“I was 11 when I immigrated to San Antonio from Mexico. When I turned 14, my tourist visa expired and I became undocumented. After more than a decade without papers, I became a United States citizen on Aug. 8, 2014.
“I naively believed that when I legally became an American, with a passport that proves I belong here, all the fears I had while living undocumented would be erased: fears of being separated from my family, of being detained, of being deported, of never being fully accepted in this country. But the election of Donald Trump, his racist and harmful lies about immigrants, the policies enacted by his Administration and the violence he has incited against brown people have removed the rose-colored glasses through which I once viewed this country. I now see America more clearly for what it is: a place where the color of your skin is the most important factor. And if you’re black, brown or any other nonwhite ethnicity, it’s the thing that can make you a target of hate. . . .
“Trump claims that he doesn’t have a problem with immigrants so long as they enter this country the ‘right way.’ In that same October tweet, he wrote, ‘Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process.’ In reality, seeking asylum is a legal way to enter the country, but not only has Trump called our asylum laws ridiculous . . . That’s because it isn’t actually about legality. It is about our brown skin in America.
“In May, while unveiling his immigration plan, Trump claimed, ‘Newcomers compete for jobs against the most vulnerable Americans and put pressure on our social safety net and generous welfare programs.’ But a Department of Labor report conducted under the Bush Administration called the perception that immigrants take American jobs the most persistent fallacy about immigration in popular thought. . . .
“This brown skin will continue to glow against the darkness that has fallen in America . . . .” — Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Was Never About Legality — It Was About Our Brown Skin, Julissa Arce. Time, 8/6/19 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This writer has quite a fixation on her “brown skin,” and uses it to suggest that attempts to stem illegal immigration rest on nothing but racial animus. Appeals to the importance of the rule of law don’t seem to carry much weight with her. Given her background as a one-time illegal alien, it’s understandable why she may have this bias.
Indeed, even as she plays the race card against Trump, it appears that the interests of brown skinned folks are her primary concern. As they come here illegally, and build the clout of the writer’s ethnic group, they should not have the burden of having to obey our laws. That burden, evidently in her mind, should only rest on Americans who do not enjoy brown privilege.
The writer attempts to bolster her case by maintaining that illegal aliens are following our laws when they claim asylum. She conveniently ignores most of these claims are bogus and are just a ploy that illegals have increasingly used to enter our country. Then she alleges that legal and illegal immigrants don’t compete with Americans for jobs. In fact, this competition does happen, because native-born Americans are the majority of workers in just about every job category.
The writer says that says that her brown skin will “continue to glow” against the “darkness” now supposedly reigning in America. Her insolence says far more about her than it does about our country, a land which grew to greatness under the rule of law.