It is safe to say that many, if not most, African Americans can attest to the fact that if there is trouble and there are ten white people and one African American in the vicinity, the African American will be blamed for the problem. It is what happens in a society steeped in racism and Aryan sensibilities, and it certainly applies to the way Republicans treat President Barack Obama. The party of white supremacy, Republicans, have spent the past five years blaming the African American President for myriad policies and legislation enacted during white president George W. Bush’s administration. The President has spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning up Bush-Republican messes whether it was a devastating economic recession, two wars of aggression against Muslims, or most recently the immigration “crisis” involving child refugees from Central America.
Americans who have been of legal voting age over the past ten years, at least, are aware that every two years a cause célèbre for Republicans is blaming most of the nation’s woes on immigrants that are not white; primarily Latinos. This year is no different and Republicans are using the number of Central American children emigrating to America as a reason to reject comprehensive immigration reform, fill their campaign coffers, marshal armed militias to the border with Mexico, demand thousands of national guard troops to turn the children away, and blame the African American in the Oval Office for a Bush Administration policy.
Despite the chorus of Republicans placing the blame for the increase in unaccompanied child immigrants on President Obama, he has little to no options in dealing with the so-called “crisis.” Under the 2002 Homeland Security Act, and 2008’s Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, both during the Bush administration, Congress set up a particular process for dealing with unaccompanied immigrant children that leaves President Obama with no flexibility to deal with the issue. Republicans demand the President, and plead with armed vigilantes, to deport the children back to their home countries, but under Bush-Republicans’ two laws, the Border Patrol is required to take the child immigrants, who are not from Mexico, into custody, transfer them to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and either find a suitable relative to place them with or put them in long-term foster care; not send them back home.
Contrary to Republican claims President Obama is offering the children amnesty in exchange for their votes, spreading African continent diseases to the population, or polluting America’s “whiteness,” he is attempting to work with Congress to change the law. However, one would never know it to hear Republicans using the issue to raise campaign dollars from xenophobic Americans, incite opposition to comprehensive immigration reform, blame the President for the humanitarian crisis, or refuse to uphold immigration laws.
For example, three weeks ago House Republicans held a Judiciary Committee hearing titled “An Administration Made Disaster: The South Texas Border Surge of Unaccompanied Alien Minors.” Within days of the hearing, Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn wrote in an op-ed that President Obama’s “broader refusal to uphold our immigration laws has created a powerful incentive for children to cross into the United States illegally.” Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) agreed with Cornyn and asserted the President was “personally responsible for ‘incentivizing’ unaccompanied children with the promise of citizenship for anyone in the world who arrives illegally in the country by a certain age. President Obama is responsible for this calamity.”
More Republicans lies, and it got worse when the President announced a “cross-governmental agency plan to deal with the situation” that inspired House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) to state categorically that the immigration surge was “an administration-made crisis due to Obama’s lax border enforcement policies.” He also said “the Obama Administration’s policies have led to a surge of minors arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.” House Speaker John Boehner joined the Republicans’ concerted lie-fest and propaganda campaign against the President in a letter to Obama claiming the President was giving a “free pass to immigrants coming to America” and demanded, like many Republicans, that the President send the National Guard to the Texas border because “once unaccompanied children reach U.S. soil, they will be able to stay here indefinitely.” That is not close to being true, but it does reveal that Boehner, as a member of Bush’s Republican Congress, was involved in passing both the 2002 and 2008 humanitarian legislation for Central American victims Republicans now claim that President Obama is “personally responsible” for.
Republicans are well-aware President Obama is not responsible for the humanitarian crisis at the border, but they are blaming him anyway to garner electoral support to reject any attempt at immigration reform. Thus far, they claim immigration reform can never happen because the President broke the law to secure the release of POW Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the ACA rollout experienced technical glitches, the Boston Marathon bomber was an immigrant, and that the President refused to “negotiate” during the government shutdown making it “unrealistic” to pass immigration reform. In fact, the latest outrageous claim to halt any chance at reform was piece of filth Ted Cruz claiming the President and Harry Reid were holding the immigrant children for ransom and something about “amnesty.” It is noteworthy that the only “amnesty” for immigrants was granted by Republican man-god Ronald Reagan; not Barack Obama.
Ted Cruz complaining about immigration is typically hypocritical because Cruz’s evangelical father illegally bribed immigration officials in Cuba to come to America, then emigrated to Canada where he became a citizen before returning to America. The elder Cruz did not seek American citizenship until 2005; 48 years after admittedly illegally emigrating to America. Apparently for Cruz, and all Republican descendants of immigrants, coupled with their intense xenophobia is their change of heart on aiding refugee children that began when an African American man was elected President.
Republicans know the influx of child refugees from Central America is both the result of America’s drug policies and their own actions during the Bush administration. It is likely there are a few Republicans that support immigration reform, but this is an election year and nothing incites opposition to Democrats among xenophobes and white supremacists more than threats “their” white nation is being overrun by brown people; particularly at the urging of a Black President. That is the real, and only, issue at play in the humanitarian crisis that Republicans and George W. Bush saw fit to address long before Barack Obama was sworn in as President.
The border “crisis” is a humanitarian crisis and the immigrants are unaccompanied children fleeing untenable conditions in their home countries. In fact, a recent report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the majority of children emigrating from Central America are eligible for humanitarian protection, according to international standards. However, this is America and Republicans cannot comport anything resembling humanitarian protection; particularly for brown children and especially with an African American in the White House.
Most Americans get it. Republicans do not like brown people whether they were born in America or emigrated here as children. What is curious is why they are blaming Barack Obama for their actions when they should be jumping at the chance to take credit for offering humanitarian aid to Latino children that might pay electoral dividends with the Hispanic community. Instead they have demonized innocent refugee children with the same animus they reserve for the President because expressing hatred for immigrants, like blaming the President for Bush-Republican actions is red meat for their inhumane and xenophobic base.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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