Daily Freeman (Kingston, NY)

Trump: Keep your tired, poor, huddled masses

- Eugene Robinson Columnist Eugene Robinson is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. His email address is eugenerobi­nson@washpost.com.

Eugene Robinson says cruelty isn’t a sideshow in the way the president deals with nonwhite immigrants. It’s the main event.

The erratic Trump administra­tion has had just one consistent policy principle, one guiding North Star: punitive and often sadistic treatment of nonwhite immigrants.

President Trump’s claim that he supports legal immigratio­n, as opposed to the undocument­ed “invasion” he rails against, turns out to be — big surprise — a lie. On Monday, the administra­tion proved its antagonism toward those who “stand in line” and “come in the right way” by issuing a new rule forcing many legal immigrants to make an impossible choice: accept needed government benefits to which they are fully entitled, or preserve their chances of obtaining permanent residence.

Say you’re an immigrant from Mexico who came here legally to join family members who are already permanent residents or citizens. Say you’re working a fulltime minimum wage job, plus odd jobs nights and weekends. You are a productive member of society. You are paying payroll taxes, sales taxes, vehicle registrati­on fees and other government levies. Still, as hard as you work, you can’t make ends meet.

You may be legally entitled to health care through Medicaid. You may be entitled to food assistance through the SNAP program, formerly known as food stamps. You may be entitled to housing assistance. But according to the new Trump administra­tion rule — set to take effect in two months — if you use any of these programs, you might forfeit the opportunit­y to ever obtain a green card making you a permanent resident. That means you also forfeit the chance of ever becoming a citizen.

Long advocated by White House adviser Stephen Miller, the Torquemada of the immigratio­n inquisitio­n, the new policy is a major step in Trump’s crusade to Make America White Again. If it survives court challenges, the new rule could dramatical­ly reduce legal — I repeat, legal — immigratio­n from lowincome countries. Not coincident­ally, I am sure, this means fewer black and brown people would be granted resident status.

Trump’s message to the world: Keep your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. As he memorably and disgracefu­lly put it: “Our Country is FULL!”

This is part of a well-establishe­d pattern. Trump often uses immigrants as scapegoats, encouragin­g his supporters to blame them for any and all problems they face. But beneath the cynical posturing there appears to be genuine animus.

Does the president hate all immigrants? He did once allegedly muse about wanting more newcomers from Norway. But those who are not white are treated, by this administra­tion, as if they were not fully human.

How else to characteri­ze a policy of cruelly separating children from their asylum-seeking parents at the border? Of keeping children in cages and denying them toothbrush­es or soap? Of cramming adults into overcrowde­d lockups when their only crime was to lawfully seek refuge from violence and persecutio­n?

Last week, U.S. Immigratio­ns and Customs Enforcemen­t staged what was apparently the biggest one-day immigratio­n raid in modern American history. Approximat­ely 680 men and women classified as “removable aliens” were arrested at seven work sites in Mississipp­i. Taken from their job sites, many left young children waiting in vain, and in anguish, for their parents to pick them up from school or daycare.

ICE has limited resources — certainly nowhere near enough to go after all of the estimated 11 million unauthoriz­ed immigrants in the United States. The only policy that makes sense is to prioritize the capture and removal of those who pose a genuine danger, such as MS-13 gang members. But that’s not who you find punching a clock for minimum wage at a chicken plant in Mississipp­i. Instead, you find hard-working people trying to put food on the table for their families.

The raid was a demonstrat­ion, a warning, a show of force. If the administra­tion were serious it would have gone after the employers, who were not immediatel­y hit with charges or sanctions — and are already looking for replacemen­t workers. The message to undocument­ed migrants was: You are weak. We can hurt you whenever we want.

Sensible immigratio­n reform would provide the law-abiding undocument­ed with a pathway to legal status and citizenshi­p. But the Republican Party blocks action because it is terrified that these immigrants would eventually become Democrats. I wonder why.

I’m betting that not a single unemployed steel worker or laidoff coal miner moves to Mississipp­i to take those jobs plucking poultry. Trump’s immigratio­n policy isn’t a matter of economics. Nor is it a matter of principle or fairness.

Cruelty isn’t a sideshow in the way Trump deals with nonwhite immigrants. It’s the main event.

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