadent empire. Trump and the Republican base misinform the public and, as with the fentanyl issue, create imaginary enemies to justify their poor decisions. Furthermore, they design policies that, far from helping to rebuild the social fabric and reconstruct the American economy to make the American Dream possible again, contribute to an even more rapid and pronounced decline of a decadent empire.

(*) Dr. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera is a professor at the Schar School of Politics and Government at George Mason University.

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