November 21, 2017
As every day vomits up new evidence of men who are serial harassers, leaving a trail of dashed ambitions in their wake, the poisonous policies of the Trump administration continue apace. Yesterday Charlie Rose and Glenn Thrush were the latest to be revealed to have exercised droit de seigneur in their personal fiefdoms. As riveting as these tales of the powerful brought low by their uncontrolled lechery may be, we must not lose sight of the devastating impact of the Trump administration’s continued commitment to white supremacy as government policy.
Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was ending the protection afforded to Haitian refugees under the 1990 Temporary Protected Status Law. 59,000 Haitian refugees, who came to the U.S. after the 2010 earthquake, have been given 18 months to leave the country. This is despite the fact that Haiti continues to be crippled by extreme poverty (the legacy of revenge exacted by France for having successfully freed itself from colonialism and slavery). Since their arrival in the United States, these Haitian immigrants have had 30,000 children who are American citizens. They are part of the diaspora of Haitian refugees who send remittances back to Haiti that account for more than 25% of the country’s income (Source: “59,000 Haitians Must Leave U.S. As White House Ends Protections,” by Miriam Jordan, The New York Times, 11/21/17).The cruel DHS decision on Haitian refugees is a harbinger of the potential fate of the more than 300,000 other refugees with Temporary Protected Status. DHS has already ended protection for Nicaraguans, and word is that White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, has been pressuring DHS to end protection for tens of thousands of Hondurans (Source: “White House Chief of Staff tried to pressure acting DHS secretary to expel thousands of Hondurans, officials say,” by Nick Miroff, The Washington Post, 11/9/17). A review of the statistics on the beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status proves that nothing other than naked racism motivates the desire to deport them. Of the 325,000 refugees from Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras, labor force participation ranges from 81-88%, exceeding the 66% participation of the U.S. population as a whole. 87% of the refugees speak some English, 30% have mortgages and 11% are self-employed, meaning that they have created businesses that probably employ others as well (Source: “A Statistical and Demographic Profile of U.S. Temporary Protected Status Populations From El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti,” by Robert Warren and Donald Kerwin, Center for Migration Studies, www.cmsny.org).Though it seems to defy logic to expel hardworking, law abiding immigrants, many of whom have American citizen spouses or children, there is a dastardly coherence to the administration’s immigration policies. They are seeking to remove protections from those with the least legal status (DACA and TPS), rendering hundreds of thousands of people instantly undocumented. At the same time, the administration seeks to deputize local law enforcement as auxiliary ICE agents to increase the detention of immigrant populations.
Fortunately, federal Judge William Orrick’s decision yesterday dealt a serious blow to the second part of that strategy. Judge Orrick issued a permanent injunction invalidating the Executive Order which attempted to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities. Judge Orrick found that since spending power rests solely with Congress, the Executive Order was unconstitutional on its face. His decision stated that the order was so “overbroad and coercive that even if the President had spending powers, the Executive Order would clearly exceed them and violate the Tenth Amendment’s prohibition against commandeering local jurisdictions,” (City of Santa Clara v. Donald Trump, N.D. California, Order granting summary judgment, 11/20/17). Given the bi-partisan nature of career-ending sexual harassment on display, the courts may be all that stands between us and a lawless Executive branch animated by hatred and bigotry. Idols may fall, but we may also have to pay the price.