Syrian-American Sarmad Assali was a Trump supporter. Her family is Orthodox Christian, so they must have felt pretty safe from any potential Trump Muslim ban. Then last weekend happened. Suddenly, this Pennsylvania family was desperately trying to reach their US visa-carrying relatives after they had learned they were detained at the airport and forced back to the Middle East. Sarmand Assali's anger is vivid on this newscast where she kept saying "This is not human. It's just not human!"
In an interview, she explained how security guards at the airport asked her family members if they were Syrian. When they replied that they were, the guards literally said "Come with us."
Once identified as Syrian, her family members were treated horribly:
"They weren't even allowed to make a phone call and let us know what is going on," she says. "They had to beg the employees to call us, to let us know that they were being returned."
No translators. No legal counsel. They joined other people with proper US visas and green cards across the nation’s airports who were handcuffed and interrogated based solely on their nationality. I can understand Mrs. Assali's outrage, in which she (correctly) stated that all of this was "un-American.”
Cue the liberals.
Protests broke out everywhere, and the ACLU of Pennsylvania got involved. A lawsuit for the Assali family was filed, and an anti-ban protest rally was held in support of the Assalis. Their Democratic mayor, senator, and governor all made statements condemning the ban harshly along with a personal message of support for the Assali family. Trump stooge Pat Toomey, their GOP Senator, didn't say any word about the Assalis and would only admit the ban was "explained improperly." (Yeah, because that's the problem with fascism—the rollout has to be smooth.)
You know the rest. Liberals fought the ban in the courts and got it blocked. Trump whined, but America cheered. The Assalis were able to get their relatives back to the US during the lull, and Governor Wolf was able to greet them personally when they landed. Not only that, the governor paid their very expensive airfare.
The relatives, along with Sarmad Assali, to their credit, expressed their sincere gratitude for all of the outpouring of love and support.
What I took note of here is that even after Trump subjected her family to so much horror, Sarmad Assali still wouldn't outright reject him. Asked if she was still a Trump supporter, she said this:
"I am a supporter of the constitution of the United States, and the freedom that we have here," she says. "I don't know what [Trump's] going to do next or if I support what he's gonna do. I can't tell at this point."
She said she supported Trump making us “safe"....
“I understand he wants to make America safe,” Sarmad Assali said. "We're all on with this. I definitely want to be in a safe place. But people need us and we need to be there for them."
but didn’t expect this to happen to her family….
"If [Trump] had an issue with them entering the United States, we should have been told about it. It should have been discussed. We should be able to get some legal help in there. ... The way they were returned in a two-hour period, it was just devastating."
Yeah, it's all fun to discriminate against others when it's not YOUR family. She was apparently perfectly fine when she thought it was just going to be her Muslim friends who'd be screwed. Sarmad Assali shows the pitfall of playing the GOP's entire foundation of the "Us" vs. "Them" game: you never really know when you'll stop being the "Us" and start being the "Them."
The rabid Trump supporters didn't fight this ban—we liberals did. The Trump supporters were the ones screaming at you that your family were a bunch of Muslim terrorists. They don't care what religion you are because in their small minds "Arab" = "Terrorist." Steve Bannon sure believes that—and that's who you helped install in the White House.
Originally, I was planning to rant about my uncle, who is an evangelical conservative who always votes Republican. He just told me that he's not worried that the GOP will take away his Social Security because if they try to, and I quote, "The Democrats will scream."
This is the quintessential conservative red state voter: vote against your own interests and hope like hell that the Democrats will bail you out. Recently, Washington Post reported on a scientific poll that showed voters in red states are counting on Democrats to keep Trump in check.
I will tell them what I would tell Sarmad, and exactly what I told my uncle: At some point, we won't be able to save you from yourselves.
Stop looking at liberals to save your healthcare, Medicare, Social Security, and in this instance, your family's freedom, because you insist on shooting yourselves in the foot. It's ironic that I will do quite well under Trump, but I am the one fighting him. My idiotic neighbors who waved a Trump flag on election day are starting to suffer tremendously under his regime. (The dad finally got insurance last year.) I would tell you that I felt good about seeing them suffer, but honestly, I don't—I'm just not that much of a conservative.
But that doesn't mean I'm always going to be able to bail you out anymore either.
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