By: Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq.
SOUTH FLORIDA – In the past two and a half years we have said repeatedly that Trump cannot sink any lower with his rhetoric and policies; but day after day he sinks lower and lower and have we become immune to his crassness and racist behavior?
In my lifetime we have never seen a more blatantly racist person occupying the White House. But Trump’s racism began way before that.
In 1989 a rape occurred in Central Park, New York City that led to the arrest of four black young men and one Latino young man. Trump call for their execution in a full-page newspaper advertisement – they were later exonerated.
He began in the last 10 years attacking the first Black United States President by shopping the lie that President Barack Obama was not born in America, and we were outraged.
He started his Presidential campaign in June, 2015 by attacking Mexicans, and we were outraged.
He said there were good people on both sides of the racist fight in Charlottesville, VA in August, 2017, and we were outraged.
In September, 2017 he called Football Players ‘Bastards’ who should be fired for kneeling in protest during the playing of the US National Anthem, and we were outraged.
In October, 2017 he lambasted Black Female Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Fl) in the context of his mishandling a phone call to the Black widow of a Black Serviceman who lost his life in Niger in service to this country, and we were outraged.
In December, 2017 he said that all Haitians have AIDS and that Nigerians wouldn’t want to return to their Huts after visiting America, and we were outraged.
Yesterday Trump sank even lower by labeling Haiti and other black and brown countries as ‘Shitholes’, and that he didn’t want them in America, and we are outraged.
Two days before he put on this televised show of being for immigration reform and being willing to sign any bill that the Congress can work out and give him to sign – he has proven in 48 short hours that he is a liar and that he continues to be a bigot.
Reality is Trump is racist and is using his personal feelings about black and brown people to change American policy and is attempting to reshape America.
He and his Republican cohorts are trying to redefine immigration – legal migration, and is dehumanizing and denying all the benefits of immigration in America.
Somehow a mother filing for her adult son or daughter, a US citizen filing for their parent or sibling is destroying America.
The cornerstone of American immigration has been Family Reunification – now that term has been changed to Chain Migration, which in and of itself has such negative connotation.
Recalling of course that Africans were chained and brought to the Americas against their will.
Each year 226,000 persons are eligible for residency in the United States through family reunification in various preference categories – most of which Trump and his Republican cohorts want to end. They want to institute a system whereby, with the exception of spouses and minor children of US Citizens and Green Card holders, you have to receive points to migrate.
In essence he wants white intellectuals from countries like Norway to be able to migrate to America.
Be careful that in getting permanent residency for the “Dreamers”, that immigration as we know it is not changed.
Disturbing as Trump’s racist remarks are, the acquiesce of the vast majority of Republicans, particularly the leadership of the Republican party is even more disturbing.
We may have a man occupying the White House who has little or no grasp on the role of the President, who is crass and classless; but when so-called Republican leaders who have spent their lives keeping this country running abdicate their constitutional roles to a man of limited abilities who is intent on destroying the fabric of America just to keep their jobs – they have sold their souls to the Devil.
If they abdicate to the destruction of American values, what place can history afford the likes of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell?
How can you kowtow to Trump and his 35% base at the expense of American values and her place in the world?
You have created a monster in the Presidency and not one of you has the balls to take Trump on and get him to realize that he is the President of all of America – even to people like me who have absolutely no respect for him as a person or as President. The Constitution provides for veto-proof legislation – do your jobs!
News Flash! Decry Africa and watch China move right into the vacuum and in five years do backflips wondering what in the hell happened to America’s world hegemony.
Be outraged even if Trump didn’t call your ancestral home by name, because he means all brown and black people. Be outraged even if your ancestral home is in Eastern Europe.
Call your Congressional representative, voice your outrage that Trump is using his personal racist beliefs to shape US policy and organize to vote Trump out of office and save what’s left of America’s dignity www.congress.gov.
Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq. is a Jamaican-American attorney who practices immigration law in the United States; and Family, Criminal & International Law in Florida. She is a Mediator, Arbitrator and Special Magistrate in Broward County, Florida; and a weekly columnist with the Jamaica Gleaner. [email protected]
