Thursday, September 26, 2024

Why Not?: Immigration

This is the second in a series of posts on the reasons I will not be voting to return the former president to the White House. My focus here is not to support his opponent but instead to explain why I believe that Donald Trump is manifestly unqualified for the role.

When I started writing this post, the presidential debate between Vice President Harris and former president Donald Trump was only a few days in the rear view mirror. I began trying to pen a thoughtful if overly long blog entry about my numerous political, practical, ethical, moral, and spiritual objections to the former president's immigration rhetoric and policies.

The avalanche of nativist/xenophobic rhetoric from the former president and his campaign over the last couple of weeks has completely overwhelmed my ability to summarize my rejection of Mr. Trump's immigration lies and pipe dreams. Instead, I'm going to give you the barest of outlines along with a number of excellent deep dive resources to scratch the surface of these issues.

In fact, let's start there. Immigration is complicated. As long as folks are intent on dumbing it down to "build a wall" or "send them back", it is impossible to juggle the myriad of concerns involved: international trade, border security, preventing drug smuggling, welcoming genuine refugees and asylum seekers, promoting healthy legal immigration, import & exports, supporting the proper use of student and work visas, etc. 

Second, our legal immigration system is, at best, completely overwhelmed and thus increases the likelihood of individuals using illegal means to immigrate, among a number of other negative effects on the U.S. The former president is intent on making legal immigration more difficult.
Third, legal immigration is actually a positive thing for the United States - providing economic benefits through productivity and keeping the falling birth rate from undercutting our economy. (Yes, that's a gross oversimplification - remember, immigration is a complicated issue.)
Fourth, mass deportation is a ridiculous idea that appeals to the worst impulses of Americans - and, if actually implemented, will cause unbelievable economic hardship as well as untold amounts of suffering. 
“A significant part of Republican immigration policy centers on the possibility of deporting 12 million people (or ‘self-deporting’ them). Think about it: we conservatives (rightly) mistrust the government to efficiently administer business loans and regulate our food supply, yet we allegedly believe that it can deport millions of unregistered aliens. The notion fails to pass the laugh test." (J.D. Vance, writing about immigration in 2012)

Fifth, the best chance Republicans have had at a bipartisan immigration bill was shot down by candidate Trump because he wanted the issue to campaign on rather than an attempt to mitigate the problem.
Sixth, Donald Trump's language about immigrants is woefully tone-deaf (a charitable reading) - but more in line with far-right white supremacist rhetoric.
Finally, the Haitian illegal immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio story is a lie. I saved this one until the end because it galls me that this is the level we've descended to in attempting to discuss an important policy issue - making up crap to score points. 
"The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do...” (J.D. Vance on ABC's State of the Union show on Sept. 15 - emphasis mine)
The immigrants in Springfield are primarily Haitian refugees on Temporary Protected Status - not illegals. And the eating pets accusation is not only unproven - it's been debunked by the source: a Trump shirt-wearing woman whose cat went missing and was found. The true story of Springfield is a profoundly American story - of the difficulties of assimilation, the economic benefits to a dying city of immigration, and the echoes of nativist fear-mongering persisting to the present day.
Vance has turned Solzhenitsyn’s maxim on its head: “Let the lie come into the world, but only through me, and only if I get something good out of it.” A man who is not suffering from whatever disease of the soul with which Vance is afflicted would have a hard time even imagining wanting to be vice president—of all petty things!—that bad. A different and better sort of man would understand that bearing false witness against 15,000 poor and vulnerable people in the pursuit of political power is the same as bearing false witness against anybody else. 

But I’ll give Vance the last word. Here he is on Twitter, back when Twitter was Twitter and J.D. Vance was J.D. Vance: “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this, I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.” (Kevin Williamson)

A Closing Thought for those of us who follow Christ

You must not oppress a foreign resident; you yourselves know how it feels to be a foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. [Exodus 23:9 HCSB]

Important reminder: I am not attempting to defend the Biden administration's record on immigration. I am simply pointing out that the casual cruelty, the dehumanizing language, and the destructive policies advocated by Donald Trump do not deserve and will not receive my support.

The first post in this series focuses on tariff policy - at this point, Mr. Trump's "magic wand" that can cure all sorts of problems - child care, grocery prices, bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., etc. It's not.

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