John Oliver had a good piece on immigration last week, showing just how difficult it is to get into this country legally, despite Trump's constant moaning that everyone and his mother can come to America. The waiting list is so long that Mexican families have to wait as much as 22 years to get their applications reviewed for reunification, and you wonder why so many come across the border illegally.
The irony is that our country was founded on immigration and continues to prosper because of immigration. It's not just agriculture and the tech industry that benefit, but just about all our industries. This is why Andrew Yang actively promotes immigration, pointing to his own story as a positive example.
Trump would have us believe that immigration is bad despite his mother and two wives being immigrants. In fact, his current wife and her parents represent a perfect example of "chain migration," which he deplores. Melania invited her parents to come to America and be citizens in a much shorter span of time than the average Mexican family.
Republicans are very selective in their view of immigration. They want to change the flow of immigration to include more Europeans and less persons of color. They have seen how the demographics of the country has changed considerably over the years and would like to "whiten" America. Of course, they will never admit this, but that is clearly the immigration policy we see emerging from the Trump White House.
This was made brutally clear when many Black Bahamians were denied entry into the country after their island nation was ravaged by Hurricane Dorian. White Bahamians good, Black Bahamians bad, as Trump stressed at his helicopter press conference.
More upsetting was the way Trump and many conservatives treated Puerto Ricans as third-world inhabitants after the devastating Hurricane Maria, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are all American citizens. Funding still drags for relief efforts two years after the deadly storm.
There was a time Republicans were hoping to reach out to Hispanics and other persons of color in an effort to diversify their party, but that effort ended with Trump. Now, all you see are cynical placards held up at Trump rallies, no doubt supplied by rally organizers. If Trump had any real interest in wooing Hispanic voters, he would have pushed for stronger gun laws following the shooting in El Paso, instead of squashing efforts at a bipartisan bill in Congress after the NRA reminded him which side of his bread is buttered on. Or, revoke his heinous border policy in regard to asylum seekers.
Trump has managed to convince a third or more of the American population that immigrants of color are bad for the country, and that we should make every effort to keep them out. This has extended to the conservative media, where pundits like Tomi Lahren audaciously suggested Americans may need to shoot immigrants on Fox's Varney & Co. Trump and the conservative media have gone out of their way to portray non-white immigrants as potential killers and rapists, regardless of their legal status.
Sadly, this is a recurring theme in American society stretching back to the mid-19th century when immigration laws were first put in place. At that time, the biggest fear were Germans and other potential rebel rousers spreading socialism in this country. We seem to have gotten over our aversion to Central and Eastern Europeans, and now cast our scorn on Latinos and Muslims.
Immigrants have had to fight for their place in this country, despite the fact that any economic study shows they greatly help to expand the economy with their hard work and business acumen. We have also benefited incredibly from foreign born scientists, musicians, artists and entertainers over the years, enriching our society beyond measure.
For whatever odd reason, many politicians choose to deny all this, focusing exclusively on negative impacts, without providing any credible evidence to support their arguments. Their biggest worry appears to be that of demographics. One day soon whites will cease to be the absolute majority in this country. Their perceived special privileges will be lost. Many even fear their religion will be lost despite Muslims barely making up one percent of the American population, most of them American converts. It's these groundless fears that led to rise of the Tea Party and in turn Donald Trump.
It wold be nice to think we could get past these fears in the next election.
Comments
Post a Comment