21st Century Apartheid

January 30, 2020

     Since Sunday night, when The New York Times revealed the “explosive” revelations contained in the book by former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, the news media has been blanketed with wall to wall coverage of the “Bolton bombshell.”  The manuscript details a conversation between Trump and Bolton in August in which Trump admitted that he planned to withhold military aid to Ukraine until they announced investigations of the Bidens, (Source:  “Trump Tied Ukraine Aid to Inquiries He Sought, Bolton Book Says,” by Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times, 1/26/20).

    The manuscript also implicates Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and Acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney.  Although Bolton’s book doesn’t break any new ground, pundits have speculated that, since Bolton is the highest ranking former administration official to implicate Trump, it will ratchet up the pressure on Republican senators to allow witnesses.  From Alan Dershowitz’s tortured, ahistorical argument that Trump’s conduct does not constitute an impeachable offense,  to the concerned murmurs of Romney and Collins,  to McConnell’s strategic admission that he lacks the votes to block witnesses, we have been reading the tea leaves in the hope that the “trial” will bear a passing resemblance to a procedure designed to reveal the truth, rather than cover it up.

     While we sat mesmerized by a process over which we have no control, the Trump administration’s alarming transformation of our country from a flawed democracy struggling to overcome a legacy of racism and genocide into an authoritarian, white supremacist state, continued apace.  Consider three developments that flew under the radar thanks to the obsessive focus on impeachment.

     Last week, the news broke that the Department of Homeland Security was recommending a new rule that would deny B visas to pregnant women suspected of coming to the country for the “primary purpose” of securing American citizenship for their child, a practice known as “birth tourism.”  The DHS rules instruct consular officers “to assume that if someone is seeking a tourist visa and is likely to give birth in the U.S. they are ‘seeking a visa for the primary purpose of obtaining citizenship for the child,’” (Source: “The Trump administration’s new ‘birth tourism’ policy, explained,” by Anna North, Nicole Narea and Alex Ward, Vox.com, 1/24/20).

     The rule doesn’t apply to 39 largely Western countries whose citizens do not require B visas to visit the United States.  Given that consular officers already have the power to deny visas to those whose primary purpose is to give birth in the United States, this rule is a transparent attempt to persecute immigrant women of color AND a frontal attack on the very principle of birthright citizenship, the root of citizenship rights for African Americans, enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment.

      Last week we also learned that Trump was considering expanding his noxious travel ban to include Tanzania, Belarus, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, Eritrea, Nigeria and Sudan. The majority of the countries listed are in Africa and although the stated rationale for the ban was to combat terrorism, no one from the countries of Eritrea, Nigeria, Tanzania or Sudan “has committed a terrorist act on American soil between 1975 and 2016,” (Source:  “Trump Targets A New Group of Immigrants,” by Peter Beinart, The Atlantic, 1/27/20).  Clearly, this expansion is designed to sharply curtail the number of Black immigrants.

      Then, on Monday, Trump’s tainted helpmates on the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s draconian expansion of the “public charge rule” to allow the denial of green cards, not only to those who rely on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families or Supplemental Security Income, but to those who avail themselves of “even a small amount of food, health or housing assistance,”(Source:  “5-4 Supreme Court allows rule to take effect that could radically reshape legal immigration,” by Ariane de Vogue and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN.com, 1/27/20).

      Taken together, these three developments paint a dispiriting picture of a government dedicated with messianic zeal to excluding and immiserating every person of color that comes to our shores.  While we have been glued to our screens watching “Watergate: The Remix,” two branches of government have been busy constructing a 21st Century apartheid state. Dismantling what Trump has built over these last three years will take someone clear-eyed enough to see what we’re up against and humble enough to listen to those of us most at risk.  The first election of the Democratic primary season is in Iowa next week. Vote carefully.