President Trump has just shown how weak he will be on immigration

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The "he" is President Donald Trump. And what he did was pressure the secretary of the Homeland Security Department, Kirstjen Nielsen, to take undocumented immigrants who are trying to break into the country and transport them to towns and cities. sanctuaries located in congressional districts of prominent Democratic members of Congress, including President Nancy Pelosi (California).
Cynicism here is dominant. Trump – and his senior adviser, Stephen Miller – have argued this idea twice, convinced that they could place undocumented immigrants in the back yard, literally, opponents of the country's radical immigration plans. government, they would change their minds to some of them. these opponents. Or at the very least, make their lives more difficult.
The plan never came true because Nielsen and other DHS officials did not spare their legality. (Nielsen was removed from office on Sunday, the first of a larger purge within DHS executed by Trump over the past five days.)

But this is not even really the point here. The fact that this was considered speaks volumes about how Trump (and Miller) view not only the current crisis at the border, but also human beings.

Because, deep down, it's a story of people. People who have tried to enter the country illegally, yes. But people nevertheless. And what the President of the United States wanted to do to these human beings was to literally turn them into political pawns. Send them somewhere so that they can perhaps achieve a political goal – and, otherwise, make things more uncomfortable for his political opponents.

Sit down with that for a minute. And then remember that it was the same administration that introduced a zero-tolerance policy at the border that led to massive separations of families – including very young children. And apparently, there was no clear policy on how to know where the children were going after they were separated from their parents or any idea of ​​how to get them together once Trump had called for the end of the policy. And proposed to completely close the border to prevent immigrants from entering. And declared a national emergency – and thus embezzled funds earmarked for other purposes – in order to build a wall that even the crippled of immigration do not believe Solution. All this after the president criticized immigrants coming to America from "poor countries" and asked them why the United States did not attract more immigrants from countries like Norway.

All of these policies – the ones that were really instituted and those that were simply imagined in the minds of Trump, Miller, and others – serve to make Trump's spoken and unspoken campaign promises come true. would stop the flow of undocumented migrants. immigrants in the country and, therefore, stop the dissolution of American culture.

That's why "Make America Great Again" was coming – something was being lost amidst the culture of the personal computer, globalization and, most importantly, immigration. unhindered in the United States. That this country was once this country was disappearing for years and it was the only person who could bring us back to true greatness.

This fact was inherent – though generally not stated – in this regard: Trump America venerated was largely dominated by whites – and more specifically by white men. And that the influx of immigrants into the country was at the origin of this cultural "loss".

The creation of "the other" – people who do not resemble you, speak to or share your belief system – was an extremely powerful weapon for Trump in the campaign. He created the image of an America on the verge of destruction, which he calls a total loss of culture that has made America a great one. And he just posed the stakes of the election: if he did not win, America that his followers worshiped would be gone forever.

Even in his inaugural speech, Trump portrayed America as a declining empire, lowered by the abandonment of what it was. Trump says in this speech:

"Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our poor neighborhoods, destroyed factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our country, an education system bursting with money, but leaving our young and beautiful private students to know, and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and deprived our country of so much unrealized potential.

"This American carnage stops here and right away."

It is only through a vision of the world "us against them" that you can justify proposals like allowing undocumented immigrants to take refuge in sanctuary towns in democratic districts. You can only treat them as political pawns on your chessboard if you consider some people to be inferior or a threat.

And when you see people as something less than, well, people can streamline treatment so that no one is treated. That's where we are with President Trump on immigration. There is no background. He just keeps getting lower and lower.

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