Anyone who believed the Donald Trump who said he loves the “Dreamers” is in for a surprise. Trump won’t extend the DACA deadline.
This is the man who started this mess in the first place. This is the man who held “Dreamers” hostage to get support for his take-it-or-leave-it white supremacist immigration policy, including the wall that Mexico was supposedly going to pay for.
Today, he called for a government shutdown unless he gets his stupid wall.
If Congress fails to find a solution, (and that is likely) this means 800,000 people who were brought here as children, will be vulnerable to deportation proceedings and all the charm that ICE brings to the table.
If Trump doesn’t get what he wants exactly the way he wants it he wants a government shutdown. So aside from treating Dreamers like human shields, in the sense that their lives are in the balance, Trump is weaponizing the government shutdown.
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And if a solution isn’t found for Dreamers, which is more likely now, they will be vulnerable to arrest by ICE and deportation. If deported that means they have no hope of returning for 10 years, under current law.
I continue to read about ICE arrests, and the depraved indifference ICE has toward immigrants. It’s a story of ICE “protecting us” from Chemistry professors by arresting them on their front lawn.
The inherent injustice is magnified when one considers that white supremacists roam free, increasing the frequency they kill and maim people. Hate crimes have increased for the second year in a row, coinciding with Trump’s campaign, election win and his presidency.
It’s a story of ICE treating immigrants, in the words of one, “like animals” and immigrants are portrayed by Trump and friends as criminals, killers, rapists and drug dealers.
All the while, Trump calls the worst of the worst in America as “very fine people.”
It’s a story where the moral basis of immigration policy is under attack by people who, at best, look at immigration’s purely in terms of their benefit to the economy, while overlooking values on immigration inherent in the religion they say they believe in.
Deuteronomy 24:17, 10-21 tells us we shouldn’t deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice.
There are also other passages that refer to the morality of accepting immigrants on the United Church’s website.
The Lutheran Church goes on to say, as a matter of biblical interpretation, there is a moral basis to welcome immigrants and “with a commitment to justice that advocates for fair and generous laws.”
There is no justice in sending to a foreign country 800,000 people who were brought here as toddlers by their parents and are as American as anyone who was born here, or who adopted America as many of us, including the current First Lady, did.
The very reason DACA came to be is because “Dreamers” fall through the cracks in immigration law. Because they arrived as children, they didn’t break the law, simply because toddlers are too young to understand the law and they are too young to form an intent to break it.
Trump broke our promise to Dreamers and with it, he shattered a trust between the United States and immigrants, regardless of when they came or the legal basis on which they came.
Most of America gets it. Most of America recognizes that Dreamers are American in the ways that matter most.
Most of America recognizes that with the exception of Native Americans, we either are immigrants or descendants of immigrants and that immigration here is predominantly based on moral values than on economics.
However, Republicans have framed immigration policy purely in terms of race and of economics. The combination of their hostility toward Dreamers and Trump’s public statements leaves nothing to the imagination. Republicans want a whiter America, and for good measure, immigrants are seen as cogs in the economy instead of human beings. Their definition of what “contributing to the economy” means is limited to who will bring money here and create jobs for Americans.
The objection is with portraying all immigrants as criminals and using that distorted perception as a basis to dehumanize immigrants, establish an unfair and stingy immigration policy and satisfy Trump’s obsession with a wall.
Trump has, in practical terms, called for purging Dreamers and closing the door to people who face persecution in their country of origin. It’s the sort of mentality that defies anything resembling a policy that is fair or generous.
Former contributor.
