Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin accused President Trump of using a suspension of all immigration to the United States during the coronavirus pandemic as a means of inflaming racial tensions in America and appealing to his political base.
Trump announced late Monday night he would soon sign an executive order halting immigration to the U.S. “in light of the attack from the invisible enemy” and out of “the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens.”
Rubin asked on Twitter: “Are immigrants flooding in to apply for all the jobs we no longer have, to get tests we don’t have or to be subjected to POTUS’s unwavering racist attacks? Hey, who wouldn’t want to come for all that, eh?”
Are immigrants flooding in to apply for all the jobs we no longer have, to get tests we don’t have or to be subjected to POTUS’s unwavering racist attacks? Hey, who wouldn’t want to come for all that, eh?
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) April 21, 2020
“No doubt Trump’s base is primarily motivated by racism,” Rubin said. “This is why Trump does this. Every. Damn. Time.”
In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020
Trump was hit with accusations of bigotry after he repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as “the Chinese virus” in tweets and during press conferences with reporters.
“It’s not racist,” Trump said last month. “It comes from China. I want to be accurate.”
Now that several states have reported a flattening of the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus, Trump has increased pressure on state governors across the country to prepare to reopen their local economies once federal social distancing guidelines expire on April 30.
Conservative activists, some aided by pro-Trump grassroots political groups, have been staging “get back to work” protests in states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, an effort the president has applauded.
Rubin said the demonstrations were a calculated distraction coming from the White House.
“The ‘look at all the protests’ thing didn’t work so attack immigrants,” Rubin said.
Trump made sweeping immigration reform a pillar of his 2016 campaign for president, promising to “build a wall” between the United States and Mexico and keep “dangerous” illegal immigrants out of the U.S. As of March 28, the federal government had constructed more than 40 miles of additional border wall and fencing in the American southwest since the virus arrived in the U.S.
