by Stephen Lendman
Global Research
Earlier he banned travel to America from targeted countries, majority Muslim ones plus North Korea and Venezuelan officials.
He absurdly claims America is the only country, putting “the needs of other nations ahead of our own” when it comes to immigration.
He named three core principles of “immigration reform” as follows:
“1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.”
“2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our constitutional system of government must be enforced.”
“3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.”
Fact: Fortress Israel revealed the delusion of great wall protection. Trump’s proposed wall along America’s southern border won’t stem the immigration tide.
It’ll be breached, tunneled under, or gone around by water or air to reach America. The only conceivable way to keep out unwanted immigrants is by walling-in the entire country and putting an impenetrable roof over it. Even that wouldn’t likely work. Trump’s scheme is hugely ill-conceived.
Fact: America is a nation of men and women in high places, not laws, routinely ignored and disobeyed.
Fact: Washington serves its privileged class exclusively, no matter which right-wing branch of government controls things, acting unacceptably harshly against its most disadvantaged.
Fact: Immigration is unrelated to jobs and security, related to wages for failing to enact a minimum livable one, undocumented immigrants a rich source of near-slave labor.
Fact: Trump’s immigration plan has nothing to do with putting US workers first. Helping them requires halting the free-flow of good, high-paying jobs to low-wage countries and re-industrializing America. No plans for either.
Fact: His immigration plan is more about further militarizing America than enacting responsible policies. Polar opposite what he proposed is needed, stressing fairness.
Besides his oppressive border wall, he wants an additional 370 immigration judges, a thousand more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorneys, 10,000 more ICE officers (an immigration Gestapo), and 300 more federal prosecutors exclusively for immigration cases.
He wants more including:
1. deporting undocumented children and relatives;
2. stricter standards for individuals requesting asylum or refugee status;
3. expediting the deportation process;
4. making sanctuary cities ineligible for federal funding;
5. ending visa overstays;
6. ending catch and release;
7. deporting so-called “gang members,” targeting refugees, asylum seekers and other unwanted immigrants – wanting them removed even for minor offenses too insignificant to matter, responsibility to prove innocence on them;
8. stiffening E-Verify vetting;
9. limiting green cards for spouses and minor children of legal immigrants;
10. establishing a point-based system for awarding green cards;
11. eliminating the “Diversity Visa” lottery, awarding 50,000 green cards randomly to foreign nationals; and
12. limiting the number of refugees and asylum seekers to an undefined “appropriate level.”
Trump is open to deal-making with undemocratic Dems on so-called Dreamers – undocumented immigrants entering America before age-16 prior to June 2007.
Constitutional due process and equal protection under the law apply to every individual in America, regardless of immigration status.
Bush/Cheney changed the rules, breaking the law. Obama worsened things, earning himself the dubious nickname of “Deporter-in-Chief.”
Trump aims to outdo the deplorable agenda of his predecessors, circumventing constitutional law, treating undocumented immigrants like criminal aliens – his scheme unrelated to job creation and economic growth, targeting immigrants of color, no wall or harsh policies planned along the Canadian border.
In early October, the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of Dreamers and the Inland Empire – Immigrant Youth Collective, a grassroots southern California immigrant youth organization.
According to the ACLU, its “lawsuit seeks to hold the administration to the promises it made and ensure that DACA provides protection from deportation for however long the program exists.”
In April, Trump said Dreamers “should rest easy… We are not after (them). We are after the criminals.”
Asked if he’ll let Dreamers stay, he said:
“Yes. Yes. That’s our policy. I am not saying… longterm. We are going to have to fix the problem.”
Trump lied. In September, he said he’d end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in six months, affecting nearly a million immigrant children and youths.
Many face deportation back to the home country of their parents even though America is the only nation they know.
The ACLU stressed no one should “be stripped of a benefit as important as DACA without basic due process protections.”
“The Trump administration’s arbitrary decision to end the program makes it clear that we cannot leave these young people’s fate to whoever happens to be sitting in the White House.”
Congressional action is needed to protect them, not likely with hardliners dominating both houses.
The ACLU called Trump’s immigration plan a “Dreamer deportation outline.” On Tuesday, he tweeted:
“The problem with agreeing to a policy on immigration is that the Democrats don’t want secure borders, they don’t care about safety for USA.”
The “problem” with Trump’s immigration plan is it discriminates against unwanted people of color, including children, largely Latinos from Mexico and Central America – coming to the US for jobs NAFTA and CAFTA-DR destroyed in their home countries.
