One of the hallmarks of the Trump presidency has been an assault on immigration through xenophobia, even though the USA has always been a melting pot of immigrants fleeing persecution and seeking opportunity, willing to work hard towards realizing the American dream. For Trump, however, this strength of American society has paled in comparison to the political upside he could reap by fueling the fear of foreigners in white Americans harboring latent racist tendencies.
While openly inviting lily-white Europeans from Nordic countries to USA instead of “shithole countries” of people with dark skin, he has continually maligned those from Latin America (especially Mexicans) as “rapists” and “criminals” bringing drugs to USA in caravans, and fought vigorously for a border wall costing nearly $60B that he used throughout his run for presidency as a rallying cry, even though he audaciously claimed Mexico would fund it.
Trump fabricated national emergencies in order to send troops to ‘protect’ our borders during the holidays, terrorized families by implementing a less restrictive, high volume deportation policy as opposed to the one focused on new arrivals and criminals under Obama, and callously separated and caged countless children away from their families — many of whom were never reunited. He passed travel ban legislation (and battled frequently in court against judicial pushback) to bar immigration from Muslim countries and even tweeted against progressive congresswomen of color, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, to “…go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Trump mocked Puerto Rico and its governor after ignoring the island and its citizens for years following devastation by Hurricane Maria, openly accused NATO countries of treating the US unfairly, and referred repeatedly to COVID-19 as the “China Virus” which has stoked anti-Asian aggression particularly on the west coast. Lest we forget, one of the first acts of legislation put forth by President Trump through his stony-hearted hitman Stephen Miller was ordering an end to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program which shielded 800,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation and provided them the right to work legally. Given the optics, Trump’s continuance of this assault on Dreamers has been tabled until after the election, a time when the Supreme Court will be even more in his favor.
In sum, Trump went above and beyond his inauguration commitment to focus on “America first and only America first”. He has reintroduced the old philosophy of isolationism, already proven impractical before WWII when the ocean protection of our borders was shown easily penetrable. Trump has never been a man of rational thought for the goodness of others, however, since his only concern is whether promoting nationalism and disdain for foreigners will attract enough shallow-minded followers to keep him popular. The downside, of course, is that the USA is turning into a country that distrusts the very international community that’s vital to our global economic success and security, and this effect is mutual. Our credibility, standing, and attractiveness on a world stage has been undermined. Domestically, Trump has created more division in its populace by disparaging Americans of color and devaluing the immigrant experience. Over the long term, such self-imposed isolation impedes progress of all sorts on an international scale, increases the chances of military conflict, and risks leaving the USA cash-poor and internally fractured which can cripple our own productivity and social well-being.
