Locals Respond to Trump’s Green Card Ban

Local immigration activists responded to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning some immigration into the United States due to the Coronavirus.

“By pausing immigration, we’ll help put unemployed Americans first in line for jobs as America reopens,” Trump said. “It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrant labor flown in from abroad. We must first take care of the American workers.”

He offered no details as to what other immigration programs might be affected by the order. The White House did not immediately elaborate on Trump’s tweeted announcement.

“That’s the administration and his followers taking advantage of this pandemic to make their dreams come true,” said immigration activist Pablo Alvarado. “They have a justification now and they’re developing actually new theories, new ideas on how to use this virus to attack immigrants.”

Anti-immigrant rhetoric was a big part of Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election.

During the campaign, President Trump vowed to round up and deport undocumented immigrants and build a 2,000-mile-long wall along the US/Mexico border.

“I am not surprised by the xenophobic statement made by the President,” said Julianna Serrano. He has shown time and time again his hatred for immigrants. He chooses to forget the historical truth that this nation was shaped and formed by immigrants, and they are currently the backbone of our economy. His proposal would do nothing to “protect jobs”. Rather, this is yet another way that the President and his administration will put the lives and livelihoods of the people of his nation in jeopardy.”

Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) said the a president who cared about labor economics and about the working people of this country would long ago have acted to ensure that recipients of DACA and of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) could remain contributors in our then full-employment economy

“Donald Trump’s proclamation today, purporting to restrict certain immigration to the United States in response to the COVID-19 crisis, is a desperate and nightmarish Frankenstein of nativism, hypocrisy, phony economics, and attempted political diversion,” he said. “It is clear that our nation’s true ‘Invisible Enemy’ Trump tweeted about two days ago is his own corrupt and racist heart.”

Trump has defended his response to the Coronavirus by pointing to restrictions he placed on travel to the U.S. from China and hard-hit European countries, arguing it contributed to slowing the spread of the virus in the U.S. But he has yet to extend those restrictions to other nations now experiencing virus outbreaks.

The move comes as Trump faces extreme criticism due to his response to the Coronavirus.

“I think two months after waiting 10 years to get a green card, is not much,” said Yuni Parada. “And right now, especially if they are Latinos, I would say you are better off in your own countries right now than come to United States. We are having a heck of a pandemic here, so they should just stay better in their own countries. The odds of getting people getting sick are much greater than staying in their own country. So I’m okay with that.”

If the US economy were up and running stopping immigration would normally affect millions of people.

However much of the immigration system has already ground to a halt due to the pandemic.

The State department has suspended almost all visa processing travel to the U.S. has been restricted from much of the globe.

“The war on immigrants is also a political tactic that he’s using to keep his base fed, to keep their racism, bigotry, intact and to continue using it,” Alvarado said. “So it’s not surprising to us.”