Donald Trump’s immigration plan, if elected, has been a bit of a perplexity to most Americans. The Hotel mogul’s speeches have been decidedly harsh and equally vague throughout the Trump Campaign run. Trump’s campaign uses the appeal of reinstalling the possibility of obtaining the long-pursued “American Dream” to hard-working Americans. Unfortunately, many people living in the U.S. are no longer able to afford the tangibles that curtail a storybook life. It is equally unfortunate that many voters attribute this financial hardship to immigration.
Amidst all the confusing stances and views, there is a much easier way of viewing Trump’s immigration plan should he be elected President of the United States. Let’s break it down, and check out this summary. Here is Donald Trump’s immigration plan for dummies.
For purposes of definition, unauthorized immigrants equal Mexicans. Trump has repeatedly used the words together when speaking. At his worst, Trump referred to Mexicans as rapists and criminals, adding that “possibly some” of them are good people. He has also supported a view of immigration as a picture of Mexican pouring over the border in herds.
The truth of this matter is that Mexican immigration has been decreasing over the last ten years. According to Pew Research Center, in 2009, illegal immigration averaged around 6.4 million people compared to the numbers associated with stats from 2014. In 2014, immigration was down to 5.6 million and has continued to fall.
Trump’s second stance when it comes to intensified immigration policies is built upon a false belief in an upsurge of crime in our country. He claims that two of every five immigrants are violent criminals, which could not be farther from the truth. Sure, after a good scrambling of the numbers, one could make some sense of this estimate, but let us look at the more reputable source. The Migration Policy Institute released a study estimating that only 300,000 unauthorized immigrants have been convicted of felonies. This is a very small percentage, considering there are almost 5 million new immigrants every year. some reputable business owners.
Trump has also tied America’s trouble with terrorism to undocumented immigrants. He has repeatedly claimed that terrorism is on the rise due to federal authorities granting immigration visas to foreigners too easily. He claimed that 380 immigrants were convicted of ‘terror’ offenses.
What the Trump Campaign and Donald Trump fail to acknowledge while tossing around numbers is that these convictions were “terrorist or terror-related”. Some examples of a “terror-related” crime by definition are forgery, entering the U.S. unlawfully, and claiming you are someone you are not (false identity). These actions are against the law, but they are far from equal to bombing the World Trade Center.
The final tool used by the Trump Campaign is to relate immigration to unemployment. It’s regularly been argued that immigrants aren’t usually the people taking up U.S. jobs. Typically, illegal immigrants work jobs that aren’t exactly desirable to most U.S. citizens. These people work under circumstances that are not legal sometimes. They work for less than minimum wage, and they work with no benefits. Off shoring jobs to lower paying countries is a much more realistic threat to the working class American.
Trump’s immigration plan, or it was until he took a nosedive in stats. is to execute a massive deportation. On a small scale, we have already seen some of the repercussions of this sort of mass exodus. Arizona has seen the results of absent immigrants. When many Mexicans left the U.S. during our most recent recession, many low-skill jobs were left without enough manpower to continue doing business. The exodus also lowered Arizona’s overall base of consumers, tragically impacting local businesses.
Maybe it’s time to take a look at a solution based on compromise. Extremes in immigration have not worked thus far in the history of our country. Maybe it’s time we realize, as a country, that we are rooted in immigration. The founding fathers of our country were immigrants. This land did not belong to us when the first settlers chose to call it home. America has historically been built upon the backs of foreign settlers.
Only time will tell what the American voters have to say to Trump, but is that even a true representation of what our country wants in a president? Many people are expected to lay out of this election, due to the overwhelming controversy surrounding the main candidates. Though we might hope that our election process is not simply a two-party election process, it is exactly that. Voters planning to vote for a Green Party candidate are essentially throwing away their vote. For example, Tennessee always goes red in the election. Voting for the Democratic nominee in the state of Tennessee will most likely make no difference in the overall outcome of the election. We have to see that our system is broken, and begin searching for ways to amend our election process.
Trump Denies Racism Accusations Though His Words Show Different
Donald Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of racism for many years. If he is so neutral in his beliefs, then why has he been fighting these accusations for so many years? Trump’s racist comments have been shocking the public for much of his time in the spotlight. The Donald can be quoted all the way back to the 1970’s saying some very off-color things about various races.
When his longitudinal behavior patterns are investigated, it is clear that Donald Trump is an accomplished bigot. This isn’t a new concept, either. The first time the Presidential candidate appeared in the well-known publication of the New York Times it was a racial discrimination. The U.S. Department of Justice sued Trump for denying housing to an African-American woman.
An accurate compilation of Trump’s verbal dichotomy is in order. Take a look at these verbatim examples. They have been neatly arranged in chronological order for your viewing pleasure.
In 1973, Trump’s racism led to a Federal investigation of his company. The U.S. Department of Justice sent two different women to apply for housing in one of Trump’s apartment complexes. One woman was Caucasian and one was African-American. To nobody’s surprise, the African-American woman was told that there was no housing available, while the Caucasian woman was urged to view two available units. This case ended with Trump being made to sign an agreement saying that he wouldn’t discriminate in the future.
Early in the 80’s, another of Trump’s businesses was accused of racial discrimination. One of Trump’s former employees leaked that, “When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor. It was the 80’s, I was a teenager, but I remember it: They put us all in the back.”
In 1989, when the huge historical case of the “Central Park Five” was hitting the media, Trump put an ad in the local newspaper headlining, “Bring Back The Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!” The five teens involved in the case were later exonerated of the crime, but Donald Trump argued the verdict. He said that they were probably involved in other crimes that night, and they were treated too well.
In 1991, John O’Donnell wrote a book exposing more of Trump’s racism. As the former president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, O’Donnell worked face-to-face with Trump on many occasions. During one encounter with the mogul, O’Donnell recounted Trump’s criticism of an African-American accountant.
“Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. I think that the guy is lazy, and it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.” Donald Trump denied these accusations of racism at first, but was later quoted saying, “the stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.”
Just a year later, in 1992, The Trump Plaza Hotel accrued a fine of $200,000 for committing an arguably racist act. The hotel’s managers transferred African-American dealers off tables to accommodate the interests of a big time Caucasian gambler.
Donald Trump’s racism has even been made apparent to the public eye through his own hit series, The Apprentice. In 2005, he pitched a show idea that could be summed up in this title: The Apprentice: Whites vs. Blacks. His excuse was that he was looking for a show idea that was particularly controversial. He sure knows how to get a rise out of the American public.
In 2010, the country was in a tense debate over the construction of a mosque near the ground zero site of 9/11 in Manhattan. Trump publicly protested the project, saying that the building would be “insensitive” to survivors. He even offered to pay one investor to curtail the project.
Any one person in the public eye could most likely make a recovery from any one of these instances, but the accumulation of all of them clearly paints a picture of how Donald Trump feels about racism. Not to mention, he also played a major role in the huge controversial claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
Trump’s actions paint a very dismal picture for the country’s future if he is elected President in November. It is absolutely flabbergasting that there are still millions of people in this country supporting this man. There are enough people that support this type of mentality in the United States to make Trump a threat. It’s to be expected that Donald Trump would be considered an enemy of the Democratic party, but it should be noted that he is much more. Donald Trump’s racism threatens us all.