If there was any doubt as to what Trump’s immigration policy was it was dispelled this week. In two separate statements he once again made it quite clear, as Jay H. Ell has said again and again that Make America Great Again is code for Make America White Again. As a backdrop to the current debate on immigration he asked “Why can’t we have more immigrants from Norway rather than the “shithole” countries Haiti and those in Africa”. (The same sentiments are conveyed whether it was “tough talk” or whether he mouthed “shithouse” instead).
While even by his standards this outburst was unsubtle and crude beyond comprehension it is merely a perpetuation of the only consistent stream of consciousness exhibited by Trump since he started out some years ago with his disgusting “birther campaign” against America’s first President of color, Barack Obama. (As an aside the apoiltical national newspaper, The USA, after he had all but called Senator Kristen Gillibrand a whore, editorialized that he was unfit to clean President Obama’s toilets). Trump’s well known record of attacking racial minorities needs no repeating, one just has to visualize him descending the escalator screaming obscenities against the Mexicans.
The irony however, is, even if the Republican Party remained in the gutter with him and did not legislatively stop him in his racist campaign there is no way Trump can turn back the clock or buck reality on the changing racial composition of America. The American white, predominantly Anglo Saxon, majority is destined to cease in the middle of the twenty - first Century. Trump’s futile cruel campaign shows a lack of understanding of the motivating factors as to why people immigrate and the impact his policies will have on the American economy.
Ironically, on Martin Luther King Day, where Trump issued a proclamation honoring the Civil Rights champion, he threatened to expel nearly a million Latinos who were brought into America as children and know no other home. In so doing he would be guilty of a gross betrayal of faith as these “illegals” were promised sanctuary if they subjected themselves to background checks by the American Administration under Obama. Now the “least racist” President America has ever seen is going to drive out innocent members of an ethnic group that he had previosly labelled as being predominantly murderers, rapists and drug dealers. This action threatens to create civic unrest.
BACKGROUND TO THE RISE OF TRUMP’S RACIST POLICIES
As the changing American demographics became more and more apparent, with forecasts that the traditional white American majority would no longer exist by 2050 and following Romney’s defeat against Obama, the Republican Party commissioned an autopsy report arising from their “Growth and Opportunity “ Project. The ninety - seven page despatch focussed on, inter alia, the GOP’s alienation of minorities, the favoring of the rich over the workers and its ideological rigidity. It is fair to say that this had been commissioned by the Republican Establishment by the then Chairman of the Republican National Committee, (RNC), Reince Priebus without taking other right wing party factions into account. There was a resolve, however by the RNC to follow through on the recommendations to correct the Party’s deficiencies, specifically by being more accommodating to minorities.
Contemporaneously the Conservative movement was growing and the National Committee’s approach did not take into account their agenda. More significantly a Leninist anarchist figure named Stephen Bannon emerged as a factor on the national scene. The latter was backed by billionaires and seemed to have a lock on the alt right through his news outlet Breitbart. He was made campaign manager of the Trump campaign and till fired was the Chief Presidential Advisor. Bannon more than anyone saw the danger of the loss of America to the blacks and the browns. Interestingly his first major disciple was Jeff Sessons, the current Attorney General, who was the only important Republican figure to back Trump from the get go. While Trump has abandoned nearly all of Bannon’s populism the immigration policy still remains.
The plan to fight the inevitable was simple - change the immigration policies thereby limiting the new immigrants to the “right sort” and throw out as many of the “wrong sort” that were currently in America - you know the “murderers, rapists and drug dealers”.
DEMOGRAPHIC MAKE UP OF AMERICA AND IMMIGRANTS TO AMERICA SINCE 20th CENTURY
Currently forty - two percent of Americans, (thirteen percent of the population), are foreign born of which eighteen million are naturalized citizens and another thirteen million are documented. This leaves eleven million “illegal” or undocumented. There are also a number of very vulnerable “protected” groups that have recently been in the news since Trump served notice that he is going deport them.
Between 1986 and 2012, three hundred and eighty - three thousand immigrants came from the UK, sixty - nine thousand from Italy with a lesser amount from France, a hundred thousand or so Israelis made aliyah to the USA, the Netherlands thirty - five thousand and Australia about twelve thousand. That adds up to less than a million probable white souls, with none from Norway, out of a total of over twenty - six million total immigrants for that period - that is less than four percent.
The fact that the white Western Europeans are still shunning America is reflected in the latest statistics. Of the approximately one million immigrants to America in 2015 less than nine percent came from Europe. Most of those came from Eastern Europe and not from the traditional white Western countries that originally settled the country. Forty percent came from each of the Americas and Asia while about ten percent were originally domiciled in Africa. Happily for Trump about five percent came from Australia and Oceania. These figures more or less reflect the sixteen year period from 1986 - 2012.
So when Trump harks back to the good old days he is really talking about the seventeenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then it has been down hill for Western European immigration. There were attempts to restrict the unfavorable sort of whites from Russia, following the Bolshevik revolution - mainly Jews. So there has been no large white pool that has entered America for over a hundred years.
Now there has to be a reason why since about 1910 nice white Western European immigrants are not flocking here in there hordes and battalions.
WHICH PEOPLE IMMIGRATE?
Study after study shows that immigration, whatever the circumstances, causes major stress. Mass immigration occurs when there are highly aggravating circumstances such as civil or natural disasters. It would appear that no catastrophe occurred in Western Europe, after the beginning of the twentieth century that warranted a mass exodus toAmerica. Not even after the First World War were circumstances deemed so bad as to rush across the pond. Following the Second World War the Brits in particular chose Canada and Australia. There was a bump in Eastern European immigration after the breaking down of the Iron Curtain. But that is it for the European whites en masse since the turn of the twentieth century.
In addition to those under life threatening duress there are a relatively small number of individuals who are so well qualified that they can advance academically or commercially in the rich, resource laden and powerful country that America is, that emigrate. It requires guts and courage to make the move. If the situation is “normal” back home there have to be very powerful motivating factors to take the plunge. To leave family, friends and familiar surroundings is a wrench. Your immigrant thus is a unique individual whatever the circumstances. (This has to be a major factor in America’s success).
America has benefited from all immigrants but the emphasis has been on the disadvantaged as Emma Lazarus summed up in her poem which was immortalized on the Statue of Liberty:
“Give me your tired your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest - loss to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door”.
So other than the desperate browns and blacks and those few who are in a position to advance their horizons where is the pool of “good old white boys” Trump imagines can’t wait to be part of Trumpism? Unless there is another potato famine in Ireland or the like, the POTUS has to work the other end of the equation to keep America white by removing the non whites from the continent. The obvious target is the eleven million illegals - something he promised time and again on the campaign.
WHAT TRUMP CAN DO TO EFFECT HIS POLICY AND ITS IMPACT
The President has two strings to his bow, change the current immigration policy and throw anyone he can out. The former requires Congress and is relatively complex while the latter has some low hanging fruit allowing him to produce results with Executive Orders. The reason those “immigrants” are “protected” and “temporarily” are here is as a result of a “disaster”at home or factors beyond their control. They are identifiable as they are registered with the administration. This vulnerable faction include a group of eight hundred thousand Latinos, who were brought into this country illegally, as children, by their parents. They were granted a form of amnesty by President Obama on condition they came forward and registered themselves. The program that granted their status was entitled Deferred Action For Children Arrivals or DACA. Another registered group and easy to victimize are two hundred thousand El Salvadorians who have been in America for two decades and are fully integrated into the economy. They have been eighteen months to leave. The next “protected status” bracket to be given the heave ho are the Haitian refugees who were rendered homeless and were victims of devastating earthquakes. Added to this lot are fifty - seven thousand Hondurans and two thousand Nicaraguans.
Most of this approximately one million Latin American population have been in the country for years and are well integrated into America’s social and economic life. The entity that is going to be the biggest political issue for Trump are the children of DACA who know no other country than America. Expelling them is reminiscent of the South African apartheid policy of sending Africans back to their “homelands” most of whom had never ever been there. Eighty percent of Americans are against expelling this group and the Democrats will go fill tilt to protect them even to the extent of shutting down the Government.
If Trump goes ahead with the DACA expulsion there will be a crisis in the country not seen since the Vietnam war. All the major cities in the country have declared themselves “sanctuary cities” vowing to protect these citizens. Tom Cook of Apple as well as other major companies have announced that the Immigration authorities will have to come into their campuses to fetch DACA victims. Churches have echoed this cry. The protests will be humongous and this will make the stand off at WACO look like a Sunday picnic. Trump’s problem is that he has been all over the show on the subject and his latest attitude is one of defiance. He is putting himself in a position where it is difficult to back down.
An attempt to expel all eleven million “illegals” will have such devastating, economic, social and political consequences that it is not being seriously contemplated at the moment. If The Donald was determined his Justice Department would be prosecuting the employers of “illegals” with a vengeance. Trump with Sessons, who is fulfilling a life long ambition on immigration policy, will just conduct random cruel raids, concentrating on easy to find undocumented workers or weak companies such as Seven - Elevens.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Once again the Republicans in the legislature are on trial. How much longer are they going to enable this man who opposes every value they purportedly represent? In addition are they going to take away his ability to unleash a pre emptive nuclear strike as well as his “power” to end the Mueller investigation?
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
It has to say something about how grotesquely dysfunctional a Presidency is when the established fact that two women he had affairs with were bought off with payments of six figures to shut up, is hardly news.
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