FOR DAYS, the word on social media was that several Barbadians had been detained by United States immigration authorities.
Thankfully, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, in Guyana late last week for the first quarter meeting of CARICOM leaders, was able to give clarity to the reports. It was not true that 19 Bajans were among hundreds of foreign-born residents who had become victims of the Donald Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants targeted for deportation.
After all, over the years Barbadians have been at the bottom of the list of deportees sent back to the Caribbean by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The ongoing nationwide enforcement action by ICE wasn’t totally unexpected. For months before the November 8 presidential election, Trump had vowed that, if elected, he would order a wholesale round-up of an estimated 11 million foreigners who were either in the country illegally or who had committed serious crimes, including murder, rape and drug trafficking.
Within days of entering the White House, he signed a sloppily prepared executive order that barred citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations – Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – from entering the United States. Fortunately, federal district courts in several jurisdictions, New York among them, blocked the order’s implementation, citing constitutional grounds. Thank goodness for the strong and independent judges.
The truth is that far too many Americans seem infected with an anti-immigrant virus, forgetting that the United States is a land that was developed and enriched by people who were born elsewhere. Indeed, the first to die in the American war of independence in 1770 was Crispus Attucks who, some historians say, was an immigrant from Barbados.
The new Trump policy seems aimed at making people’s lives miserable and breaking up families. It is unfairly using raids to ensnare immigrants so they can be kicked out of the country.
What’s giving immigrants the willies is that lawful green card holders who have led peaceful and productive lives but who may have broken minor laws – sitting on a park bench after closing time or riding a bicycle on a sidewalk – are in danger of being put into the deportation pipeline.
That’s why New York City’s five top prosecutors want to get rid of many of the 1.5 million outstanding warrants issued by cops in the past 20 years to City dwellers for allegedly committing minor infractions that put many immigrants in the crosshairs of ICE. They must move swiftly to end the trauma.
Interestingly, the galloping fear in Caribbean immigrant neighbourhoods is likely to have the positive effect of encouraging many eligible West Indians to become naturalised Americans citizens. That important step would give them the right to vote, hold certain jobs and eliminate the fear of deportation. They must push ahead with that strategy.
