Commonplace Cruelty
Much of the media coverage this week focused on Donald Trump’s feud with journalists. In what can only be characterized as a scathing editorial, the New York Times described Trump’s behavior as coarse, vengeful, embarrassing, nasty, creepy, denigrating, awkward, vulgar, and repugnant.
These same descriptions apply to his attacks on immigrants. The recent Supreme Court decision to uphold part of the executive travel ban has allowed the administration to aggressively target people for exclusion. Freed from judicial oversight, the White House renewed senseless travel restrictions and its attacks on Muslims and people from Arabic countries.
While the Supreme Court will review the case in the fall, it restored much of the original executive intent to limit immigration. The administration moving quickly with renewed aggressiveness.
“It remains clear that President Trump’s purpose is to disparage and condemn Muslims,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the A.C.L.U.’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, adding that the government’s new ban on entry “does not comport with the Supreme Court’s order, is arbitrary and is not tied to any legitimate government purpose.”
The punitive, vengeful, and nasty nature of this effort by the administration was underscored by other actions taken by House Republicans at Trump’s urging. In the midst of the crisis on health care and tweets about journalists, GOP forces found time to crack down on undocumented people and those who support them.
The House introduced two separate bills that, while certain to meet resistance in the Senate and across the country, demonstrate the level of cruelty now commonplace in the GOP. The first bill is an effort to increase prison sentences for people who re-enter the country without proper documentation. The second renews attacks on sanctuary cities and promises to cut federal funds. The Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly, made a rare appearance at the Capitol to make a special assault on cities that declare concern for all the people who call them home. In an effort to obscure reality, Kelly said these new anti-sanctuary laws would prevent local officials from prioritizing “criminals over public and law enforcement officer safety.”
Named “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act,” the bill expands the amount of money a city could lose if it does not cooperate with federal immigration officials and it would also prevent people from filing lawsuits against federal authorities who detain immigrants. Even without these laws, the administration has been targeting people for deportation.
Two weeks ago, more than 100 people in metro Detroit were rounded up and processed for deportation. Most were Chaldean. Most have lived peacefully and lawfully here for many years, building full lives after escaping persecution in Iraq. As Christians, they have long been a targeted minority there. Almost all of them had committed minor violations of the law and paid for them. Now grandparents, brothers, sons, and husbands are being characterized as hardened criminals and given what could well amount to death sentences if they are sent to Iraq.
Immigration officials invaded homes and workplaces arresting people without notice or any sense of due process. People were transported out of state, leaving families with little understanding of what was happening to them.
This ugliness is just beginning. Our mayor needs to do much more to support all of the people in our city. Our faith communities, schools, universities, and civic organizations have a responsibility to extend sanctuary to all who seek it. At a moment when those in authority are clearly coarse, vengeful, embarrassing, nasty, creepy, denigrating, awkward, vulgar, and repugnant, we the people have to develop ways to protect, support, and care for one another. It was never more obvious that what is legal is not the same thing as what is right.