For three and a half years now, impeached president Donald Trump has carried out a constant, brutal, and frequently unlawful war on our legal immigration system. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that processes paperwork like naturalization forms, nearly became his latest victim and was headed for an intentional near-shutdown until public pressure forced the administration to pull it back. Had that plan gone through, USCIS would have furloughed nearly 70% of its workforce in just a matter of days. Unless they’re from Norway, this administration does not want immigrants here, period.
But in one of the most grotesque and surreal moments of this entire godforsaken presidency, the administration at the very least violated USCIS rules forbidding displays of partisanship to use a group of immigrants as human props in a naturalization ceremony staged at the White House as part of the Republican National Convention. The purpose wasn’t to weave these men and women into the American fabric but to deceive us about the past several years, because among these immigrants was a man from Ghana—you know, from one of those African nations Trump once infamously derided as a “shithole” country.
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The political appointee helping Trump carry out this shameless reelection stunt was unconfirmed acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Chad Wolf, and was a shameless reelection stunt “horrifying in context,” tweeted Immigrant Defenders Law Center co-founder Lindsay Toczylowski. “1000s of asylum seekers in grave danger tonight at our border, children being sent to their deaths, families separated, communities ripped apart, babies held in ICE prisons.” Much of this has happened with Wolf playing the eager foot soldier, Philip Bump noted in The Washington Post.
“Despite his embrace of new immigrants in that campaign video, Wolf’s tenure has prompted a lot of criticism,” Bump said. “He’s been reliable in putting into effect policies introduced by Trump aide Stephen Miller, a notorious advocate for broadly limiting immigration. Wolf helped instantiate the policy that separated children from their parents upon entering the country illegally, a policy aimed at discouraging people from coming to the United States. He deployed officers to serve as domestic law enforcement in Portland, Ore., this summer at Trump’s request.”
Adding more shame on top of this shame sandwich is that while carrying out a naturalization ceremony at the White House for the president’s reelection campaign is apparently just fine and dandy, immigrants who had their naturalization process derailed by the novel coronavirus pandemic have had to sue in order to be allowed to complete their process, having been told they couldn’t even take their oaths virtually when former USCIS officials said they absolutely could. Some immigrants have now been able to take their oaths thanks to court action and office reopenings, but thousands of immigrants may still not be able to vote come November.
Wolf also had this group of immigrants at the White House raise their right hands and swear an oath when he isn’t even serving lawfully in his position at the department, according to recent findings from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO). But Unlawful Chad and his unlawful acting deputy Ken Cuccinelli are very serious about oaths and the law. They’re so serious that they and the rest of the Trump administration continue to outright defy the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program by refusing to accept new applications.
I know some folks here are probably sick and tired of me repeating that just about every day, but I’m also sick and tired of this pack of white supremacist criminals masquerading as public servants living by their own set of rules while hundreds of thousands of young immigrants are denied their rightful court victory.
Well, since Trump at the very least unethically and very likely illegally hosted a naturalization ceremony, that means he’s in favor of letting other immigrants become citizens too, right? Nah. He’s still got White House aide and noted white supremacist Stephen Miller ordering him around on immigration policy. He’s still using the pandemic to make slashes to legal immigration, to the glee of racist anti-immigrant groups. He’s still violating anti-trafficking law to quickly and unlawfully expel migrant children back to the dangers they fled from in the first place. Funny how none of those QAnon folks care about those kids (not that I want them anywhere near them in the first place).
Trump is just hoping enough folks are foolish enough to fall for the theatrics, including the media. Our job is to make sure it doesn’t work. ”While Trump uses the White House for a citizenship ceremony, thousands of asylum seekers are in camps at the border due to his sabotaging of our immigration system,” tweeted former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and Housing and Urban Development Sec. Julián Castro. “He’s spent four years using immigrants as pawns in a political game. Americans see through his illegal charade.”
