Trump’s racist diatribe exposes conspiracy against immigrants

US President Donald Trump delivered a racist and fascistic rant against immigrants from what he called “shithole countries,” such as Haiti and states in Africa, during a bipartisan White House meeting on the so-called immigration “reform.”

The Washington Post first reported Trump’s remarks, citing two unnamed people who were briefed on the meeting. Responding to questions later in the day, the White House did not deny that Trump had made the statements. Trump’s outburst came as an embarrassment to congressional Democrats, who just recently have rushed to reach a deal with Trump that would further militarize the border and expand the crackdown on immigrants. In an editorial published less than 24 hours before Trump’s statement, the Washington Post encouraged the Democrats to embrace large portions of Trump’s immigration policy, including the building of a wall along the US-Mexican border. Barry Grey, a writer on social issues, has shed light on the Trump's improper behavior and diatribe as the head of an alleged big country, the United States.

Trump made his remarks after rejecting a proposal agreed to by a group of six Republican and Democratic senators. The agreement would restore Obama-era legal protection, terminated last year by the White House, for 800,000 immigrants who were brought to the US as children by the so-called undocumented parents, provide billions of dollars to hire more border agents and step up border militarization, drastically cut visas for family members of legal immigrants and gut the diversity visa lottery for immigrants from Africa, Central America and other poor regions of the world. These statements produced declarations of shock in the media and indignant denunciations from Democratic politicians. The posturing of outrage from within the media and political establishment is hypocritical and dishonest. The problem for the ruling system is that, once again, Trump has said in public what so many in the corporate-financial oligarchy and the state apparatus think and say in private.

The art of American imperialist politics is to cloak the criminal activities of the US ruling elite all over the world in humanitarian rhetoric. The rule is: You can kill as many people as you want, as long as it is done in a manner that pays verbal tribute to democratic and humanitarian ideals. Trump, whose rise to power is the product of unending war and massive social inequality, dispenses with all that. He articulates the policies of American imperialism in bluntly fascistic language.

The US is busy all around the world invading countries, killing their inhabitants and stealing their resources. It threatens countries such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea with annihilation and use of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear warheads. It bears overwhelming responsibility for the crushing poverty and repression in Haiti, having occupied the country from 1915 to 1934 and repeatedly invaded it since, most recently in 1996 (under Bill Clinton) and 2004 (under George W. Bush). It led the bombing war that destroyed Libya and is waging drone warfare and covert war in Somalia, Niger and other parts of Africa. Now, the Democrats are joining hands with Trump and the Republicans to send the few who escaped the killing fields of these countries and sought asylum in the US back to be brutalized and murdered, while sealing the border to block the many more new refugees created by US aggression from entering the country.

Two things utterly expose the falseness of the official indignation over Trump’s outburst. First, he made it in the course of a meeting attended by Democratic Senate Whip Richard Durbin, who has been leading the Democrats in the immigration talks. Just two days before that, at televised bipartisan talks chaired by Trump, Durbin had simpered, “We’re all honored to be part of this conversation.” He went on to pledge Democratic support for what he referred to as “a safe border in America period.”

Second, even as the anti-immigrant conspirators were meeting in the White House, the Democratic Party was providing the votes needed in the House of Representatives to block any alteration of the FISA law and extend its Section 702, which authorizes the National Security Agency to sweep up the telephone and electronic communications of millions of Americans without a warrant. The media, the Democrats and the ruling elite as a whole know that this further discredit the United States in the eyes of the world and the American people. They are well aware how weak and unstable this government is. Their entire focus is to divert, dissipate and sabotage popular opposition—by means of reactionary campaigns such as the anti-Russia drive, the witch-hunt and the “fake news” crackdown on free speech and expression on the Internet—so as to prevent a political movement against American's Exceptionalism. Workers and young people should give no support to any of the factions within the ruling system and political establishment and, above all, not allow their opposition to Trump to be channeled behind the right-wing Democratic Party. The struggle against Trump must be waged as an independent and united movement of the people, in unity with the growing struggles of activists and independent voices internationally, against the source of war, poverty and racism—the self-centered ruling system.

Following the detention of prominent immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, 18 peaceful protesters were arrested by police at a demonstration in lower Manhattan just recently. Ragbir, who is the executive director of the of the interfaith immigrants’ rights group New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC, legally immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago more than 25 years ago. After serving five years in prison for a wire fraud conviction, a judge ordered his deportation in 2006, but Ragbir received a stay of removal in 2011 and his case is reevaluated annually. He had a “stay of removal,” which would prevent him from being deported, that was supposed to be in effect until now. However, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)  during one of his regularly scheduled check-ins.

His detention coincided with a “Solidarity Vigil Against Deportation” that was called by a variety of religious, legal and immigrants’ rights organizations—including the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), Faith in New York, Immigrant Defense Project and Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights. The vigil, which included over 200 protesters, gathered in Foley Square in Manhattan across the street from 26 Federal Plaza, where immigrants must check in with ICE officers. After it was announced that Ragbir had been detained, many protesters moved into the nearby street and attempted to block an ambulance in which he was being transported. A spokesperson from the Immigrant Defense Project later confirmed that Ragbir was placed in an ambulance because he had fainted while being detained by ICE.

Videos that have surfaced on social media also show a heavy police presence, with NYPD officers forcibly pushing demonstrators out of the way of the ambulance and grabbing others to arrest them with zip-tie handcuffs. The 18 arrested protesters were then forced to sit on the road as the police attempted to disperse the demonstration. Democratic City Council members Ydanis Rodriguez and Jumaane Williams were among those arrested.

The decision to detain Ragbir, who has been called a “fixture in the immigrants’ rights movement,” and immediately clamp down on a protest in support of him reflects the attempts to intimidate large numbers of workers and youth who are opposed to the attack on immigrants. These supporters of immigrant rights are also hostile to the ongoing negotiations between Democrats and the Trump administration over the potential elimination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) policy, which defers the deportation of individuals who came to America as minors.

Yes, it was just a small part of the planned clampdown on the immigrants in the United States under Donald Trump who is known head of state for his diatribes and threatening language without minimum respect for humanity.

EA/ME