More perilous than the journey itself
by Tom Sullivan
If you still scratch your head wondering how a hospital sent a vomiting child with a 103 degree fever back to government detention with an antibiotic and some Ibuprofen, join the club. Sally Kohn wonders what the hell we are doing locking up migrant children at all.
Besides, immigrants have historically enriched our country both culturally and economically. "Small businesses are disproportionately started by immigrants, who account for 30 percent of small business growth," Kohn writes. "Go ahead and google that (Google, of course, was also started by immigrants)."
The fact that in America people must earn their humanity by their economic utility is a pernicious idea. No doubt, Kohn did not mean to suggest it, but that insidious notion is everywhere, even in our cultural subconscious.
Ninety percent of asylum seekers pass a “credible fear” test for whether they might face persecution if returned to their home countries, Kohn adds. This is just what U.S. and international laws governing asylum are for. Instead of honoring those commitments and the country's immigrant heritage, the president portrays these desperate migrants as disease-invested, criminal vermin.
For incompetent and incapable Trump to be a hero, he needs a helpless foil. And the scare tactics he employed during the campaign are only being turned up now that the disaster of his presidency is in full bloom. His hope is that his MAGA followers won’t notice that their jobs, their farms, their kids’ schools and the whole economy have been destroyed so long as they’re distracted by hate and, better yet, blame immigrants for their problems—instead of Trump.
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Trump doesn’t want to actually fix the immigration system. If he did, he wouldn’t be putting vulnerable, lawful asylum seekers in warehouses and cages, amidst inhumane conditions including limited medical care. He’d be focused on overstayed visas. But Trump doesn’t care what the real issues are, for which there are actual bipartisan solutions on the table. That’s because Trump desperately needs a broken immigration system that he can exacerbate and exploit.
Blame-shifting is reflex for this president. He has spent a career dodging the law while using lawsuits as a cudgel against critics. His Make America Grotesquely Authoritarian movement follows his lead. Right-wing pundits blame migrant parents so fearful for their children's safety they would risk a perilous journey to the U.S. for putting their children at risk to come here. How dare they ask for more?Have the Democrats finally realized that we desperately need Border Security and a Wall on the Southern Border. Need to stop Drugs, Human Trafficking,Gang Members & Criminals from coming into our Country. Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2018