Trump’s first State of the Union address was basically a giant middle finger to DREAMers
and immigrants.
“We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny,
and the same great American flag"
Trump devoted a significant part of his speech to immigration - it was pretty much the only
concrete policy he outlined in any detail.
But here’s some important context for what the president said:
He opened his speech by listing some of the recent mass shootings America has experienced—none
of which were committed by immigrants.
He also failed to bring up gun reform or policy to address said mass shootings in any way.
Perhaps more ironically for the president, Trump’s proposals are so hardline that his
own family wouldn’t have been able to get into the United States if these rules were
in place.
Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited
numbers of distant relatives.
Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses
and minor children.
This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our
future.
First of all, he’s wrong about the current system.
There are strict categories for family members who can be sponsored by current green card
holders and there are caps set on each category.
The average immigrant, therefore, typically sponsors 3.5 relatives, which includes spouses
and children.
Secondly, if Trump’s rules were in effect for his parents’ or grandparents’ generations,
his own mother wouldn’t have been allowed to enter the United States - because she came
to meet her sister who was already living here.
Under Trump’s proposed rules, siblings are not allowed to be sponsors.
Trump’s paternal grandfather wouldn’t have been allowed in either, as he also came
to meet his sister.
Wait, so you’re telling me that Trump’s own rules might have prevented a President
Trump?
Not worth it.
The other incredibly misleading aspect of Trump’s dog-and-pony show on immigrants
and crime is that focus on MS-13.
Some of Trump’s guests for the evening were victims of crimes committed by gang members,
essentially exploiting these families for his own system of exclusionary migration.
He did not mention that MS-13 began as a gang in the United States.
He did not mention that its gang membership includes many U.S. citizens and legal residents.
And despite the amount of time he spent fear-mongering about them in the speech, he did not mention
that in total, MS-13 accounts for less than one percent of all U.S. gang membership.
That number has not grown in the past few years, despite whatever Attorney General Jeff
Sessions says.
In fact, MS-13 was started in a violent cocktail of existing LA gang culture combined with
some immigrants from Central America who were fleeing brutal civil wars in that region.
And in many of these civil wars, it was the American government directly financing the
regimes who were killing their own people.
You could draw a line from American foreign policy to MS-13.
Oh, and nevermind the fact that study after study shows that immigrants, both documented
and undocumented, commit crimes at far fewer rates than those of native-born Americans.
Trump wants us to believe that we must limit even legal immigration for the sake of national
security, but the facts just don’t back that up.
The president says he wants to end divisiveness, but with an opportunity to strike a new tone
for the year ahead, he continues to stoke the culture war about everything you’ve
heard here about immigrants to the athletes who choose to kneel before the flag during
the national anthem.
My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans
-- to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the
American Dream.
Because Americans are dreamers too.
I heard a very clear message there.
It’s not just America First, it’s native-born Americans first.
It is worth noting that Trump said he will offer a path to citizenship for some immigrants
brought here at a young age by their parents - but only under certain conditions, and apparently
over the course of 12 years.
Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character,
will be able to become full citizens of the United States.
But what does ‘good moral character’ mean coming from the Trump administration and the
ICE officials that they enlist to carry out their orders?
We have no idea: The kind of people that they’ve recently targeted are fathers dropping their
children off at school, immigrants rights leaders arriving lawfully for their check-ins,
and in one particularly egregious example, a ten-year-old with cerebral palsy was detained
at a hospital.
These have not been humane detentions based on moral character.
Critics of this plan also argue that Trump is essentially holding DREAMers hostage in
order to get that wall that he so desperately wants.
By the way, there was no mention of Mexico paying for it in this speech.
The truth is that America can’t be a united country if we don’t embrace our very real
history, and current reality, of immigration.
And we currently have a president who’s only willing to see certain groups of people
as statistics in a deal, not as human beings.
But actions, and policies, speak a lot louder than words.