First, I am certainly not the only person who is suggesting that Donald Trump's anti-immigrant racism is grounds for impeachment. Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson write as follows in his October 21 article in that paper with the title:

Why we should impeach and remove President Trump

"Worse, Trump appeals to his supporters basest human instincts. He regularly uses immigration to stir racial and ethnic tensions."

The House Democrats could be making a disastrous mistake by overlooking Donald Trump's white nationalist immigration agenda as grounds for impeachment. By ignoring immigration and relying instead on the "narrow" grounds of his phone call to the president of Ukraine, which most voters in next year's election may not give a hoot about, the Democrats could be handing the election to Donald Trump and ensuring at least four more years of immigration racism, repression and repudiation of justice, democracy and basic human rights.

The Democratic leaders might do well to pay attention to the warning in an October 19 Washington Post story that voters in a typical "swing" district in Staten Island, New York, don't care about whether or not Trump is trying to use foreign leaders to gain an electoral advantage at home. Many voters think that this is "all politics" and has no real effect on their lives. See, WP:

I want to see what comes out of the woodwork

In contrast, as highlighted by two analysts in the crucial swing state of Michigan writing in POLITICO Magazine, immigration is a crucial issue to millions of voters because it deals with the largely unspoken, but hugely important issue to many people in every part of the nation of demographic change, and what thOr to put it more bluntly and accurately, many white voters are concerned about what color the face ofAmerica will look like in the future, See, Steve Tobocman and John Austin, October 20:

How Democrats Can Turn Immigration Into Trump's Kryptonite

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/10/20/trump-democrats-immigration-2020-229863

As the writers point out, the best way to counter immigration racial "anxieties" on the part of white voters, especially less educated ones, is to show that immigration promotes the traditional American values of fairness, justice and equal rights for all, regardless of national origin, ancestry or skin color.

These values, as far as immigration is concerned, are under attack by the Trump-Miller administration today as they have not been in almost 100 years, since the openly racist, white supremacist "national origins" immigration act was adopted in 1924.

First, Tobovam and Austin warn about the dangers fro the Democrats of not focusing on immigration, an issue which thy have been largely ignoring at their debates so far.

"To the extent that voters feel strongly about immigration, it is culture and American identity that drive the debate on these issues, not policy. Numerous poling and academic analyses of the Trump victory confirm that it was primarily cultural anxiety that drove many white voters to Trump, not economic insecurity."

Duringhis entire presidency, Trump has done everything possible to exploit and inflame this "cultural anxiety", which is just a polite euphemism for white racism. If the Democrats ignore this powerful motivation for many Trump voters, they could well be handing the 2020 election to Trump on a silver platter, by and by a bigger margin that in 2016. This could happen no matter how many phone calls Trump may make to foreign leaders in countries which many American voters would not even b able to locate on a map.

This is especially true since Trump is obviously determined to make bigotry against both legal and unauthorized immigrants the centerpiece of his reelection campaign. What can the Democrats do to counter negative feelings and prejudice on the part millions of white voters against brown immigrants?

The authors recommend an appeal to the traditional American values of reviving the "American Dream" of equal opportunity for all and emphasizing Fair Play .i.

While the authors to not mention this specifically,Fair Play includes adhering to the basic principles of justice, equality and human rights that drove the 1960's Civil Rights movement, and which are now under what is arguably the worst attack from any U/S/ president since Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 - in part for his racist attacks on newly emancipated African-Americans.

And fundamental fairness, racial justice and respect for human rights are not only values that are meant to protect immigrants. They are at the foundations of our democracy. if these values are lost or overthrown by Trump's racist anti-immigrant agenda, democracy will vanish for the American people as well.

This is why the Democrats must impeach Donald Trump on immigration grounds. To be sure, courage will be needed to take Trump head-on over his white supremacist immigration agenda, which he misleading refers to as "enforcing the laws" against "illegal immigrants", but which in reality seeks to abolish or make drastic cute in nonwhite legal immigration as well.

But if the Democrats cannot find this necessary courage, they may find it impossible to take back the White House next year. Hiding behind Trump's phone calls to foreign leaders of countries many Americana may never have even heard of may not be enough to save our immigration system as we know it - or our democracy.

Roger Algase
Attorney at Law