On Immigration: The Fear and Loathing Takes Its Toll

Is this really the way we're going on immigration? Are we really going to base our policies on xenophobia, intolerance, ignorance and hatred?  Is the nation that is utterly defined by the immigrant experience going to follow someone who brings out the very worst in us?

Because what Donald Trump has said about immigrants, from the time he began running for President in 2015, is absolutely vile. And yet people cheer his hatred and threaten people who are here under the law. Instead of trying to fix the problem, he has stoked it and demanded that Republicans in Congress vote against an immigration bill that they helped negotiate, because it would hurt...Donald Trump. 

What's worse is that here we have a candidate for president of the United States who has demonized and victimized people who are here legally. He has created a climate of fear in Ohio and Colorado so extreme that Haitian immigrants, who have done nothing except work hard, educate their children and contribute to their community, fear going outside or socializing with their neighbors. 

This is someone who wants to be president again. It's outrageous. And unbelievable. Unconscionable. But people support it. And believe his wild tales.

Even more, I've seen posts on social media that ask why we don't spend more money and resources on American citizens. Why are we giving money to immigrants and foreign governments when we should be keeping that money here in the US. 

You want to know why? Because Republicans have voted down most bills that would provide more money and support for Americans. Republicans have opposed every bill having to do with providing health care, child care, parental leave, raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicare and Medicaid.

 Opposed. Every. One.

That's why many Americans are falling behind. It's not that we give an inordinate amount of money to immigrants, it's that we don't have programs that support our citizens. And it's the Republicans who are responsible for this denial of help.

But who is stoking the fires of inequality? Who is telling people that immigrants are a threat? The very same Republicans who are voting against every law that would help, including an immigration bill negotiated by conservatives and liberals alike that would begin to address the border. Why? Because Donaled Trump believed the bill would be bad for his campaign. Never mind that the bill would go a long way towards helping the situation at the border. Helping Americans is not Donald Trump's concern. The bill would be bad for him. So he told Republicans, even those legislators who agreed to the negotiations, to vote against it. And they did. 

Oh, the humiliation.

The problem is not immigrants. These are people who want to escape violence, have a well-founded fear that their political views will get them jailed or killed, or who live in countries where they belong to the wrong social, ethnic or religious group. 

The problem is the victimization of people the Republicans have deemed as not worthy of becoming Americans. It's also the stoking of hatred against any group of people for political gain. And the man who has no trouble with that hatred, the man actually leading the charge, wants to be president again.

Madness.