By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
Thanksgiving is steeped in nostalgia. The origins go back to traditions of giving prayerful thanks for the harvest and for simply surviving – something common across ethnic and religious traditions. As a national holiday, the origins go back to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. We look to Thanksgiving as an expression of the best of who we are – charitable, loving, kind, compassionate, how ecumenical we are! But most of all, how living in our system, a nexus of Christianity and Capitalism, religion and commerce, produces such bounty and prosperity. Thanksgiving is the symbol of American Exceptionalism. But it is a contrived symbol, built on deliberately fabricated myth.
The early paintings of that imagined first Thanksgiving in 1621 set the stage for the myth, depicting the benevolence of the pilgrims who survived their first brutal year in the New World, sharing their feast with local Wampanoags who shared their agricultural techniques. In point of fact, the Wampanoags outnumbered the pilgrims and brought the feast. But they didn’t at that point know what they were getting into. Just 40 years after the Pilgrims arrived – two generations – the Indians were fighting for their survival in their native land in the King Philip’s War., where the Europeans justified forcing them out of their own land because they were “heathens.” Since 1970, Thanksgiving is marked by Wampanoag and indigenous peoples throughout the Americas as a Day of Mourning.
After waves of European immigrants descended upon America in search of their American Dream, recruited by industrialists desperate for laborers to build, mine and manufacture, Thanksgiving was used as a model for welcoming the “other” and as a kind of model of citizenship and a loyalty oath to the adopted country (think Norman Rockwell’s painting, “Freedom from Want”). But hostility to immigrants grew until exploding in the 1920s with the Palmer Raids and quotas and has resurfaced despite relative economic prosperity as a political weapon.
The United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world, according to Pew Research. The U.S. foreign-born population reached a record 44.4 million in 2017, accounting for 13.6% of the U.S. population, triple the share (4.7%) in 1970. Still, today’s immigrant share remains below the record 14.8% share in 1890, when 9.2 million immigrants lived in the US. A bigger reason for the change in reception? Only 13% of immigrants living in the US today have come from Europe or Canada (that is, white, Christian places).
More than 1 million immigrants arrive each year, coming in the greatest numbers from India, Mexico, China and Cuba. In 2018, 800,000 immigrants applied for naturalization.
Immigrants and their US-born children now number 89.4 million people -28 percent of the population, according to the 2018 Current Population Survey (CPS). Pew Research Center projects that the immigrant-origin share will rise to about 36 percent by 2065. That of course, is Trump, the White Nationalists and the Republicans greatest nightmare and why Trump put Stephen Miller in charge of the anti-immigration crusade.
Trump’s policies – many of which have been found to be unlawful if not unconstitutional for their cruelty and violations of human and civil rights - resulted in more than 70,000 children forcibly taken from their families; unending incarceration in for-profit prisons for people trying to make a claim for asylum (Trump boasts this is “an end to catch-and-release”); the perennial anxiety of 700,000 DACA recipients not knowing when the Trump administration will deport them to countries where they have no connection, based on the information they had to provide the government (that’s called entrapment), or snatch their parents away.
Trump hasn’t just launched a war against the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, he has moved to all but shut down legal immigration.
Trump has reduced the number of refugees who will be accepted to a historic low of 18,000 – down from 110,000 under Obama – with specific quotas based on geography and category. A new round of proposed regulations from the administration would make it impossible for most asylum seekers to be permitted to work while their cases are pending.
The innumerable weapons that Trump has hurled against immigration are listed by the American Friends Service Committee (afsc.org), a Quaker social justice organization (a group banned by the Puritan theocracy). This is from Peniel Ibe, AFSC's Policy Engagement Coordinator:
Slowing lawful immigration processes: What used to be straightforward application processes – like applying for a green card (permanent residency) and citizenship - have been dramatically slowed down and halted. The backlog of pending green card applications had increased by more than 35 percent by the end of 2017. A new mandated in-person interview for all applicants for employment-based immigration applications has increased processing time and slowed applications to a crawl. These slowdowns leave thousands of people seeking to naturalize as citizens or become lawful residents vulnerable and in a state of limbo.
A new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) policy allows officers to outright deny any visa or green card application that is missing evidence or contains an error without giving applicants a chance to fix it. This could mean people with valid visas who are trying to renew could be placed in deportation proceedings.
And despite the crisis-level processing delays causing backlogs for various types of visas, USCIS has diverted personnel to assist ICE with immigration enforcement activities.
Pushing more people into deportation proceedings: New guidance that makes it easier for USCIS – which is not an enforcement agency - to funnel people it denies into deportation proceedings by issuing a “Notice to Appear” (NTA). This change will add to the immigration court backlog of cases, divert resources, and push more people into deportation. By issuing NTAs when it denies people's applications, the government will discourage applications for life-saving visas to protect people who are survivors of trafficking and domestic violence. Another memo issued makes it easier for USCIS to deny people’s applications. These changes will have a chilling effect on all immigrants.
Trump has also set impossible quotas of cases that must be settled for Immigration Judges (of which there are too few). There are the images of two-year old children being forced to “testify” on their own behalf, without legal counsel.
Punishing immigrants with legal status and their families: Trump sought to deny green cards to immigrants who use basic public benefits, like SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid, by deeming them more likely to become a public charge – dependent on the government at any point in their lives. Advocates have decried the disproportionate impact the policy change would have on the most vulnerable in our society – forcing families to choose between their well-being and staying together.
Undermining asylum: In July, DHS announced that it would deny asylum to almost anyone entering the United States at the southern border if they did not first apply for asylum in Mexico or another third country – a rule that would bar an overwhelming number of asylum seekers from seeking refuge. Fortunately, this "third-country asylum ban" has been stopped from going into effect for now, since a federal judge issued a temporary injunction that overruled a previous circuit court judge's decision that allowed it go forward.
Earlier in Trump's administration, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned precedent by making it almost impossible for people fleeing domestic and gang violence to find haven in the U.S. He also worked to limit the due process of people in immigration proceedings and limiting immigration judges’ and asylum officers’ discretion and independence. Trump also issued an asylum ban that would block people who enter the U.S. between ports of entry from seeking asylum (although a federal judge recently suspended the ban as a lawsuit over the administration's new rule makes its way through the courts).
The Trump administration has also begun implementing a policy that forces Central Americans seeking asylum to return to Mexico – for an indefinite amount of time – while their claims are processed. This policy – which is a clear violation of both U.S. and international law – puts asylum seekers in danger and goes directly against Congress’ intent to protect vulnerable people from persecution. Read more about Trump's efforts to dismantle the U.S. asylum system.
Banning people from Muslim countries: The third version of Trump’s nakedly discriminatory Muslim ban has been okayed by the Supreme Court, barring entry for almost everybody from several Muslim-majority countries including Yemen, Iran, Libya, Chad, Somalia, and Syria. The Trump administration’s waiver process has been shown to be largely a sham. The ban echoes some of the worst immigration policies in history.
Using the immigration courts to increase deportations: The Trump administration is reopening thousands of deportation cases that were previously closed due to their low priority, affecting hundreds of thousands of people with close ties to their communities. To speed up deportation, the Justice Department has established a case quota requirement for immigration judges. This will erode the due process rights of immigrants by forcing judges to rush through cases to attain favorable reviews from their supervisors. The former attorney general has also restricted immigration judges’ ability to terminate deportation proceedings against immigrants except in very narrow circumstances.
Newer plans have been finalized to bypass immigration courts altogether. The Trump administration announced in July it would expand its use of “expedited removal” to rapidly deport undocumented immigrants who cannot prove they have lived continuously in the U.S. for two years or more, essentially denying their rights to due process. Immigrant rights groups challenged this policy by suing the administration and in October, a federal court blocked the policy, asking the government to stop implementation while the lawsuit proceeds.
Creating a more xenophobic and less welcoming country: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) removed language celebrating the United States as “nation of immigrants” from its mission statement. And the president has likened immigrants to “animals” and derided people from “sh**hole countries.” These shifts help create an atmosphere of fear.
Going after naturalized citizens: A new denaturalization task force has begun working to strip citizenship from naturalized American citizens. While there are few legal grounds for denaturalization, the administration has already referred 100 cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. The creation of the task force is causing a sense of insecurity and uncertainty among naturalized citizens and permanent residents.
Trump is looking to go further to virtually end legal immigration:
Making more people deportable: Trump has worked to strip legal status from more than one million people. By terminating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) the administration could leave nearly 700,000 young adults vulnerable to deportation. And by ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for most countries Trump is ending legal status for hundreds of thousands of people and creating a new population of unauthorized immigrants subject to the threat of deportation.
Creating obstacles for workers and their families: The administration is increasingly denying and delaying more foreign-skilled worker requests. An increased issuing of “requests for evidence” to challenge the basis of original petitions can add on several months to the application process for individuals. The administration has signaled that it intends to end work authorization for spouses of H-1B visa holders. This will likely deter people from coming to the United States to work legally and will have a negative impact on the industries that use the H-1B visa program [a program that Trump’s hotels use freely and liberally].
Limiting avenues to access immigration services: The Trump administration is closing all 21 overseas USCIS field offices across 20 countries before the end of the year, which greatly impacts refugee applications, asylum seekers, and other immigration-related matters, such as international adoptions and family reunifications.
Increasing the cost of immigration: The president’s 2020 budget proposal includes an “immigration services surcharge,” an estimated 10 percent fee increase to immigration form filing fees. It's another addition to the series of financial burdens designed to make it hard for low-income people to qualify for legal immigration status.
Besides abusing executive powers, Miller is pushing for actions in Congress (rather than for Comprehensive Immigration Reform):
The president alone cannot rewrite immigration statutes but the administration has pushed Congress to cut immigration dramatically.
Curtailing family immigration: Trump has complained about our family-based immigration system, often lying about who is eligible and how it works. Reuniting families through the immigration system is humane and contributes to stability, prosperity, and stronger communities. Legislation the Trump administration has supported would cut legal immigration in half by eliminating many categories of family immigration – in particular, this would reduce the immigration of people of color to the U.S. (except for Melania’s parents who instantly became American citizens).
Ending diversity: Trump has repeatedly targeted the Diversity Visa Program, calling for its end. This program allows people from countries with low immigration rates to enter a lottery to apply for permanent residency in the U.S. Terminating the program would reduce the number of African immigrants to the U.S.
(Details at www.afsc.org/blogs/news-and-commentary/trumps-attacks-legal-immigration-system-explained)
Democratic 2020 candidates have offered their own immigration plans which reverse the horrors perpetrated by the Trump Administration. Here, for example, is Bernie Sanders’ plan, but it is consistent with others:
Use executive authority to reverse Trump’s harmful actions on immigration, including ensuring asylum seekers can make their claims in the US, ending family detention and separation, reuniting families, reversing the Muslim ban and halting construction on Trump’s racist border wall);
Place a moratorium on deportations and end ICE raids;
Restore and expand DACA;
Push Congress to enact a fair, swift, and inclusive path to legalization if not citizenship for the 11 million undocumented living in the United States;
Restructure the bloated, dysfunctional Department of Homeland Security, break up ICE and CBP and return their core functions to their previous departments, and begin treating immigration outside the context of national security;
Decriminalize and demilitarize the border, ensure migrants due process, and fully fund and staff independent immigration courts.
Organizations are taking action, including the ACLU (www.aclu.org), HIAS (act.hias.org), United Nations Refugee Agency (give.unrefugees.org/UNHCR), the International Rescue Committee (rescue.org) and American Friends Service Committee (afsc.org). This holiday season, think of supporting them.
Since Civil War times, Thanksgiving has been used to unify the nation and express the best values of what it means to be American. But today, to reconcile this nation’s betrayal of those values because they are inconvenient to the maintenance of the power structure, Thanksgiving has retreated to a family affair, a politics-free zone where we are supposed to be unconcerned about the sustainability of the planet or the security of those outside our own homestead and tribe.
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