Update, May 23, 9:57 pm:

This is an extract from Trump's demagogic May 23 MS-13 "Roundtable", according to the White House official transcript. After emotional speeches by the parents of two MS-13 gang victims, Trump stated:

"Their beautiful daughters, Kayla and Nisa, were murdered by MS-13 gang members, many of whom exploited glaring loopholes - and we have the biggest loopholes of any country anywhere in the world. We have the worst immigration laws of any country anywhere in the world. But they exploited the loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors. They look so innocent; they're not so innocent."


https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings...n-bethpage-ny/

This is not only a vicious attack on Central American unaccompanied children who are fleeing from gang violence in their countries, not participating in it, but it also implies that America's entire immigration system is rotten - the worst in the world.

This goes far beyond the issue of gang violence, and strikes at the foundation of the entire non-discriminatory immigration system which America has had for the past 50 years - a system which Trump has consistently attacked because it enables immigration not only from Europe, as was the case before 1965, but from what Trump calls "shithole countries" because their citizens have darker skins, not white ones as in Trump's preferred "Countries Like Norway".

This latest Roundtable was only about dealing with criminal gangs on the surface. Its real purpose was to stir up more hatred against non-white immigrants in general - and to take America back to the spirit of the bigoted "Nordics-only" 1924 "national origins" immigration act which Adolf Hitler (who also considered Jews and other Untermenschen to be less than human - i.e. like "animals") had such high praise for because of its racist foundations.

My earlier comment follows:

In his latest demagogic attempt to stigmatize and demonize all Latin American immigrants as criminals and gang members, Donald Trump is hosting a "Roundtable" in Bethpage, Long Island, New York with a group of evidently fawning, sycophantic, ICE, DOJ and local police officers focusing on MS-13. However, based on a few minutes watching the live video, which is ongoing as this is being written, it is clear that Trump is also trying to conflate MS-13 with the entirely separate issue of unaccompanied children showing up that the US border to try to escape from gang violence in Central America as if they were also criminals.

I will update this comment as the "Roundtable" progresses. It can be watched on you tube by going to the Washington Post home page and following the link.

Update, May 23 at 3:20 pm:

After I watched one or two sycophantic speeches from local police officers praising Trump for his "great leadership" regarding MS-13, the mother of one of this gang's victims took the microphone and launched into an emotional speech which could only have the effect of arousing more hatred against all Latino immigrants, not only gang members.

This of course, doesn't imply any lack of sympathy for her terrible loss, but one also has to wonder when Trump might be planning to hold a similar youtube Roundtable with the parents of the schoolchildren in Texas, Florida and other states who were murdered by gun violence.

We should not hold our breath waiting for that Roundtable, since it would not provide the president with any chance to demonize and spread hatred against Latino and other non-white immigrants.

When the victim's mother started to praise Trump for calling the gang members "animals" I had to stop watching. That is is enough dehumanization for one afternoon.

Again, this is not to express any sympathy for the brutal, horrible MS-13 gang members. But the entire nation knows that, just as Trump used ISIS as an excuse to attack all Muslims, his focus on MS-13 is meant as an attack on all Latino, and by extension other non-white immigrants - who most studies show as having a lower crime rate than native born Americans.

Don't expect Trump to mention this at any of his immigration Roundtables.
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Roger Algase is a New York immigration lawyer and a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He has been helping mainly mainly skilled and professional immigrants from diverse parts of the world receive work visas and green cards for more than 30 years.

Roger believes that an immigration system that is open to all people equally and fairly, without regard to race, color, religion or national origin, is essential to maintaining our democracy. His email address is algaselex@gmail.com