Mickey Friedman
April 29, 2019
To the surprise of many in Wyoming and Utah, where you can see for miles and never catch a glimpse of another, the President announced the country is full. Taking credit for renovating part of President Obama’s border wall, he said “We can’t take you anymore. Whether it’s asylum, whether it’s anything you want. It’s illegal immigration. We can’t take you anymore. We can’t take you … our country is full, our area is full, the sector is full. We can’t take any more. Sorry. Can’t have it. So turn around. That’s the way it is.”
In Las Vegas, he threw Lady Liberty under the bus: “I look at some of these asylum people, they’re gang members,” he said. “They’re not afraid of anything. They have lawyers greeting them. They read what lawyers tell them to read … Whether it’s asylum. Whether it’s anything you want. It’s illegal immigration.”
This makes sense to a con man who thinks brown families fleeing gang members, hunger, and political instability are running a con. That women fleeing abusive husbands are liars. It’s beyond his imagination that mothers and fathers might be desperate to give their kids a better life. Last May he claimed “These aren’t people. These are animals.”
Inconvenient facts. Trump refused to hire new judges to resolve amnesty claims. Deliberately took children from their parents and put families in cages. Shut the government down hoping to blackmail Congress into paying for a wall that people could tunnel under or climb over.
The one thing that was working was foreign aid. Reducing violence, providing jobs. But instead of doing more, President Trump wants to do less. Punish El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Cut foreign aid, even as Trump officials admit it has worked. In July 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told the Bipartisan Policy Center “What [El Salvador is] doing is working, both on the security front and on the economic opportunity front.”
A study linking violence to migration found that for every 10 additional murders in those three countries, six more children migrated to the United States. The Washington Post wrote: “Until last week, U.S. officials held up El Salvador as proof that foreign aid could help curb migration. The partnership between the two countries drew praise from diplomats, members of Congress and even America’s top border enforcement.”
When President Trump declared “They haven’t done a thing for us … The claim baffled development officials and Salvadorans, who saw the country’s cooperation with the United States on security, civil society and economic development as a success story … slowing the flow of migrants heading north to the United States.
“In the past three years, both El Salvador’s homicide rate and migration flows have declined sharply. More than 72,000 Salvadorans were apprehended crossing the U.S. border in 2016. By 2018, the number had plummeted by more than half, to fewer than 32,000. ‘The decision to cut funding contradicts the results of what we have accomplished together,’ Raúl López, El Salvador’s vice minister of justice, said: ‘The fact is that migration from El Salvador is declining, thanks to our work.’
Hypocrisy falls from his lips like rain from the sky. Tweeting: “CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!” You remember chain migration – one immigrant is admitted to the country, then he or she sponsors family members. “The people that are sent to our country are not the people that we want … They come in through the lottery, they come in through chain migration.”
While he wants to slam the door on Latin Americans, it’s been an open door for his Slovenian in-laws who chain-migrated themselves to citizenship based on the fact that Melania had years ago convinced someone she was a model of “extraordinary ability.”
The people we want? Coming from a man whose closest advisors are in jail, or facing jail. Who has surrounded himself with ethically-impaired folks determined to unravel environmental protection, dismantle quality public education, and destroy affordable healthcare. This is the guy who decides who is worthy?
Who do you think works harder for us, illegal Mexican immigrants milking cows in the Midwest, and working in kitchens making minimum wage so “real Americans” can eat out? Or Melania running a con advocating against cyber bullying?
Another fact. In 2018, world population density is 151.96 people per sq. mile. “We’re full” is more true for the Netherlands, Korea, India. Of 233 countries, we rank 177 in terms of being full with 92.52 people per sq. mile.
The New York Times reported economists “see ample evidence of a country that is not remotely ‘full’ — but one where an aging population and declining birthrates among the native-born population are creating underpopulated cities and towns, vacant housing and troubled public finances.”
I’m sure we can squeeze in some decent folks who legitimately deserve amnesty.
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“We’re Full” was first published in the April 18, 2019 issue of The Berkshire Record.