Tag: Trump racism

The enduring cruelty of Trump’s immigration agenda

Washington Post logoIn a parallel universe, the scene could have flooded newspaper front pages and cable news networks for days. But in the whirlwind of the Trump presidency, it’ll end up just another footnote in a forgotten chapter of White House absurdity.

Last week, President Trump hosted a delegation of some two dozen victims of religious persecution from around the world. The diverse group, which included a Jewish Holocaust survivor, a Tibetan who fled China and a Rohingya Muslim chased out of Myanmar by a government-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing, huddled around the president’s desk at the Oval Office. They took turns explaining their plight to Trump and what drove them to escape their homelands for safe haven elsewhere.

It was already an awkward set piece, but it turned all the more cringeworthy with Trump’s comments. One exchange in particular — between the president and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman from Iraq who was raped and tortured and whose family members were murdered by the Islamic State — stood out. The president was not particularly attentive, only perking up when questioning Murad on how she could have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

View the complete July 26 article by Ishaan Tharoor on The Washington Post website here.

Fox News legal analyst accuses ‘shameless’ Trump of unleashing ‘a torrent of hatred’ not seen since the 1960s

AlterNet logoFox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano this week published a scathing editorial in which he called out President Donald Trump for promoting hatred and division in the United States.

In the editorial, Napolitano recalls the divisions created by the Vietnam War, and he says that the hatred being stoked by Trump rivals the turbulent late 1960s. Napolitano argues that Trump’s decision to tell four Democratic lawmakers to “go back” to their home countries despite being American citizens was a particularly divisive and racist comment.

“‘Go back’ is a rejection of the nation as a melting pot; a condemnation of one of America’s founding values – E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one),” he writes. “It implicates a racial or nativist superiority: We were here before you; this is our land, not yours; get out. Nativist hatred is an implication of moral or even legal superiority that has no constitutional justification in American government.”

View the complete July 25 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Federal judge in California halts Trump’s latest asylum ban

Washington Post logoA federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked a new Trump administration policy Wednesday that sought to bar Central Americans and other migrants from requesting asylum at the southern border, saying the federal government’s frustrations with rising border crossings did not justify “shortcutting the law.”

The policy aimed to curtail Central American migration across the southern border by requiring asylum seekers to apply in countries they had passed through on the way to the United States, particularly Mexico or Guatemala.

U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar, who halted another version of the Trump administration’s asylum ban last year, said a “mountain” of evidence showed that migrants could not safely seek asylum in Mexico. He said the rule likely violated federal law in part by categorically denying asylum to almost anyone crossing the border. U.S. law generally allows anyone who sets foot on U.S. soil to apply for asylum.

View the complete July 24 article by Maria Sacchetti and Spencer S. Hsu on The Washington Post website here.

Tracing the roots of Trump’s racist rhetoric

One of the more banal traits of racism is that it’s never original — it’s years and years of repackaged language, as harmful as it is lazy and ineloquent. The idea of “sending back” the people this country’s government hasn’t wanted is a sentiment that has been reiterated repeatedly since the early years of the United States. Whether it has manifested in the form of “the Great Emancipator” Abraham Lincoln wanting to send formerly enslaved black people back to Africa, or white people asking black people some iteration of “why don’t you go back to Africa?”

On Wednesday night, before a crowd of thousands of people in North Carolina, President Trump went on a vitriolic attack against Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. It’s not the first time he’s attacked Omar, but this time, his hateful speech promoted thousands of people to respond, chanting “send her back! send her back!”

Even after a relentless week of racism by the president, the video clip of the moment of the Trump supporters is hard to watch. It feels like he’s reached new levels of abjectly racist behavior. Except, he hasn’t.

View the complete July 19 article by Ophelia Garcia Lawler on the Mic.com website here.

Federal judge allows Trump asylum restrictions to continue

The Hill logoA federal judge ruled Wednesday that he would not halt an effort by the Trump administration to restrict Central American migrants’ ability to apply for asylum in the U.S.

The order from U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the District of Columbia came in response to a lawsuit filed by Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), two immigration advocacy groups.

The case is the first challenge to a rule to bar migrants from applying for asylum if they migrated through a third country and did not first seek protection from persecution there on their journey to the U.S.

View the complete July 24 article by Tal Axelrod on The Hill website here.

Census question may be dead, but Trump’s backup plan could still reshape political map

President Donald Trump surrendered his legal fight earlier this month to ask about citizenship on the upcoming census, but his administration is marching forward on a Republican strategy that could upend the way legislative districts are drawn nationwide to the benefit of the party.

Trump nodded to policy issues such as health care and education as reasons he issued a July 11 executive order for the government to compile citizenship information in a different way. And he accused “far-left Democrats” of being determined to “conceal the number of illegal aliens in our midst.”

But he also referred to how it could be used in the next round of redistricting after the 2020 census — a move critics suggest is the real reason the Trump administration wants to find out where noncitizens reside.

View the complete July 23 article by Todd Ruger on The Roll Call website here.

Trump sidesteps convos about race with critics, meets with retired NFL player to discuss ‘black America’

After a week of backlash for his comments about four minority Congresswomen that many called “racist,” as well as chants targeting one of those congresswomen at his rally, President Donald Trump privately met with former NFL player and conservative commentator Jack Brewer at his Bedminster Golf Course to talk about “black America,” Brewer told ABC News.

Trump has been criticized by both the left and right for tweeting that the four Democratic congresswomen — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley — should “go back” to where they came from, and then for standing by silently while a North Carolina crowd chanted “send her back” about Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Instead of addressing the painful history the words “go back” have played in the minority community, the president has acted in other ways that appear to be attempts to address feelings of alienation.

View the complete article by Tara Palmeri on the ABC News website here.

Trump attacks the ‘Squad’ as ‘Racist group of troublemakers’

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday stepped up his attacks on a group of four freshman Democratic lawmakers, calling the group of minority women a “Racist group of troublemakers.”

“The ‘Squad’ is a very Racist group of troublemakers who are young, inexperienced, and not very smart,” Trump tweeted while en route to the Supreme Court to pay his respects to the late Justice John Paul Stevens.

For more than a week, the president has battled charges of racism after telling the group, made up of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), to “go back” to where they came from.

View the complete July 22 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

Trump blasts ‘bonkers’ media spewing ‘Radical Left Democrat views’

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday lashed out at the media, targeting The Washington Post in particular, as he remained fixated on coverage of his ongoing attacks on four progressive congresswomen.

In a series of tweets, the president claimed the “Mainstream Media” has “gone bonkers” and accused the media of pushing “Radical Left Democrat views.”

“It has never been this bad,” Trump tweeted. “They have gone bonkers, & no longer care what is right or wrong. This large scale false reporting is sick!”

View the complete July 22 article by Bret Samuels on The Hill website here.

Stephen Miller defends Trump’s attacks on Rep. Omar

Washington Post logoA week after his racist tweets about four minority congresswomen, President Trump’s aides on Sunday defended his behavior, even as top Democrats sharply criticized him and pushed for greater accountability.

Stephen Miller, a White House senior adviser, had a heated back-and-forth with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace over the president’s tweets as well as a North Carolina Trump rally where the crowd chanted “send her back,” targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Omar was born in Somalia and has been a U.S. citizen since she was 17.

Miller defended Trump and said the term “racist” has become a label used to silence and punish people.

View the complete July 21 article by Cat Zakrzewski and Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.