By Vic Affolter
“The New Colossus” sonnet embedded in the bronze plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903 became a symbol of our county’s welcome to immigrants. It concludes with these memorable words:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuge of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
President Ronald Reagan proclaimed in 1984: ”I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.” He went on to sign the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986, which granted legal status to nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants. He affirmed the Statue of Liberty’s sentiments in his final speech as president on Jan. 19, 1989, when he extolled immigration as “one of the most important sources of America’s greatness. We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people — our strength — from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation.” He added: “It is bold men and women, yearning for freedom and opportunity, who leave their homelands and come to a new country to start their lives over. . . . If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.” His words, his prophecy!
Then came Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Policy, who, in Trump’s words, is devoted to deporting anyone who doesn’t look like him. They advocate closing the door whenever, wherever, and however they can by deporting immigrants in an abusive and legally challenged manner. Trump has depicted immigrants as “garbage, vermin, murders and rapists … from prisons, mental institutions, gangs or drug cartels.” He has continually used inaccurate, derogatory, and racist language, including comments that mirror Hitler’s Mein Kampf, when he said Immigrants “were poisoning the blood of our country.”
Trump’s masked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enforcer’s Immigration and Customs Emigration (ICE) and Border Patrol have been arresting, imprisoning, and deporting immigrant men, women, and children — often separating families — regardless of their legal status.
Trump and Miller (and J.D. Vance) persisted in accusing undocumented Haitian immigrants of eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio despite Local officials, including the Republican Mayor of Springfield, the Springfield Police Department, and Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine responding that there are zero credible reports or verified evidence of pets being eaten or harmed by the immigrant community. The New York Times quoted DeVine’s saying the claim was “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.” Vance admitted to CNN’s Dana Bash in a Sept. 15, 2024 State of the Union interview that he was “telling stories” about Haitians to get people’s attention.
For Trump and his ilk, the truth has always been whatever “alternative facts” serve their interests at any given moment. With regard to immigration, their interest is in perpetuating xenophobia — the irrational fear or dislike of people from other countries or cultures that enables public support for their deportation. In the Springfield case, it’s the Haitians, many of whom have lived in the United States for years, building careers, buying homes and raising children, while providing essential work in retail, hospitality, medical care and other industries.
Trump has recently ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a form of humanitarian relief that allowed immigrants to live and work in our country legally during times of upheaval in their home countries. The program was created by Congress in 1990 with bipartisan support to provide legal status to people when their home countries were deemed unsafe because of war, political oppression, natural disasters or other crises. The United States has started deporting Haitian nationals and placed roughly 350,000 others at risk of removal with the termination of their TPS legal status despite a perpetuation of the conditions in Haiti that initially allowed them to come here. Deportees—including many who left Haiti long ago—have no local support network, no home, and face immediate danger upon arrival from continuing rampant gang violence. Similar circumstances confront deportees from other countries.
On his second term’s first day in office Trump issued an executive order that revoked the 1868 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship provision, whose first sentence is crystal clear: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” On June 30, the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s order, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion, affirming that the framers of the amendment intended to “permanently enshrine” the existing understanding of birthright citizenship, that “A child born on American soil and subject to American law was made an American citizen.” Trump responded in a social media post that the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding birthright citizenship is “absolutely insane,” and that he’ll pursue overriding or circumventing the court’s opinion.
Trump claims that his deportation is focused on the “worst of the worst” of the immigrants; when in fact a National Institute of Justice Oct. 2024 study found that “undocumented immigrants are arrested less than half the rate of native born US citizens for violent and drug crimes, and a quarter the rate for property crimes.” Contrary to Trump’s and ICE’s description, immigrants are most often fleeing their home country due to poverty, being preyed upon by gangs, being subject to political oppression, and lack of opportunity to better themselves. They are those described on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal.
To be continued with immigrant’s contributions and ICE’s response
