Imagine taking the population of New York City (about 8 million) and the State of Connecticut (about 3 million); arresting everyone, putting them in chains and deporting them to Mexico.
That is Donald Trump's answer to the undocumented immigration issue in a nutshell.
Just imagine the chaos separating the legal from the illegal, the young family members born in America from elders, the old and the infirm from their carers.
Throw in the language problem, the cost of hiring 100,000 new deportation cops, the size of the operation, battering rams, court dates, warrants, legal fees, protests, worldwide condemnation etc.
Yet somehow Trump is allowed to get away with this nonsense. The press have hardly questioned him on it.
In the Republican debate he pointed to the racist Operation Wetback carried out by Dwight Eisenhower which forcibly deported 1.5 million people back down south in the 1950s.
Trump on illegal immigration: "It's hurting us economically. It's hurting us from every standpoint." #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/ZCkOIM7fUc
— World News Tonight (@WNTonight) November 11, 2015
Trump invoked a deadly "unabashedly racist" deportation program as an immigration model. Here's how media responded: https://t.co/plq9SmZ77f
— Media Matters (@mmfa) November 12, 2015
It was a disaster. Close to a thousand American citizens were mistakenly deported and 88 workers died of heat exhaustion after being deported to a desert area and left without any food or water. Up to 100,000 enforcement officers worked on the program, which was a complete failure because American farmers needed the Mexican workers to cultivate their crops and just rehired them after they snuck back.
Those apprehended were often deported without receiving the opportunity to recover their property in the US or to contact their families, and they were stranded without any food or employment when they entered Mexico.
Trump wants to do that to ten times the number of immigrants. Not since Jews were wiped out in Central Europe has such a fascist scheme been attempted.
Trump had gone too far this time, especially for many Republicans.
"That was brutal what they did to those people to kick them back. I mean, the stuff they did was really brutal," Bill O'Reilly Fox news legend told Trump on his show while discussing Operation Wetback.
"Well, well, I've heard it both ways. I've heard good reports, I've heard bad reports," Trump said. "We would do it in a very humane way."
POLL: TRUMP CRUSHES FIELD ON IMMIGRATION https://t.co/ZojyI4w4I7 pic.twitter.com/ESYUsPguvh
— slone (@slone) November 12, 2015
Sure, what’s next? Gas them to keep them quiet?
There is no humane way and when Fox anchor Megyn Kelly carried out a very interesting vox pop on her program on Wednesday night with rock-ribbed Republican supporters, only a handful agreed with Trump’s tactics.
Most talked about jackbooted officers breaking into private homes like Nazi stormtroopers.
Republicans, as well as Democrats, have a deep attachment to how this country was founded by sons and daughters of immigrants and their own forbearers' stories.
So this country is too good for this type of fascist goose-stepping.
It's time Donald Trump got the message. He and his wife, an immigrant herself who sported a Union Jack flag handbag at the debate by the way, should realize just how precious justice for all is—including the undocumented.
This is not Nazi Germany. This is not the Fourth Reich. It is the capital of world freedom.
Choosing between Trump & Bush's immigration views will determine the GOP future: https://t.co/3QZZG0QRlD #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/jf3kPdwmBp
— Slate (@Slate) November 11, 2015
H/T: Politico
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