When will America finally say enough is enough with Donald Trump’s xenophobic, bigoted and ignorant immigration comments? At a Trump rally in Iowa Thursday, this brilliant diatribe spewed forth from Trump:
Trump opened the rally with a defense of his often-criticized proposal for dramatic immigration reform. He explained how other countries punish illegal border crossers: North Korea requires 12 years of hard labor, he said, while Afghanistan shoots people, and Canada assesses a fine of $5,000.
"If you cross the United States border illegally, you get a job, you get a drivers license … you get food stamps, you get a place to live, you get health care, housing, child benefits and in many cases education," Trump said. "You wonder why we're a debtor nation. You wonder why our country is going to hell."
From the Washington Post
He then went on to talk about the Billions of dollars that undocumented workers supposedly cost America.
Where do you start with this crap?
First of all, using North Korea or Afghanistan as shining examples of how we should conduct ourselves as a nation, and how we should implement immigration policy, is probably a pretty bad fucking idea. I would hope most Americans, even many of those on the right, would be against hard labor and shooting people. A Democratic candidate points out Denmark as a policy example and a GOP candidate uses North Korea and Afghanistan. That’s pretty telling right there.
Then there is the usual bigoted, unsubstantiated crap about immigrants costing us billions. This is been documented as false:
According to the Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, there were 8.4 million unauthorized immigrants employed in the U.S.; representing 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force (an increase from 3.8 percent in 2000). Their importance was highlighted in a report by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs that stated, “Without the undocumented population, Texas’ work force would decrease by 6.3 percent” and Texas’ gross state product would decrease by 2.1 percent.
The Hill
As for not paying taxes and using social services:
undocumented workers contribute about $15 billion a year to Social Security through payroll taxes. They only take out $1 billion (very few undocumented workers are eligible to receive benefits). Over the years, undocumented workers have contributed up to $300 billion, or nearly 10 percent, of the $2.7 trillion Social Security Trust Fund.
New York Times Magazine
Undocumented workers and their families also pay taxes every time they purchase something at a store, get gas, register their car or pay for housing and utilities. Undocumented workers are simply Americans without proper paperwork, and are part of our nation. They work and contribute just like their fellow Americans.
Trump says America is “going to hell.” If it is, its because of right wingers and their xenophobic hate, not because of the immigrants who have made this nation a better place to live for the last 240 years.