Tag: xenophobia

Rep. Lee, Asian Pacific American leaders launch town halls amplifying xenophobia during COVID-19

House DFL logoSAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — In response to the growing tide of anti-Asian bigotry in the public sphere and the continuing impact of COVID-19 in hard-hit Asian Pacific American communities, prominent state and local Asian American elected officials — including Fue Lee (member, Minnesota House of Representatives), David Chiu (member, California State Assembly), Yuh-Line Niou (member, New York State Assembly), Sharon Tomiko Santos (member, Washington House of Representatives) and Michelle Wu (member, Boston City Council) — have gathered together with over 50 grassroots and civil rights organizations and leaders to launch, “Rise: Asian Pacific America,” a series of four virtual town halls that seek to confront the significant issues facing APA communities in the wake of COVID-19.

“Since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, Asian Pacific Americans have experienced xenophobic hostilities directed their way. No one deserves to be targeted with threats, harassment, and violence based on their cultural background, especially during a public health crisis,” said Rep. Lee (DFL – Minneapolis). “Furthermore, by relying on terms like ‘Chinese Virus,’ the President of the United States has deliberately given rise to anti-Asian hatred. As Minnesotans, and as Americans, we have a duty to stand up against bigotry of any kind. These events will give us an opportunity to collectively overcome barriers as we chart our future as a community.” Continue reading “Rep. Lee, Asian Pacific American leaders launch town halls amplifying xenophobia during COVID-19”

Mumps outbreak in the camps: Cruelty isn’t going away

AlterNet logoIn the lead-up to both Donald Trump’s election and his first midterm elections, the Republican Party and right-wing media outlets like Fox News aggressively pushed the xenophobic myth that migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border were bringing a new outbreak of long eradicated communicable diseases like smallpox. That was baseless fear-mongering meant to play up the manufactured “crisis” in an effort to scare up votes.

Since the elections, Trump has continued to hype the manufactured crisis in order to build new detention camps, many of them for private profit. The Trump administration has recently moved to hold migrant families and children indefinitely in cages, under inhumane and unsanitary conditions. Now the federal government is willfully refusing to inoculate these migrants — who include many mothers and small children — from deadly diseases while keeping them in cramped conditions.

Since the elections, Trump has continued to hype the manufactured crisis in order to build new detention camps, many of them for private profit. The Trump administration has recently moved to hold migrant families and children indefinitely in cages, under inhumane and unsanitary conditions. Now the federal government is willfully refusing to inoculate these migrants — who include many mothers and small children — from deadly diseases while keeping them in cramped conditions.

View the complete September 4 article by Sophia Tesfaye from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Laura Ingraham insists she’s not racist, then doubles down on racism

The following article by Zack Ford was posted on the ThinkProgress website August 10, 2018:

Laura Ingraham Credit: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images

Fox News host Laura Ingraham wants everyone to know that she’s not racist. Unfortunately, she made that clarification by expressing more racism.

Ingraham opened her show Thursday night with some clarifying remarks about her opening monologue Wednesday night. “A message to those who are distorting my views, including all white nationalists and especially one racist freak whose name I will not even mention: You do not have my support,” she said. “You don’t represent my views and you are antithetical to the beliefs I hold dear.”

The “one racist freak” she didn’t name was former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who praised her remarks as “one of the most important (truthful) monologues in the history of MSM [mainstream media].” It’s not hard to see why he found affinity with the way she had bemoaned how the “massive demographic changes” from immigration were making it “seem like the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore,” a claim that bears a strong resemblance with the white supremacist “14 words” slogan.

View the complete article here.

Trump, condemned for ‘shithole’ countries remark, denies comment but acknowledges ‘tough’ language

The following article by Ed O’Keefe and Anne Gearan was posted on the Washington Post website January 13, 2018:

The Fix’s Eugene Scott explains how Trump’s “shithole countries” comment is the latest example of his history of demeaning statements on nonwhite immigrants. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

President Trump’s comments about African countries and Haiti drew condemnation from around the world Friday, putting the White House and Republicans on the defensive while casting doubt on hopes of resolving disputes in the coming weeks over immigration legislation.

In a tweet Friday, Trump seemed to deny using the term “shithole” to refer to some countries during a private White House meeting Thursday, but acknowledged he used “tough” language during the negotiations. Among Republicans, there were differing responses to the comments, but few of them outright condemned his remarks. Continue reading “Trump, condemned for ‘shithole’ countries remark, denies comment but acknowledges ‘tough’ language”

Trump heaps more misery on vulnerable immigrants

The following article by Ishaan Tharoor was posted on the Washington Post website January 9, 2018:

During his annual address to ambassadors at the Vatican on Monday, Pope Francis once more bemoaned the hostile climate in the West toward refugees and migrants. He decried politicians who demonize foreigners “for the sake of stirring up primal fears” and urged greater global action to help asylum seekers. “In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the history of salvation is essentially a history of migration,” said the pontiff.

That’s a message that clearly doesn’t register with President Trump, who has loudly staked his politics on rejecting immigrants and sealing borders. On the same day as the pope’s speech, the Trump administration announced that it would terminate provisional residency permits for about 200,000 Salvadorans who have lived in the United States since 2001. Trump had already ended such arrangements for Nicaraguans and Haitians, and will likely follow suit later this year with Hondurans. The Salvadorans who have received what’s known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, now have until September 2019 to either obtain another form of legal status or leave the country. Continue reading “Trump heaps more misery on vulnerable immigrants”

Trump’s disgraceful use of ‘dreamers’ as a bargaining chip

The following commentary by the Washington Post’s Editorial Board was posted on their website January 4, 2018:

Protesters who call for an immigration bill addressing the so-called dreamers, young adults who were brought to the United States as children, rally on Capitol Hill in December. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

AFTER ALL of President Trump’s bluster about his “great love” for “dreamers,” brought to this country as children through no fault of their own, it turns out he’s content to use them as leverage in a high-stakes game of political horse-trading. Mr. Trump seems willing to strip them of jobs, security and homes unless Democrats buckle on a range of Republican immigration priorities, including an even longer-standing object of the president’s ardor: a beautiful border wall.

In September, it was Mr. Trump who terminated the Obama-era protection for dreamers that shielded them from deportation while granting them work permits if they had clean records and met certain other requirements. At the time, he gave Congress six months to fashion a legislative fix; failing that, the president suggested he would act unilaterally to ensure their protection. Continue reading “Trump’s disgraceful use of ‘dreamers’ as a bargaining chip”

Bigotry And Xenophobia Now Have Free Rein

The following article by Cynthia Tucker Haynes was posted on the National Memo website January 28, 2017:

President Donald Trump will build a wall along the border with Mexico. You know that’s true because, well, he says it is.

Starting his tenure with a showman’s gifts for displays of authority and action, he signed an executive order calling for the “immediate construction of a physical wall.” Putting still more pressure on undocumented workers, he also signed an order that will make it easy for border enforcement agents to deport those who have not been convicted of any crime. Continue reading “Bigotry And Xenophobia Now Have Free Rein”

A New Presidency Of Disrespect And Disinformation Begins

The following article by Cynthia Tucker Haynes was posted on the National Memo website January 20, 2017:

President-elect Donald Trump addresses the “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, U.S., January 19, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar

It begins.

We have officially entered the Age of Trump, an era that may be the most contentious and most dangerous to the health of the republic since the Civil War. We are two nations of nearly equal count, divided by opposing views on race, religion, pluralism, sexual orientation, feminism and even science. Each side believes the other is corrupt, mendacious and malicious.

This troubling divide would be difficult to bridge for a personality more temperamentally suited to the task. The imperturbable Barack Obama was sorely tested by the challenge of appealing to critics who insisted he was illegitimate. Hillary Clinton, had she become his successor, would have been confronted with a disloyal opposition that had already promised to embroil her in partisan investigations and spurious lawsuits. She, too, would have been pushed to the limits of her patience. Continue reading “A New Presidency Of Disrespect And Disinformation Begins”