While facing the president’s impeachment trial in the Senate, the Trump administration has also been continuing with their campaign to pressure immigrants further and further away. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court gave them a green light to go ahead with their latest anti-immigrant plan to consider their assessment of whether or not a prospective green card recipient would become a “public charge” when evaluating their attempts at legal permanent residency. That means that they’re going to be discriminating against prospective green card holders who may need public assistance, which attracted the condemnation of figures like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Schiff commented on Twitter:
‘Trump has broken our nation’s promise to immigrants: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. Generations of immigrants have come to the U.S. with nothing, and helped make our country great. The American dream is always worth defending.’
Trump has broken our nation’s promise to immigrants:
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.
Generations of immigrants have come to the U.S. with nothing, and helped make our country great.
The American dream is always worth defending. https://t.co/lh0xEZ6UKz
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 28, 2020
The Court allowed the administration to continue with their so-called “wealth test” for immigrants thanks to the conservative majority that Trump has enacted on the bench. That includes Neil Gorsuch, whose seat Senate Republicans flatly refused to go along with then-President Obama filling, and Brett Kavanaugh, who is credibly accused of sexual assault.
Weighing the possibility of needing public assistance against prospective U.S. residents is one of many similar steps that the Trump administration has taken to close the country to those who happen to have been born someplace else. They’ve pursued agreements to send asylum seekers back to countries across central America including Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and they’ve worked to dial back the kinds of cases that could earn someone asylum in the United States. The activist group the American Friends Service Committee notes that according to reports, “Mexican, Honduran, and Salvadoran asylum seekers—including families with children—are already being deported to Guatemala.”
These steps are all in addition to the president’s most high-profile affronts against immigrants, like his work to construct a southern U.S. border wall and continuous stream of public denigration of their community.
Bernie Sanders also denounced the latest move. He shared:
‘Our immigration system must live up to our ideals as a nation. Unlike Trump, we will welcome refugees and those seeking asylum, including those displaced by climate change.’
Our immigration system must live up to our ideals as a nation. Unlike Trump, we will welcome refugees and those seeking asylum, including those displaced by climate change.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 25, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response to Schiff…
