Latinx Files: On borders, Beyoncé and ‘Freedom’

Periodically, the Latinx Files will feature a guest writer. This week, we’ve asked Alex Rivera to fill in. Rivera is a Sundance award-winning filmmaker and a 2021 MacArthur fellow. His work focuses on migration, globalization and technology. He’s an associate professor in the Sidney Poitier New American film school at Arizona State University, based in Los Angeles. If you have not subscribed to our weekly newsletter, you can do so here.

Freedom itself may be on the ballot this year — it’s definitely on the soundtrack.

Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” her 2016 anthem, is in heavy rotation in Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris campaign ads and at rallies. When it plays into the second verse, however, an unusual notion is expressed as Beyoncé sings, “I’m a riot across your borders.” The line, delivered in a lyrical flow invoking various freedom-seeking acts — “I break chains,” “I wade through waters” — places transgressing borders alongside other forms of self-liberation. This is, by far, the most profound thing being said about migration on any American political stage these days.

The current immigration debate is so intensely focused on border control that the notion of freedom-deserving migrants may seem crazy — like the kind of thing that can only be said in art. In actuality, however, the idea has a wide and deep intellectual history.

On the left, political scientists have long condemned militarized border controls as immoral, likening them to feudal controls on movement based on birthright. In her recent book, “Unbuild Walls,” Silky Shah argues that borders are inherently a form of injustice, and that immigrant activists should take inspiration from prison abolitionists. On the right, libertarians have long asserted that unrestricted movement is essential to the proper functioning of a free market. These thinkers, across the political spectrum, see border crossing as something akin to an inherent human right.

Beyoncé’s “Freedom” is, of course, not a work of political philosophy, but rather a pop song. Its lyrics and structure evoke the gospel tradition — a sonic bridge into the realm of spirituality and faith. All major religions, from Christianity to Islam to Judaism, have central teachings about the need to welcome strangers and show hospitality to migrants. These are not far-out ideas, but instead nearly universally shared aspirational values, which is why images of unrestricted movement appear so often in freedom songs, from the gospel “This Train Is Bound for Glory” to Bob Marley’s “Exodus.” As a thought exercise, try imagining a song about the glory of borders.

The use of force to control human movement — what we call immigration enforcement — should produce profound moral questions. This election season, however, we’re witnessing a debate featuring the prosecutor and the punisher. While deeply different in temperament, approach and oftentimes apparent sanity, both are offering versions of a security paradigm on migration, with Trump pushing for immediate mass deportation, and Harris supporting a hard-right border security bill. Barely mentioned are the values of protecting Dreamers, keeping families together or even aspiring to be a nation of immigrants.

When Democrats join the immigration debate to solve the so-called migrant crisis, rather than to contest it on moral terms, they, by default, accept that immigrants are a problem to begin with. This notion, and the lie that deporting millions of immigrants will create vast economic benefits, is the absolute center of Trump’s political project and to not directly contest it is dangerous. The truth — which someone should be loudly asserting this election — is that the immigrants are a scapegoat. It’s a simple and often racist story that diverts attention from the extraordinary power of self-interested billionaires like Elon Musk, the Koch brothers, and landlords like Donald Trump, who want tax cuts for the rich.

Harris is powerfully framing this election around an array of freedoms that are at stake: the freedom to love, to make reproductive decisions, to vote, even the “freedom to live safe from gun violence.” For those of us with cross-border families, or those who just recognize the decency of immigrant communities, maybe it’s too much to expect that the freedom to cross borders be added to that list — it probably wouldn’t poll very well. But, as the lyrics of “Freedom” remind us, border-crossing is not only a political question; it’s a moral one. Migrant freedom resonates in song because it makes sense at the level of the spirit. When the national immigration conversation abandons that moral base, and becomes only about patrolling, policing and prosecuting, we’ve lost already. Beyoncé might be the first to hint at migrant freedom on the national political stage but she shouldn’t be the last.

(Jackie Rivera / For The Times; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)

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