"Well, I think we need to have attrition by enforcement. We need to secure our borders. We need to enforce our laws"
About this Quote
"Attrition by enforcement" is the kind of bureaucratic phrase that pretends to be neutral while smuggling in a hard-edged moral project. Allen West frames immigration not as a human phenomenon to be managed, but as a problem to be worn down. Attrition is what you do to an enemy: you squeeze, exhaust, and wait for collapse. Tacking on "by enforcement" gives it a civic varnish, as if the cruelty is simply the byproduct of rule-following rather than the point.
The repetition does the political work. "We need" lands like a drumbeat, converting a contested agenda into a communal necessity. "Secure our borders" invokes the language of defense and sovereignty, importing the emotional logic of wartime into domestic policy. Then "enforce our laws" functions as a rhetorical trap: disagreeing can be cast as being anti-law, even if the real debate is about which laws, how they're applied, and to whom.
Context matters: this line sits in a post-9/11, post-2008 conservative climate where immigration is frequently braided with fears about security, cultural change, and economic competition. West's intent is to shift the argument away from reform or integration and toward pressure and deterrence. The subtext is that the goal isn't only stopping new arrivals; it's making daily life precarious enough for existing undocumented people to self-deport. It sells a punitive strategy as housekeeping, and counts on the audience to hear "law" and stop thinking about lives.
The repetition does the political work. "We need" lands like a drumbeat, converting a contested agenda into a communal necessity. "Secure our borders" invokes the language of defense and sovereignty, importing the emotional logic of wartime into domestic policy. Then "enforce our laws" functions as a rhetorical trap: disagreeing can be cast as being anti-law, even if the real debate is about which laws, how they're applied, and to whom.
Context matters: this line sits in a post-9/11, post-2008 conservative climate where immigration is frequently braided with fears about security, cultural change, and economic competition. West's intent is to shift the argument away from reform or integration and toward pressure and deterrence. The subtext is that the goal isn't only stopping new arrivals; it's making daily life precarious enough for existing undocumented people to self-deport. It sells a punitive strategy as housekeeping, and counts on the audience to hear "law" and stop thinking about lives.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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