#hispanophobia

Signed,

In my opinion, the President and his rhetoric, which emboldened that white supremacist to go into a Walmart and shoot the Latinx community, are responsible.

Hispanophobia is real and the Latinx community is under attack. For real, some US citizens were detained by ICE for the very reason of being Latinx.

We need to brand together and civilly fight for our right to be safe, the right to be ourselves and the right to express our identities (Afro, LGBTQIA+, Indigenious, Boriqua, etc.) in America. We also need to continue to fight against institutional racism and continue to call for ICE to be abolished.

And for those that still support Trump from the community, what makes you think he isn’t going to come after you at some point? When he wanted to repeal the 14th Amendment a few years back, which mandates birthright citizenship, chances are he was thinking about you too.

In my opinion, we need to be more proud of our roots, more proud of our cultures, and more proud to be us.

We are not invaders, we are not infestations. We are the children of immigrant parents who sacrificed everything so that we can have a voice at the table and bright futures. We are also immigrants who are productive members of society and contributors to the intellectual community, regardless of status. We are also first gen, paving the way for ours and others’ futures to be bright and full of promise.

At a Trump rally in Florida a couple of months ago, Trump was lamenting yet again that U.S. Border Patrol agents can’t use weapons against migrants and refugees, and asked a rhetorical question:

“And don’t forget, we don’t let them and we can’t let them use weapons. We can’t. Other countries do. We can’t. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people?"

Someone in the crowd shouted an answer:

“Shoot them!”

Trump’s supporters reacted favorably, laughing, cheering, clapping, whistling:

“The audience cheered. Supporters seated behind Trump and clad in white baseball caps bearing the letters ‘USA’ laughed and applauded. ... The fans seated directly behind Trump wore serious, perturbed frowns, which were quickly replaced by broad grins after the shouted suggestion that the solution involved firearms. Uproarious laughter rippled across the room as audience members whistled and offered a round of applause.”

And Trump smiled, perfectly comfortable with both the shout of “Shoot them!” and the audience’s positive reactions:

The Pathological Liar in the Oval Office Who Has Been Lying About This for Over a Year and Wouldn’t Stop Lying if His Fucking Life Depended on It:

“When I became president, President Obama had a separation policy. I didn’t have it. He had it. I brought the families together. I’m the one that put them together. ... I’m the one that put people together. They separated. I put them together. ... I inherited separation, and I changed the plan and I brought people together.”

Reality:

Nine-year-old Julia Isabel Amparo Medina is a United States citizen. So is her 14-year-old brother, Oscar Amparo Medina. They live with their mother (who presumably is not a citizen) across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, and attend school nearly every day in San Ysidro, California. One morning in March the line at the border for vehicles was particularly slow, so the children got out and walked. The plan was to call them an Uber on the American side of the border, so they could get to school on time.

They never made it.

Both had their official U.S. Passport cards with them, so there should have been no problem. But U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials decided that Julia didn’t look like her picture. They decided instead that she was really her older cousin Melanie (who presumably is not a citizen) trying to sneak into the country with someone else’s passport. So they took the nine-year-old U.S. citizen into custody and held her for 32 hours.

While Julia was being held, the CBP told her that if she would just admit (falsely) to being Melanie “she would be released soon so she could see her mom.” When that didn’t work, they tried with Oscar. They refused to let him see his sister, and told him “he would be taken to jail and they were going to charge him for human trafficking and sex trafficking” if he didn’t sign a document declaring (falsely) that his little sister was really their cousin. That worked.

General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, calls Trump’s Great Wall a “waste of money.” He also flatly contradicts Trump’s repeated lies claims that immigrants from Mexico and Central America are violent and dangerous:

The UN’s 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees --to which the United States is a party--recognizes the right of persons to seek asylum in another country based on “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Such refugees have numerous substantive rights under international law, including:

“free access to the courts of law”;

“documents for the purpose of travel”;

“identity papers”; and

“as far as possible ... assimilation and naturalization.”

Countries such as the United States have numerous substantive obligations under international law, including the obligation to treat such refugees “without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin.” In addition, such countries may not:

“Impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence ... provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence”;

“Expel” refugees without “a decision reached in accordance with due process of law”; or

“Expel or return” a refugee to any other country “where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

United States law (8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)) grants non-citizens the right to seek asylum the moment they set foot on U.S. soil. How they get here, and whether they are here legally or illegally, are entirely irrelevant:

“Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum...”

This law--like so many laws--makes Donald Trump very unhappy. So he told the Department of Homeland Security to ignore it and force all those brown-skinned refugees to go back to Mexico while waiting on their asylum claims. DHS obligingly implemented the so-called “Migration Protection Protocols.” A federal judge has now ruled that the MPPs violate federal law.

The court found “uncontested evidence that they [the refugees seeking asylum] fled their homes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to escape extreme violence, including rape and death threats” (which is of course a valid ground for seeking asylum.) The court further found that these refugees would “experience physical and verbal assaults, and live in fear of future violence.” if they were forced to stay in Mexico rather than entering the United States. The Trump administration submitted no contrary evidence, merely arguing that Trump has “broad authority to limit immigration” and courts can’t interfere.

Pro Tip: Telling the guy wearing the black robe that he can’t do something is never a great legal strategy.

Trump’s entirely predictable response to his loss: blaming the judge who ruled against him. “So unfair to the U.S. OUT OF CONTROL!”