Just as America and other western countries ignored Vladimir Putin's Russian fascism until he finally began his genocidal invasion of Ukraine, both immigrants and American citizens who care about preserving our democracy are ignoring the growing threat of a fascist takeover in America from Donald Trump and his extremist GOP supporters. Many aspects of Trump's and his followers' fascist threat to America are obvious in a political agenda that is largely beyond the scope of these comments, which deal only with immigration. I refer to GOP attempts to subvert America's free election system; to bans on abortion and school textbooks dealing with racial justice; and the erosion of protections for our LGBT population.

But, true to form, the Republican movement toward fascism is based on a foundation of attacking the human rights and human dignity of nonwhite immigrants - as witnessed most recently in the attempt of a number of Republican state attorney generals to force the Biden administration to continue using Title 42 of the US Code to expel brown and black immigrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border on bogus, literally "Trumped up" Covid-19 public health grounds.

This attempt to destroy racial equality, which is at the heart of America's democracy, has just been upheld by a Trump appointed federal judge in Louisiana, as POLITICO reports on May 20, The court's decision to compel the Biden administration to continue Title 42, which has led to the summary expulsion of over a million nonwhite asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border in violation of international human rights law, comes at a time when the openly racist, anti-immigrant "Great Replacement Theory" is gaining popularity among Republican politicians, especially those who support Donald Trump.

See NY Times, May 15:

A Fringe Conspiracy Theory, Fostered Online, Is Refashioned by the G.O.P.

To be continued.

Roger Algase
Attorney at Law