Tag: Trump racism

Trump complains to senators that Puerto Rico is getting too much hurricane relief funding

President Trump complained in a private lunch Tuesday with Senate Republicans about the amount of disaster aid designated for Puerto Rico, as lawmakers prepare for a standoff over funds for the island that is still struggling to recover in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, according to officials familiar with the meeting.

Trump’s remarks came during an hour-long, freewheeling soliloquy at the Capitol with Senate Republicans where he boasted about the end of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, encouraged Republicans to take up another legislative effort on health care and mocked Democrats over the Green New Deal.

Trump’s decision to use the occasion to send a message about funding for Puerto Rico underscores his continuing push to limit aid to the island.

View the complete March 26 article by Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey and Paul Kane on The Washington Post website here.

Trump mulls deploying emergency disaster workers to detention centers

President Trump is considering deploying a 1,000-person force usually used for relief efforts after hurricanes and other natural disasters to help staff overcrowded detention centers for migrants, according to people briefed on the matter.

The highly unusual move could diffuse the cost of sending additional personnel to assist with detention centers dealing with a wave of migrants who are being held after crossing the U.S. border.

“It frees up more resources,” said a source familiar with the discussions.

View the complete March 21 article by Niv Elis on The Hill website here.

Fox News’ Chris Wallace brings the receipts after White House acting chief of staff insists Trump is ‘not a white supremacist’

Mick Mulvaney, the Acting White House Chief of Staff, claimed on Fox News Sunday that President Trump is not a white supremacist.

Host Chris Wallace noted that some critics claim that the president “has contributed to an anti-Muslim climate,” including a statement from Senator and 2020 hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand, where she said, “time and time again, this president has embraced and emboldened white supremacists—and instead of condemning racist terrorists, he covers for them.”

Kirsten Gillibrand

✔@SenGillibrand

Time and time again, this president has embraced and emboldened white supremacists—and instead of condemning racist terrorists, he covers for them. This isn’t normal or acceptable. We have to be better than this. https://twitter.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1106646387872149504 …

Rebecca Ballhaus

✔@rebeccaballhaus

Trump, asked if he sees white nationalism as a growing threat around the world: “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people.”

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Wallace also pointed out similarities between the New Zealand shooter’s statement about “killing invaders” and the president’s own statements the next day using framing immigrants crossing our southern border as an “invasion.”

View the complete March 17 article by Gwendolyn Smith with The New Civil Rights Movement website here.

Trump Echoes ‘Invasion’ Rhetoric Of New Zealand Terrorist Killer

President Trump discusses the violence, injuries and deaths at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville as he talks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan on Aug. 15, 2017. Credit: Kevin Lamarque, Reuters

Just hours after a white supremacist terrorist killed at least 49 people in two New Zealand mosques, Trump used the same language as the killer to demonize immigrants.

“People hate the word ‘invasion,’ but that’s what it is,” Trump said Friday, referring to migrants crossing the southern U.S. border. “It’s an invasion of drugs, and criminals, and people.”

Describing nonwhite immigration as an “invasion” is exactly what the New Zealand terrorist did in a racist manifesto he wrote before committing the mass murder. He “wrote that a trip to France in 2017 convinced him that the country was under ‘invasion’ by ‘nonwhites,’” the Washington Post reported.

View the complete March 15 article by Oliver Willis with The American Independent on the National Memo website here.

Trump says he sees no rise in white nationalism after New Zealand attack

President Trump on Friday said he doesn’t see a rise in white nationalism, despite a deadly gun attack at two mosques in New Zealand that killed at least 49 people.

“I don’t really, I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked if he sees a rise in white nationalism. “If you look what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet.”

He called the shooting a “horrible, horrible thing.”

View the complete March 15 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

U.S. weighs plan to phase out family detention at Texas facility, despite migration surge

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are discussing a plan to phase out family detention at the Karnes County Residential Center in Texas, according to three Homeland Security officials, a move that would significantly reduce the government’s capacity to hold parents with children as record numbers of migrant families are crossing the U.S. southern border.

ICE would instead use the Karnes facility to house easier-to-deport single adults, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been finalized.

The Karnes facility is one of two large family “residential centers” ICE operates in South Texas, with a current detainee population of 528 adults and children. Families held there would be issued notices to appear in immigration court and would then be released into the U.S. interior, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussions.

View the complete March 14 article by Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti on The Washington Post website here.

Democrats introduce latest version of DREAM Act, offering protection to more young immigrants

The Dream and Promise Act will for the first time include protections for TPS and DED holders.

Eighteen years after the original Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act, was introduced, House Democrats formally unveiled their new-and-improved version Tuesday.

While previous iterations of the bill focused narrowly on providing a path to citizenship only for undocumented youth brought to the United States as children, the new version does this in addition to expanding it to include immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). With the inclusion of TPS and DED recipients, the DREAM Act has rebranded to the Dream and Promise Act of 2019, to reflect the government’s longtime goal to make good on its promise of providing permanent solutions to legal immigrants who have been living at the whims of the federal government for decades. Continue reading “Democrats introduce latest version of DREAM Act, offering protection to more young immigrants”

Trump administration preparing to close international immigration offices

The Trump administration is preparing to shutter all international offices of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a move that could slow the processing of family visa applications, foreign adoptions and citizenship petitions from members of the military stationed abroad.

USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna said in an email to staff Tuesday that he is working to transfer those duties — now performed by employees worldwide — to domestic offices and the State Department’s embassies and consulates. He wrote that if the State Department agrees, the agency would move to close its international field offices in coming months “in an effort to maximize our agency’s finite resources.”

“I believe by doing so, we will better leverage our funds to address backlogs in the United States while also leveraging existing Department of State resources at post,” he wrote. “Change can be difficult and can cause consternation. I want to assure you we will work to make this as smooth a transition as possible for each of our USCIS staff while also ensuring that those utilizing our services may continue to do so and our agency operations continue undisrupted.”

View the complete March 12 article by Maria Sacchetti and Nick Miroff on The Washington Post website here.

Without immigrants, Trump’s jobs numbers would be much, much worse

During the second daily news briefing of 2019 on Monday, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was asked how the administration rationalized adding trillions of dollars to the national debt despite President Trump’s repeated campaign-trail insistence that the debt would drop.

“He also came into office and had an economic recovery that was needed to put people back to work, get the economy going and to rebuild the military, and had historic levels of military at $700 billion and $716 billion in — in national defense dollars,” Vought said. He didn’t mention that the debt has also been driven higher by a decline in corporate tax revenue after the 2017 Republican tax bill or that Trump had repeatedly railed against the debt added under former president Barack Obama when Obama also aimed to get Americans back to work. Continue reading “Without immigrants, Trump’s jobs numbers would be much, much worse”

‘Minnesota is my home’: Liberians face deportation deadline

Faced with war and chaos in Liberia — war that stole her dreams and “took everything” from her — Louise Stevens fled to the United States in 2000, settling in Minnesota.

Over nearly two decades, Stevens has raised a family and worked for Boston Scientific, Medtronic and a firm that cares for vulnerable adults.

Now, she’s facing a looming deadline that could result in her being deported back to Liberia.

View the complete March 11 article by Martin Moylan on the MPR New website here.