What's Old is New Again

The essay below the break was written and published in August 2018, when the Trump Administration was threatening to cut foreign aid to three Central American countries - El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.  Trump's premise then was that these nations constituted a significant threat to the security of the United States.

It's true, to some extent.  El Salvador has the highest per-capita murder rate in the world. Residents of all three of these Central American nations have become homeless in increasing, and increasingly alarming, numbers. But the Trumpsters, in a way that can justifiably be called racist and xenophobic, insist that, in addition to the meshuge wall on our southern border, the security of the United States relies heavily on what they call merit-based immigration.  In addition, today Mr. Trump again suggested that he might close our border with Mexico altogether, and that he might completely cut off any and all foreign aid to Central America. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Donald Trump excels at only one thing – promoting Donald Trump. He’s not a politician, let alone a political leader. He views his “base,” not as voters or even engaged citizens, but rather as willing cultists, who put him in, and, if he feeds them enough fear and darkness will keep him in, the spotlight. This approach to governing continues to tarnish who we are, and who we want to be, as a nation. A long-standing Trump-ism underlies this approach: merit-based immigration. 

In one of the most famous poems in American history, Emma Lazarus offered the perfect riposte to the faux-policy of merit-based immigration:

     Send me your tired, your poor,
     Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
     The wretched refuse of your teeming shores.
     Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me.
     I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Unless, of course, you’re from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras. Conditions in these countries certainly qualify as tempest-tossed. For instance, El Salvador has the highest per-capita murder rate in the world. Residents of all three of these Central American nations have become homeless in increasing, and increasingly alarming, numbers. But the current administration, in a way that can justifiably be called racist and xenophobic, insists that, in addition to the meshuge wall on our southern border, the security of the United States relies heavily on merit-based immigration.

Why racist and xenophobic? Let us count the ways, by examining a few of the misrepresentations.

Massive Foreign Aid

In the year 2017, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras received an aggregate total of U. S. foreign aid of about $499,000,000. Compare that to the amount received by the country from which my grandparents emigrated – Ukraine. Ukraine netted about $525,000,000. The U. S. Department of State has a single premise that governs allocating foreign aid: That the impact of such aid on economic and democratic development should be positive. The State Department holds further that the premise is borne out best in democratic settings. But some questions remain as to how “democratic settings” are identified and evaluated. Take a look at the list below.

Country Aid	2017 Population
El Salvador $75	000	000.00 About 6 million
Guatemala $297	000	000.00 About 17 million
Honduras $127	000	000.00 About 9 million
Ukraine $525	000	000.00 About 44 million

There does not appear to be any intrinsic relationship between the population of these nations, and the amount of foreign aid they received from us. Mr. Trump referred to the $499,000,000 given to Central America as “massive foreign aid.” One has to wonder how he might characterize the even larger amount allocated for Ukraine. That country is far more peaceful, at least a bit more “democratic,” and therefore according to the State Department’s own standards as cited above, less in need of, foreign aid.

Damage to the Economy

Per Trump, many of those who enter our country across the 2,000-mile border with Mexico are criminals, or so unskilled as to be able to contribute little to our economy. Yet numerous recent reports refer to the damage being done, and to come, to industries like agriculture and construction, because of the decrease in the number of migrant workers entering the United States from Mexico.

Merit-Based Immigration

As envisioned by the current administration, this policy might indeed provide, in the administration’s own words, “skilled, educated employees for companies like Boeing and Microsoft.” But the claim also smacks of euphemism. I spent over two decades working with educators, engineers, and programmers from all over the world. They were indeed highly skilled. But by virtue of being what’s called “green card people,” that is, legal, non-citizen permanent residents, they also worked for about 70 percent of what a native-born American with the same skill set could command as salary. Looked at this way, merit-based immigration is, like the “tax cut” of a few months ago, a big “ka-ching!” for the already wealthy.