gracchusdixit

For the first time in his tumultuous presidency, Donald Trump has faced a level of resistance and public furor that has forced him, if not to back down, then at least to backtrack.  Until now, he has nimbly sidestepped each of his many atrocities by deflecting and distracting public attention.  Not this time.  His decision to impose “zero tolerance” on would-be immigrants and asylum seekers, thereby criminalizing and forcibly separating parents from their guiltless children, seems to have crossed an emotional and political Rubicon. This decision ignited an uproar, as the images and sounds of weeping, terrified children filled television screens in homes all across the land.  When the mounting indignation finally became too thunderous to ignore, Trump reluctantly signed an “executive order”—in reality, an empty memorandum—supposedly designed to bring the policy to an end.  Whether it will actually do so is questionable at best.  Partly for legal reasons and partly because the Trump administration is almost incomprehensibly incompetent, it may be utterly unable to implement a change of course that it never contemplated, let alone planned for.

Added to all this is the unremitting duplicity of Trump himself.  In the few days that have elapsed since he reluctantly signed his “executive order,” Trump has done nothing but defend the original policy that order is supposed to stop.  In a campaign-style rally in Michigan, he railed against the criminality of immigrants.  In a speech to an organization representing small businesses, he proclaimed:  “Democrats are the problem.  They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our country, like Ms-13.”  A mere 48 hours ago, he hosted a gathering of so-called “Angel Families” at the White House, during which he claimed that 63,000 Americans have been murdered by undocumented immigrants since the attack on the World Trade Center—a claim that is total rubbish.  And now, he is “doubling down,” by proposing to turn away immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees without due process or judicial review, a proposal that is almost certainly illegal and unconstitutional.

Trump has used various arguments to justify his animus toward immigrants.  The most infamous is the charge that they are “criminals and rapists” and a threat to the security of American citizens, a claim that launched his presidential campaign two years ago.  There is no evidence whatsoever to support this charge, and it would be laughable if it weren’t coming from the President of the United States.  

Another of his arguments is that lax immigration policies are responsible for an epidemic of violence perpetrated by the street gang, MS-13. As violent as this gang undoubtedly is, its activities don’t come close to being an epidemic, and its existence has nothing whatever to do with immigration.  On the contrary, MS-13 originated in Los Angeles and exported its activities from the United States to Central America—not vice versa.  

Trump also contends that immigrants and refugees cost us “billions,” draining jobs and resources from American citizens.  There are no facts to support this calumny.  On the contrary, every bit of credible evidence indicates that immigrants and refugees make a substantial net contribution to our economy.

Finally, there is Trump’s claim that “without strong borders, we don’t have a country,” an assertion that is impossible to square with the actual history of our country.  Between 1850 (the first year we began collecting immigration statistics) and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, more than 30 million European immigrants poured into this country with next-to-no regulation or control.  For three quarters of a century, we had, in effect, no borders at all.  And what happened?  The population of white Protestants already in place predictably howled at the prospect of losing their privileged status, as millions of German, Irish, and Italian Catholics landed on our shores.  In the end, however, the country not only survived this influx of new Americans, it thrived.  It turned out that we didn’t need “strong borders” to have a strong country.  Open borders made us stronger than we could ever have imagined.

Let us therefore be clear.  Donald Trump’s vicious attack against immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees has nothing to do with protecting us against crime, bolstering our economy, or making our country stronger.  It is not even an expression of simple, old-fashioned prejudice.  It is a deliberate attempt to rid our country of people whom he and his minions—Attorney General Jeff Sessions and speechwriter Stephen Miller foremost among them—deem to be, not merely inferior, but subhuman.  The targets of this attack include all who are black or brown rather than white, Muslim rather than Christian, Hispanic, Asian, or African rather than European.   Trump made his agenda all too plain when he railed against immigrants from “shit hole” countries and proposed that we need more immigrants from “Norway”.   He and his gang of thugs are far worse than bigots, racists, and bullies.  They are intent on nothing less than an utterly evil act of ethnic cleansing.