Introduction

It seems like a long time ago now, but there was a time in this country when politics, although often dirty, had generally agreed upon rules.

But since 2015, when Donald Trump walked down the “golden” Trump Tower elevator to announce his run for president, he has unleased a political maelstrom from which America is yet to recover.

Trump, and the remnants of the Republican Party he and his MAGA cronies hijacked, play by their own rules characterized by lies, distortions and half-truths, misinformation, and disinformation. And neither Democrats nor the mainstream media has figured out how to fight this menace.

And since he lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump and his allies in Congress, state legislatures, governors’ mansions, and GOP power centers elsewhere have sought to consolidate long-term Republican political (read white) power by undermining the legitimacy of institutions including the courts and news media and ignoring rules of order that govern the United States.

Trump is a loathsome, vengeful little man whose venomous behavior is manifested in a variety of ways, large and small. Before two fierce and deadly hurricanes hit Florida, the former president and vice-presidential running mate J.D. Vance used the contentious issue of immigration to spread dangerous lies about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, and sought to criminalize their presence in America.

Trump and his lap poodle kicked off a national uproar when they said Springfield’s Haitian residents were grabbing and eating ducks, geese, cats, dogs, and other household pets. Despite rebuttals from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck, Mayor Rob Rue, Police Chief Allison Elliott, and other GOP officials repudiating the rumors, the damage has been done.

Schools and universities were closed because of bomb threats; there were forced closures and evacuations of hospitals and City Hall; state troopers were deployed to protect young students; and the brazen lies exacerbated already existing tensions between American residents and their visitors.

Long and Sordid History

Lies and misrepresentation of immigrants are as American as apple pie. Throughout this nation’s history, European Americans have marginalized new arrivals, so what Trump and Vance is doing has a long and sordid history.

Unsurprisingly, Vance and Trump have ignored the scorn of their critics and doubled down on the smears while continuing to rile up their MAGA base. Furthermore, both men have questioned the U.S. designation of Haitians as temporary protective status (TPS) recipients, and they’re promising to revoke TPS status and deport the Haitians if they win the Nov. 5 election.

According to CNN, “many Haitians came into the country under a Biden-Harris administration parole program that gives permission to enter to vetted participants with U.S. sponsors.” TPS grants these immigrants permission to live and work in the U.S. for a set time.

Project 2025, a 920-page compendium of the far-right Trump-Republican project — orchestrated and financed by Leonard Leo, the Heritage Foundation, and a raft of conservative entities — lays out Trump’s hardline immigration policies, including mass deportations. Trump promises on Day One to kick off deportations of as many as 20 million people. Trump allies are also working out details to speed up asylum hearings and deportation eligibility, and to remove deportation protections implemented by Biden.

Political Pawns

Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump, and their country club cronies have weaponized immigration in a cynical, racist attempt to pull scared and fearful Americans into the Republican camp. Party leaders and policymakers signaled well ahead of this fall’s presidential election that immigration would be front and center as an issue, primarily because of its ability to divide. Undocumented immigrants are being used as political pawns.

“Nobody has ever seen anything like we’re witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country,” Trump told a right-wing news site in a 2023 video interview, CNN said. “It’s poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have.”

Trump, an unrepentant racist and xenophobe, also has said repeatedly that “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

The depth of Trump’s and the Republican Party’s cynicism is reflected in the fact that he sabotaged an immigration reform bill that a bipartisan group of senators hammered out after months of negotiation, one described by immigration activists and advocates almost universally as “draconian” and “the strictest border crackdown in a generation.”

The bill would have severely reduced the number of people crossing the border; raised the bar for migrants qualifying for asylum; and allowed the president to close the border when the numbers of migrants coming in got concerningly high. The senators, who negotiated in good faith, learned the hard way that those Republicans who have shouted the loudest about border security are hypocrites and snake oil salesmen.

Backfired

In Florida, DeSantis’ crackdown on undocumented immigrants has not produced the result he sought. Despite DeSantis and his allies trying to put a happy face on a self-inflicted wound, businesspeople and critics of DeSantis say it has backfired. They point to the exodus of workers from the state since SB 1718 became law.

Fidel Sanchez, owner of Sanchez Farms in Plant City, said the effect of the law was immediate, with families he’d worked with for 20 to 30 years quickly and surreptitiously leaving the state.

“A lot of people are scared,” said Sanchez. “A lot of people went north and never came back … the government doesn’t seem to care. Maybe they think the crops are gonna pick themselves.”

A DeSantis spokesperson said the law was designed to protect Floridians, adding that the state can “still maintain a robust economy.” That sounds good in theory but, according to The Florida Policy Institute (FPI), this immigration law could cost the state’s economy $12.6 billion in its first year, not counting the loss of tax revenue. (Major employment-related provisions became effective on July 1.)

FPI, a nonprofit that advocates for humane immigration policies, argues that welcoming immigrants would be good for Florida.

“Harsh anti-immigrant policies like 2023’s SB 1718 — which Florida is still paying for — do more harm than good,” notes FPI Senior Policy Analyst Alexis Tsoukalas. “They waste state dollars and cause residents to live in fear and threat of constant discrimination.”

Abhorrent Parts of America’s Character

It’s not difficult to understand why DeSantis, Trump, Vance, and others have chosen this tack. In the absence of policy prescriptions that are popular with the majority of the country, they are appealing to the most abhorrent parts of America’s character.

Many of Trump’s speeches are focused on undocumented immigrants he describes as “vile animals,” “monsters,” and “stone-cold killers.” He blames Biden and Harris for allowing undocumented immigrants into the U.S., accusing some migrants of wanting to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder, and kill the people of the United States of America.”

But the reality is that the vast majority of immigrants, legal and undocumented, are not criminals and are no threat to anyone. And what is true for Florida is doubly true for the rest of the country: Without immigrants, the national economy would plummet.

Immigration experts say they make significant contributions to the U.S. economy, including on tax revenue, where they contributed $458.7 billion to state, local, and federal taxes in 2018. In addition, undocumented immigrants contribute about $11.74 billion a year in state and local taxes, including more than $7 billion in sales and excise taxes, $3.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.1 billion in personal income taxes.

Immigration “helps drive business creation, fuel innovation, fill essential workforce needs, and strengthen the middle class. Family-based immigration promotes family unity and integration, all core principles of American values,” say analysts from fwd.us.

In other words, America cannot allow liars, bullies, and xenophobes in political spaces to spitefully remove “the life-saving contributions that immigrants and immigration bring to our country.”

Originally published by Florida Phoenix, 10.18.2024, under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.