Immigration is a toxic issue defining US elections. In Arizona, debate is deadly | US elections 2024

Iin a nondescript parking lot in Tucson, Arizona, toxic immigration policies are pervasive. I'm here for the start of the Republican car rally, where 100 vehicles dressed in right-wing regalia gathered in the dry heat in the southern part of the state, about 60 miles from the Mexican border. Trump, who began his political career in 2015 by describing Mexican immigrants as “bringing drugs.” They bring crime. They are rapists” – the discourse has since sunk even deeper. From blatant lies about the consumption of pets in Springfield, Ohio, to waving thousands of signs reading “Mass Deportation Now!” by the Republican convention earlier this year, any diverse leadership on the right had been largely replaced by a disturbing lust for cruelty.

The drivers include Trump supporter Lupe Hernandez, a Mexican American who says she came to the United States on a visa in November 1963. John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But he has cousins, nephews and nieces who came to the United States without papers decades ago. They are all good, hard-working people, he says. I ask what she thinks about Trump's plans for mass deportations, given that it could mean that these members of her family would become targets for forced removal. He is happy about this, he says: “They can be deported, but they can apply to return.”

It's a striking reminder of how entrenched Trump's extremism has become — and a stark contrast to the era in which Hernandez arrived, shortly after Kennedy called for a “Nation of Immigrants.” Polls now suggest a majority of Americans favor brutal repression – in some cases apparently at the expense of their own relatives. The dark political strategy of blaming immigrants for almost all U.S. failures – from housing shortages to natural disaster responses – is now so pervasive that it is easy to disconnect from reality.

Throughout Trump's first term, I witnessed what these mass roundups actually look like, from the depravity of child separation at the southern border, to sitting in Texas courtrooms watching parents beg to be reunited with their young children, to the secret overcrowded detention centers full of rights violations and suffering. A second Trump term would be even harsher.

Shortly before a car rally takes to the streets, I ask people whether such measures can be used without intentional harm. Most people seem uninterested. “I don't know (how),” says one of the women. “But I'm sure Trump can do it.”

TThe next day I hitchhike to the Sonoran Desert, about 30 km from Mexico, with the Humane Borders group. It is a non-profit organization that hands out blue barrels of water to passing migrants and has recorded over 4,000 deaths here since 2000. The risk of crossing the border has increased in recent years, with routes becoming longer and more dangerous.

We wander several hundred meters on the sand as the sun beats down and the temperature exceeds 37°C (100°F). I trip over a bush that has thorns digging into my feet through my sneakers. With blood leaking out, the prospect of a five-day journey seems unimaginable.

Although the number of border crossings dropped significantly this year, they reached a record high in late 2023, explains a complex web of changes in global migration patterns, the eventual rollback of Trump-era restrictions and more family groups making the journey from Central America.

Joel Smith, my guide and volunteer with Human Borders, points out the bullet holes in the water barrel we came to check, which had been plugged with glue. Smith's lifesaving water stations are often targeted by right-wing militants drunk on QAnon conspiracy theories that falsely claim the desert is home to sex camps for migrant children. He deflects the threat with admirable nonchalance.

Smith has maintained these stations for decades and points to bipartisan failures in Washington to address what he describes as a humanitarian crisis. Congress has passed no significant immigration reform since the 1980s. “It doesn't matter whether we're talking about Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump or Joe Biden. Everything is the same,” he says. “Death is politics.”

Tucson itself is home to one of the most competitive congressional races in the country. Incumbent Republican Juan Ciscomani comes face to face with Democrat Kirsten Engel, whom I meet one morning before the sun begins to beat down.

Engel is a progressive activist for climate science, ending Arizona's abortion ban and increasing access to health care. When she ran for the same seat two years ago, she also wanted to push back against the right's characterization of the border, denouncing portrayals of “this out-of-control place where… criminals flock to our country.”

While her criticisms remain valid two years later, she is reluctant to repeat them now. Like many other Democrats, including Kamala Harris, Engel currently supports the bipartisan border bill, which includes a number of pragmatic solutions to fix the country's broken immigration apparatus but also measures to appease hard-line conservatives, including $650 million (£496 million) for further Trump's border wall. (In a display of nihilistic cynicism, Trump broke the deal earlier this year to score points in the election).

There are elements of this compromise – such as funding the border wall and ultimately withholding asylum rights – that would have been beyond progressives' reach eight years ago. I wonder if Engel fears Trump is influencing her own party to shift to the right.

He candidly admits that the former president was part of the influence that took the country far beyond the borders of the European Union with the promises made decades ago by JFK in favor of fair, flexible and generous immigration. “The United States has always been a beacon of hope,” he says. “We want to stay that way. But we also need to have an orderly process.”