Vanessa Cárdenas: Trump/Miller immigration plan “best understood not just as a draconian set of policies, but also a blueprint for Trump and the GOP’s ongoing assault on America’s history as a beacon of hope and opportunity and the notion of our country as an inclusive, multiracial, majoritarian democracy”
Washington, DC – This morning, in an article titled “Scoop: Inside Trump’s new plan to limit immigration,” Stef Kight of Axios details the new Donald Trump immigration plan, complete with Stephen Miller quote. While the array of policy details listed are sweeping in scope and draconian in nature, the overall goal and vision goes beyond immigration policy.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s immigration plan is not just a draconian set of policies, but also a blueprint for Trump and the GOP’s ongoing assault on America’s history as a beacon of hope and opportunity and the notion of our country as an inclusive, multiracial, majoritarian democracy.
Throughout the immigration plan are measures that would help turn back the clock to a time when America’s version of an inclusive democracy was mostly limited to white, Christian, straight men – from efforts to end asylum and America’s commitment as a beacon of liberty to the goal of slashing legal immigration, including along racial and religious lines, to their proposal to rely on new ideological litmus tests and attack long-settled law and precedent, such as citizenship for all those who are born here. They are not just interested in slamming the door shut to new immigration and driving out immigrants already here, but dictating who gets to be American by what they look like and what they believe.
And while Donald Trump will be absent from the GOP primary debate stage this week, his relentless anti-immigrant extremism has already set the tone, continuing the GOP’s descent that started on the Trump Tower escalator in 2015. Virtually the entire Republican Party and the GOP primary field is helping to normalize extremism and mainstreaming ideas and justifications that were not long ago limited to the fringes of the nativist and white nationalist movements, including their embrace of ‘replacement’ and ‘invasion’ conspiracies and falsehoods. Of course, none of their plans and policies would move us closer to real solutions for 21st century migration or deliver the long overdue legislative fix for our broken immigration system needs and Republicans continue to block.
All of us who believe immigrants and refugees are foundational to the American experiment should be clear of the stakes of Trump’s latest manifesto and how immigration is weaponized as part of Republicans’ assault on our inclusive democracy.”
