Just as the Trump administration is basically saying that the novel coronavirus is no longer a worry by pushing for a packed Republican presidential convention this summer, it’s also reportedly using the pandemic to continue pushing for even more immigration restrictions, CNN reports. Under the reported changes, the administration is considering suspending certain temporary worker visas, claiming it’s supposedly needed as part of pandemic response and to aid in economic recovery.
But as Forbes notes, Trump’s “recent effusive remarks on jobs and the U.S. economy contradict the administration’s legal and policy rationale for imposing new immigration restrictions,” and that’s because the true rationale has always been racism, and racism alone. Just look at who’s behind the reported changes.
Campaign Action
“One of the key figures behind the push to limit immigration is Stephen Miller, Trump's lead immigration adviser and the architect of the President's hardline immigration agenda,” CNN continued. Miller has already exploited the pandemic to institute changes the administration could never get past Congress, including unilaterally obliterating legal protections for migrant children seeking asylum in the U.S.
The rationale behind the restrictions has always been crystal-clear, and even if, and that’s a very generous and undeserved if, you took the administration at its word about the changes, blocking immigrant workers still doesn’t make any sense, experts told CNN.
"Why would he want to cut off critical workforce that will help the economy recover?" American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Greg Chen said in the report. "It's not a rational or reasonable approach to the stated goals of what they're trying to achieve, which only points to the underlying purpose of effectuating the President's campaign goals of cutting off immigration.”
The reported changes would exclude certain workers, “like health care professionals and jobs related to food supply, according to the sources,” CNN reported. Many of the jobs from the latter group in particular are held by people of color, showing how the Trump administration sees no issue in attacking them through racist policies as it also acknowledges they play key parts in our economy. Meanwhile, it’s these workers whose lives are at risk as the administration continues pushing for a quick reopening of various sectors of the country.
“Everyone always says America is wonderful; it’s a country where people have freedom. They say you are free here. But this doesn’t feel like being free,” Luz, a meatpacking plant worker in South Carolina, told Prism’s Tina Vasquez earlier this month. “So much racism exists behind a curtain. For me, a very big problem is that people don’t see [immigrant workers] as human beings. We are just employees or just labor. I want people to really see us and care for us; I want people to think about us.”