This morning the acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Ken Cuccinelliannounced the White House plan for further mistreatment of those most in need. Setting aside all the controversy over terms like “illegals” and “undocumented,” the fantasy of invading hordes of migrants as rapist and killers at every border crossing; children are figuratively and now literally in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. If circumstances dictate your homelessness, your chances of bettering yourself are based on a few essentials, being fed enough, to be healthy enough, to seek employment, which leads to self-sufficiency.
Mr. Cuccinelli made it clear that the obtaining of Green Cards are now dependent upon a new policy that counts the receiving of General Assistance, Supplemental Income, Nutritional Assistance (food stamps) Medicaid (state-sponsored health care) and Subsidized Housing as negative factors for consideration. Quoting the acting Director, “a poor person can be prepared to be self-sufficient; many have been through the history of this country…” The new policy does not sound outrageous, on its’ face, except the administration is talking about legal immigrants. The constant dehumanizing of brown and black immigrants, the recent shooting in El Paso, and today taking an implied aim at brown immigrants, making it more difficult for even legal applicants of color to help themselves is obvious and cruel.
Last week when I saw the President’s wife hold an orphaned baby, that arguably could be the result of his [Trump] divisive language, like a trophy, while giving a thumbs up to his White Supremacist followers was sickening. My uncle has a phrase he uses to point out the absurdity of the obvious, “as quiet as it is kept.” In this case, as quiet as it is kept, the Trump administration cannot make it any clearer that people of color are not welcomed in his America. He does not want the SOBs, the descendants or current residents of S***Hole countries, and as far as he and his followers are concerned, “send her back.”
The Republican Party has played with the lives of immigrants for years as a wedge issue to literally, scare up, their base vote. A vote was taken in 2013 that passed through the Senate as the first step toward “comprehensive” immigration reform. It was killed by the then Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Yet the media purports that both sides are at an impasse. The same thing is happening now with gun registration laws. The Democratic House passed in February a background check gun law only to be stymied by Mitch McConnell in the Republican-controlled Senate. The connection between these two issues is that despite the stories about gridlock; that is not the problem, it is really the intractable attitudes of Republicans. Their shrinking voter base needs volatility to create sufficient fear to drive their voters to the ballot box.
So, conservatives started with an imaginary wall paid for by Mexico and terrorizing undocumented children and immigrant families. They moved to dehumanizing migrants, making it palatable for murderers to shoot down children at churches and a Walmart. The next step in the progression has come, moves to restrict legal immigrants; the same groups the conservatives have told us, are having their place taken in line, by those seeking to break the law and come here illegally.
Vote in 2020 for Change.
