Resnick’s teenage video suggests that
after José is incapacitated, agents will
arrive promptly to take custody of ‘‘the per-
petrator.’’ But even in ideal circumstances,
with agents devoted to rescuing migrants
in danger, a man left lying in the boilingsand is a man likely to never get up again.
Watching the video, it’s hard to tell: Is this
just another logical error, like José’s fl uent
English? Or has the idea that migrants must
be deterred ‘‘at any cost’’ become so famil-
iar that death can be blithely overlooked?10 1.23.
Trump
chuckled, shook
his head and
said, ‘Only in
the Panhandle
you can get
away with that
statement .’Illustration by R. O. Blechmandrive people to leave their countries, like
violence, natural disasters or destitution.
Those on the right focus on pull factors —
things that attract migrants to the United
States in particular, like employment or
universal K-12 schooling. Each side tends to
dismiss the factors identifi ed by the other,
leading to very diff erent policy proposals.
On the right, the idea that migrants enter
the United States mostly because life here
is so wonderful has fed support for a con-
stellation of policies known as ‘‘attrition
through enforcement’’; these are designed
to make the lives of undocumented immi-
grants so uncomfortable — by limiting
their access to public education, say, or
denying them driver’s licenses — that they
will, in theory, leave voluntarily.
A narrow focus on deterrence, how-
ever, can abet the popularity of ‘‘solu-
tions’’ that display all the ethical sense
of a fi rst- person shooter: What could be
a bigger deterrent than losing your life?
At a 2019 rally in Florida, Trump spoke
of migrants at the Southern border and
asked, ‘‘How do you stop these people?’’
Someone in the crowd shouted back,
‘‘Shoot them!’’ There were some laughs
and some uncomfortable looks, until
Trump chuckled, shook his head and said,
‘‘Only in the Panhandle you can get away
with that statement,’’ which provoked the
audience to erupt in laughter and cheers.
But the problem with guns and tasers as
solutions is not simply that they are morally
repulsive; it’s also that many unauthorized
migrants are already staring down death.
That is precisely why they have trekked to
the border, risking rape, kidnapping and
murder along the way, to face a desert
many will die trying to cross. Last year,
according to the International Organiza-
tion for Migration, some 650 migrants died
near our Southern border, many killed by
heat in a region where summer tempera-
tures routinely hit 115 degrees. In August,
on a day when temperatures near Yuma,
Ariz., reached 119, C.B.P. agents found three
unauthorized migrants: A woman and her
10-year-old daughter were dead from
heat- related illness; next to the mother
was one survivor, her 2-year-old son, who
was rushed to a hospital. Agents rescued
approximately 13,000 migrants from the
desert last year, though the organization No
More Deaths has uncovered evidence that
agents also destroy hidden caches of water
and often ignore emergency calls from the
desert. (C.B.P. denies ignoring calls.)
Victoria Chang is a former Gugg enheim fellow whose fi fth book of poems, ‘‘Obit’’ (Copper Canyon Press, 2020),
was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Time Must-Read. It received the Los Angeles Times Book
Prize and the Anisfi eld-Wolf Book Award for Poetry. Her book of nonfi ction, ‘‘Dear Memory: Letters on Writing,
Silence and Grief,’’ was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in Antioch
University’s M.F.A. program. Wang Yin is a Chinese poet, journalist and photographer whose work includes
‘‘Ghosts City Sea’’ (published by Seaweed Salad Editions by arrangement with Yilin Press, 2021), from which this
poem is taken, and the forthcoming ‘‘A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts’’ (New York Review Books, 2022).Th is poem (in translation) by Wang Yin, a Chinese poet based in Shanghai, aptly captures
the slipperiness of time, memory and dreams. It reminds me that one of the things I
love about poetry is its ability to operate outside of time, or even to subvert time. Line
breaks can expand meaning, too (even in translation): Th e word ‘‘core,’’ the phrase ‘‘core
revolution’’ and the noun ‘‘revolution’’ are all possibilities because of one simple break
after the word ‘‘core.’’ Th ere is a cagey metaphor in the fi nal lines of this poem that is
making a comment on our fi ckle times, and even the stars are not unifi ed in their beliefs.Poem Selected by Victoria ChangAt Last There Is Yesterday
By Wang Yin, translated by Andrea Lingenfelterat last there is yesterday
at last there is fury
dreams now have a core
revolution resembles something like normal life at last
this day and last night are buried together entwined at lastyouth gone from this world
the very idea of youth gone from this world
the horn of the storm looks like a tilted cup
evening’s mirror no longer sketches me as a ghost
a world washed clean is useless to me
silent stones, my teachers
those gentle talents
who comply with the fate arranged for them
bowing to this angry prophecy
setting out on a journey they will never completeI, we, this mutable era of ours
each star follows its own god
as it turns its headScreenland