TWO HIGHLY-PLACED Bajan immigrants in New York and New Jersey share a common concern: the “frightening” impact of Donald Trump’s proposed immigration policies.
And in their different ways, Adrian Mapp, the Democratic Mayor of Plainfield, a municipal area with a population of between 50 000-60 000 people in New Jersey, and Earl Phillips, secretary-treasurer of the 40 000 Transport Workers’ Union with headquarters in downtown Brooklyn, paint a gloomy picture of billionaire Donald Trump as a president who would ignore the historic role of immigrants in helping to propel United States’ prosperity, and erect barriers that would limit the flow of Bajans and other West Indians into the United States.
“His position on immigration is very frightening,” said Mapp. “His ideas on who should and shouldn’t enter the country are very scary. After listening to him during the recent Republican National Convention in Cleveland you have to be very worried about what could happen in November when people go to the polls.
“When Trump speaks about building a wall along the Mexican-US border, the barriers erected in the path of Muslims and the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, it makes you worry about the direction the country would take if he were the president.”
As Mapp, now in the third year of his first four-year term sees it, Trump’s approach to immigration was laced with racism, and that’s reflected in his characterisation of Spanish-speaking people as rapists, drug dealers, killers and crooks.
“His policy relative to immigration smacks of racism,” said the mayor, a certified public accountant who served as president of the Plainfield City Council before becoming mayor.
“He would be a nightmare not only for immigrants but for the entire country,” said Mapp, who must face re-election in November 2017. Phillips, who was recently re-elected to the number two position in the TWU’s hierarchy, agreed.
“Trump at the head of the Republican ticket should be a wake-up call for all immigrants who are eligible to vote but are not registered to do so,” said the trade union executive.
“Immigrants must become more active in the nation’s political affairs and be in a position to vote. If they don’t, then they are opening the door to deportations, rejection of comprehensive immigration reform and to limits being placed on their children’s opportunities to a good education. This is scary stuff.”
In an appearance on the national television programme Meet the Press, a week ago, Trump said that far from rolling back some of the proposals he articulated during the primary election season, he would expand and toughen them.
“I actually don’t think it’s a rollback,” he said of that portion of his acceptance speech at the convention in Cleveland which some analyst had mis-interpreted as a softening of his approach. “I’m looking now at territory”, meaning he would be looking to make conditions of entry even tougher, “subject to extreme vetting” for people from certain territories and nations seeking to come to the US.
Why?
The U.S. must protect itself from the immigration loopholes, strategies and failure of other countries, he said. A nation he may have in mind is France, which has suffered two terrorist attacks in the past 18 months that have taken the lives of more than 100 victims in Paris and Nice.
“It’s their own fault, because they’ve allowed people over the years to come into their territory,” Trump complained. “And that’s why Brexit happened” in Britain.
The TWU executive said he couldn’t believe some of the immigration threats Trump outlined before, during and after the convention.
“Immigrants including those from the Caribbean must wake up and be far more politically active than they are now,” said Phillips. “Failure to act could result in some of the most stringent anti-immigration policies.”