Notes From the Field: The Ongoing Battle Over Refugee Resettlement

Same shit, different day.

For those of us working in the immigrant justice field over the past 3 years, the above 4-word phrase has become the go-to response when we are asked about Trump's latest Tweet/helicopter press conference/declaration. The fact of the matter is that each and every time Donald Trump speaks on immigration issues he will inevitably say something horribly racist and nobody in his party will condemn him because they agree with what he said and are simply disappointed that he has again said the quiet part out loud. You'd think that the party that lost the 2016 Latino vote by 38% and the AAPI vote by 50% would be concerned just how unpopular it is among the two fastest-growing ethnic groups in a country that is set to become majority people of color by the year 2045. But, again, this line of thinking would require critical thought, something that today's GOP of Gym Jordan, Devin Nunes, Louie Gohmert, and Lindsey Graham does not possess. At the end of the day, Republicans are willing to continue to scapegoat and demonize immigrants because they simply don't need their votes in their gerrymandered districts and see no harm in giving red meat to their racist, redneck base that is convinced that these foreign devils are a stealin' their jobs and a rapin' their womens.

The problem is that none of these future trends matter today at a time when Moron Hitler, Stephen Miller, and their band of merry Nazi men are setting national immigration policy. We've seen what happens when Trump and company coopt ICE and use the agency to enslave thousands of asylum-seeking children at our southern border. We've seen what happens when Muslims are denied entry to our shores. And now, we're about to find out what happens when racist Republican governments willingly choose to deny refugees the right to settle in their towns and cities.

On September 26th, Donald Doofus issued Executive Order 13888 titled "Executive Order on Enhancing State and Local Involvement in Refugee Resettlement." This came one day after Trump announced that the 2020 cap on total refugees would be set at a historic low of 18,000. This vicious 1-2 gut punch was designed not only keep The Darkies out of America but to also keep them out of Real America (TM) by letting county governments choose whether or not to even accept that absurdly low number in their own backyards. From the Order:

The Federal Government consults with State and local governments not only to identify the best environments for refugees, but also to be respectful of those communities that may not be able to accommodate refugee resettlement.  State and local governments are best positioned to know the resources and capacities they may or may not have available to devote to sustainable resettlement, which maximizes the likelihood refugees placed in the area will become self-sufficient and free from long-term dependence on public assistance.  Some States and localities, however, have viewed existing consultation as insufficient, and there is a need for closer coordination and a more clearly defined role for State and local governments in the refugee resettlement process.  My Administration seeks to enhance these consultations.

It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to read between the lines of this order. Any inability to "devote to sustainable resettlement" has nothing to do with resources but everything to do with racism. After all, the whole "free from long-term dependence on public assistance" is classic Stephen Miller thinking that all refugees are poor, wretched, vile characters and in no way some of the hardest working men and women who one will ever meet, who fled some of the most dangerous living conditions on the planet to make it to this country. To automatically assume that they will become a dreg of society, sucking the government teet, is a tremendous insult to anyone who is or who has worked alongside refugees in this country. They've already been through hell and back. The last thing they want to do is sit back with their feet up while their friends, family, and former countrymen and women continue to suffer back home.

And so, over the next 2 weeks ahead of the order's 90-day deadline, many of us working in the immigrant justice field will be neck-deep wading through the bullshit that accompanies this manure-infused executive order. Our progressive county governments will sign on to allow these refugee populations. Our regressive county governments will "regretfully" pass on the opportunity to add those with a year-round tan to their communities. But it is the county governments in-between where the fight will be waged. After all, this is a black and white issue: you are either in support of refugees or you are not. Those that feign concern about the integration of refugees could not be any more obvious if they were waging a MAGA hat and screaming at them to go back to their country. At the end of the day, county governments are going to have to decide: are they counties in the spirit of Lady Liberty or are their counties in the spirit of Machiavellian Miller?

The overwhelming majority of these 18,000 refugees will beat the odds and find homes in America. If it just happens to be in the bluest of blue cities then so be it. But there can be no denying this is just another example of how the cruelty is the point of this wretched administration. Closing our shores to refugees serves no economic purpose. It serves no security purpose. It certainly serves no moral purpose. But what it does serve is the likes of scared White men like Trump and Stephen Miller to feel better about themselves. After all, the fewer non-Whites allowed into this country, the longer today's Republican Party can continue to delay the eventual moment when people of color outnumber Whites in this country. The GOP knows that demographics aren't in their favor but they also know that thanks to our slavery-based Electoral College, the more they can shift refugees to the blue states, the more they can maintain their hold on national power, even as the blue states get more and more talented refugees. In the end, like all people of color to today's Republican Party, the more refugees are out-of-sight, the more they can be out-of-mind.

And for Republicans who can't fathom the country with them anyway, this arrangement is the ideal situation.