Update, October 22, 5:55 pm:

Jennifer Rubin, a Republican-leaning columnist (at least in 2012 when she was a big Romney supporter) who has become the conscience of America during the darkness of the Trump years, writes the following candidly and openly about the real motivation behind Trump's agenda of hatred against both legal and unauthorized nonwhite immigrants in her October 22 Washington Post column:

Trump's grotesque racism matters

"Lastly, Trump and today's GOP attack the notion of a multiracial and multiethnic democracy...right wing nativism is a threat to our diverse democracy."

My earlier comment follows:

In a Fox News interview, USCIS director Ken Cuccinelli, whom Trump is reportedly considering for DHS chief,, trumpeted (no pun intended) the purported "success" of the Trump administration in carrying out its immigration agenda. At the same time, he warned the courts not to "get in our way".

https://www.foxnews.com/media/ken-cuccinelli-illegal-immigration-courts

Cuccinelli stated:

"I feel like we've been successful under [Trump's] leadership...The president's leadership is a critical element here that's allowing us to succeed over, say, the past six months. And if the courts don't get in our way, we'll continue to succeed. But long-term change won't come until Congress engages and helps us fix some of these loopholes."

At the outset, it is not unfair to ask what kind of "long-term change" in immigration Cuccinelli, who has previously suggested that the Statue of Liberty might have been meant to welcome European immigrants only, has in mind.

One very obvious answer to that question appears in an August 12 article by Joel Mathis about the bigoted Trump-Miller Public Charge rule, which was overtly intended to reduce legal immigration from less affluent, non-white parts of the world and has now been temporarily blocked by no less than 3 different federal courts. See:

Trump wants to make immigration white again

https://theweek.com/articles/858662/trump-wants-make-immigration-white-again

When Cuccinelli attacks the courts for getting in the way of Trump's "Countries like Norway" whites-only immigration agenda, he is in effect saying that this agenda takes precedence over the rule of law. This is not a very reassuring comment from an official who is now in charge of America;'s legal immigration system, and who may soon become the head of the entire Department of Homeland Security if Trump
gets his way.

The latest news report advises that the Democratic leadership is now planning to make abuse of power the centerpiece of the impeachment charges against Trump. See, NBC News, October 21:

htttps://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/house-democrats-zero-abuse-power-impeachment-inquiry-n1069431

But Trump's abuse of power is not just limited to his dealings with the president of Ukraine or other foreign leaders. It has also been the keystone of his agenda of hate against Asian, Middle Eastern, African, Lain American and Caribbean immigrants, both legal and unauthorized.

His abuse of power over immigration began during his first week in office, with the original version of his Muslim Ban executive order, which was struck down by so many different federal courts that he finally had to replace it with what he himself complained was a "watered-down" version. That weaker, narrower version was finally upheld by a narrow, right wing, ideological Supreme Court majority based on a transparently phony "national security" pretext.

Trump's abuse of power with the goal cutting back on and promoting hate against nonwhite immigrants has continued without letup ever since. Sometimes, the Supreme Court has gone along, as in the case of allowing him to divert military funding to build his fascist border wall, or to force legitimate asylum seekers to wait or apply in Mexico and other concededly dangerous countries before applying in the US. At other times. even that Republican-dominated Court has balked at Trump's attempt to exclude nonwhite immigrants from American life -as in striking down his attempt to add a US citizenship question to the census.

But, as Cuccinelli points out, the lower federal courts have not been nearly as friendly to Trump's agenda of hate against legal immigrants who do not have his preferred white skin color. These include, for example, legal refugees, whom he recently attacked in a vicious rant at a rally in Minneapolis - something which a comment in The Guardian has compared to one of America's worst promoters of hate against minorities in the entire 20th century, Gerald L.K. Smith. See, October 21:

Trump is peddling hate in Minnesota. To defeat him. look to Hubert Humphrey

https://ww.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/21/rump-minnesota-hubert-humphrey-somalis-republicans-democrats

For those of us who are old enough to remember Gerald L. K Smith's hate sheet: The Cross and the Flag, he was consumed by venomous bigotry, not only against African-Americans, but especially against Jews.

Trump is not in the least anti-Semitic, despite efforts by some of his critics to falsely accuse him of this, but Muslims and nonwhite immigrants in general have taken the place as targets of his attacks that used to be reserved for Jews as the objects of hatred by earlier bigots, such as Henry Ford, Father Charles Coughlin and Gerald L.K.Smith.

The Trump administration's wish, as expressed by Cuccinelli, for the courts to get "out of the way" of Trump's anti-immigrant agenda has very serious and disturbing implications for the future of America's democracy.

The Democratic leaders will be gravely deficient in their duty to the American people if they fail to include Trump's abuse of power for the purpose of promoting hate against nonwhite immigrants in the list of grounds for impeachment.


Roger Algase
Attorney at Law