Anti-Immigration Venom

 Anti-Immigration Venom

Recent articles in Politico and Reuters reported on two stories that thoughtful Americans should find disturbing.  The Sept. 22 Politico piece highlights the impact of a proposed new rule posted at the Department of Homeland Security that would, if enacted, deny legal immigrants “lawful permanent residency” if they have received certain governmental benefits, or, in a truly Orwellian phrase, “if the government anticipates that they may do so in the future.”  Earmarked programs include food stamps, TANF, Medicaid, Medicare Part D and Housing 8 vouchers. 

 DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen justified the proposed changes as a means of enforcing laws that “promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers.”  Critics argue that such a policy will force economically marginalized people to make hard choices between obtaining essential health and nutritional services for themselves and their families and sacrificing the prospect of gaining permanent residency.  They further charge that as anxiety is heightened among legal immigrants in response to this proposed change, the wealthiest 1% have been treated with a substantial national debt-inducing tax benefit that then creates the vicious cycle justifying cuts in programs aimed to assist the economically insecure.  Meanwhile, the Trump administration promises additional tax breaks to the wealthy that will invariably come at the expense to the rest of us, especially to the poor.

 On a related note, a Reuters article of Sept. 17 notes that the U.S. government plans to limit the numbers of refugees entering the country to a paltry 30,000 cap compared to the 45,000-limit set for this current year, a number that many view as anemic given the severity of the world-wide refugee crisis aggravated by the deadly civil war in Syria and endemic crime and violence in several Latin American countries. The Reuters article noted that the 45,000 cap, the lowest number since 1980 when the modern refugee program began, masks the more disturbing reality that the U.S. is on track for allowing no more than 22,000 refugees to enter the U.S. this year. As reported in a Sept 24 Daily Beast article, prior to 2018, the average annual ceiling placed from 1980 on for refugees was 98,000 annually, and 110,000 for 2017.

 The administration makes some valid points in their preference for supporting initiatives that would settle refugees closer to their home countries.  To effectively execute such a policy would require a commitment of national resources to strengthen regional and international alliances and coalitions with other governments, agencies, and organizations designed to address the needs of refugees.  It would also require longer-term resolutions of complex problems that compel people to leave their homelands through perilous, death-threatening journeys.  The administration’s call for the European countries to establish strict anti-refugee policies and the president’s referral of immigrants coming to the U.S. from certain regions of the world in highly disparaging terms, demonstrate the lack of seriousness in its effort to seek comprehensive approaches to the complexities of issues underlying contemporary migration.  The recent, now partially rescinded, family separation policy of the Trump administration deliberately intended to stoke the anti-refugee climate in the U.S. is only the latest example of a deep-rooted fear of the alien other so endemic to the history of the U.S.  The irony of this should not be lost for a nation built so deeply on the immigrant experience of people coming to this country from many lands for a wide variety of reasons. 

 Developing a viable U. S. immigration policy is a complex issue that requires a thoughtful multi-pronged approach, one that resonates with the nation’s history, its political and cultural values, its resources as well as its limitations.  It calls for long-termed and bi-partisan solutions that can be implemented from administration to administration over sustained periods of time.  I do not believe that such an effort reflects the intentions of the Trump administration, which, as far as I can tell, is intentionally grounded in some of this nation’s most virulent anti-immigration rhetoric.

2018


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