Tag: Trump administration racism

Border Patrol Agents Circulate ‘Challenge Coin’ Mocking Care for Migrant Kids

An unofficial commemorative coin has been circulating among Border Patrol agents at the U.S./Mexico border, mocking the task of caring for migrant children and other duties that have fallen to agents as families cross into the U.S.

On the front, the coin declares “KEEP THE CARAVANS COMING” under an image of a massive parade of people carrying a Honduran flag — a caricature of the “caravan” from last fall, which started in Honduras and attracted thousands of people as it moved north. (While the caravan included many women and children, the only visible figures on the coin appear to be adult men.)

The coin’s reverse side features the Border Patrol logo and three illustrations: a Border Patrol agent bottle-feeding an infant; an agent fingerprinting a teen boy wearing a backwards baseball cap; and a U.S. Border Patrol van. The text along the edge reads “FEEDING ** PROCESSING ** HOSPITAL ** TRANSPORT.”

View the complete July 13 article by Dara Lind on the National Memo here.

Commerce Dept. ordered ex-official not to answer House panel questions

A former senior Commerce Department official refused to answer more than 100 questions during an interview with the House Oversight and Reform Committee that centered on the Trump administration’s controversial decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, according to atranscript released Tuesday.

Commerce Department lawyers instructed James Uthmeier, who served as senior adviser and counsel to Secretary Wilbur Ross, not to answer the committee’s questions about his contacts with the White House and his conversations with Ross.

Uthmeier was also directed not to discuss the contents of a memo he wrote to a senior Justice Department official, John Gore, that purportedly outlines legal arguments surrounding the addition of a citizenship question to the census. On several occasions, Uthmeier was also blocked from disclosing details about his own conversations with Gore.

View the complete June 25 article by Andrew Desiderio on the Politico website here.

Stephen Miller pressuring Trump officials amid immigration shakeups

The White House hard-liner is driving a more aggressive immigration approach.

As President Donald Trump roils the capital over illegal immigration, his influential aide Stephen Miller is playing a more aggressive behind-the-scenes role in a wider administration shakeup.

Frustrated by the lack of headway on a signature Trump campaign issue, the senior White House adviser has been arguing for personnel changes to bring in more like-minded hardliners, according to three people familiar with the situation — including the ouster of a key immigration official at the Department of Homeland Security, whose secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, announced Sunday that she is resigning.

Miller has been telephoning mid-level officials at several federal departments and agencies to demand they do more to stem the influx of immigrants, according to two people familiar with the calls.

View the complete April 7 article by Anita Kumar, Gabby Orr and Daniel Lippman on the Political website here.

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie: Confederate President Jefferson Davis a ‘Martyr to the Lost Cause’

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie reportedly praised Confederate States President Jefferson Davis in a 1995 speech, calling him a “martyr to the Lost Cause” and an “exceptional man in an exceptional age.” According to CNN, Wilkie also said viewing Confederate history through the “lens of slavery” is a “disservice to our ancestors.” “To view our history and the ferocity of the Confederate soldier solely through the lens of slavery and by the slovenly standards of the present is dishonest and a disservice to our ancestors,” Wilkie reportedly said at a U.S. Capitol event hosted by the United Daughters of Confederacy. “We can’t surrender American history to an enforced political orthodoxy dictated to our children by attention-starved politicians, street corner demagogues, and tenured campus radicals.”

CNN reports that the “Lost Cause” theory of the Civil War, which is typically touted by neo-Confederates, denies slavery played a central role in the conflict. More recently, Wilkie attended and spoke at a a Sons of Confederate Veterans event in 2009, CNN reports. Veterans Affairs Press Secretary Curt Cashour told CNN the events Wilkie attended were “were strictly historical in nature” and said the secretary “stopped participating in them once the issue became divisive.”

View the December 7 post on the Daily Beast website.

‘You didn’t get our message’: key Trump aide Stephen Miller condemned by childhood rabbi

The following article by Andrew Gumbel was posted on the Guardian website September 10, 2018:

Neil Comess-Daniels denounces Miller as a purveyor of ‘violence, malice and brutality’ for zero-tolerance immigration policies

Stephen Miller. Comess-Daniels’ denunciation follows close on the heels of a similar repudiation by Miller’s uncle, David Glosser. Credit:: Jonathan Ernst, Reuters

The childhood rabbi to Stephen Miller, special adviser to Donald Trump and a key architect of his “zero-tolerance” immigration policies, criticized his former charge on Monday as a purveyor of “negativity, violence, malice and brutality” who had learned nothing from his Jewish spiritual education.

Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Beth Shir Shalom, a progressive reform synagogue in the beachside city of Santa Monica where Miller grew up, devoted his sermon marking the Jewish New Year to a striking denunciation of Miller and the now-abandoned policy he championed of separating immigrant families at the border.

“Honestly, Mr Miller, you’ve set back the Jewish contribution to making the world spiritually whole through your arbitrary division of these desperate people,” the rabbi said. “The actions that you now encourage President Trump to take make it obvious to me that you didn’t get my, or our, Jewish message.

View the complete article here.

Omarosa: DeVos said black college students lack the ‘capacity to understand’ her agenda

The following article by Banjamin Wermund was posted on the Politico website August 14, 2018:

Omarosa Manigault Newman trashes Education Secretary Betsy DeVos throughout her book and calls the Trump Cabinet official “woefully inadequate and not equipped for her job.” Credit: Andrew Harnik, AP Photo

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos allegedly said the students who booed her May 2017 commencement speech at a historically black college didn’t have the “capacity to understand” what she wants to accomplish, according to the tell-all book by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman.

Manigault Newman describes DeVos’ comments during a conversation with her after the May address at Florida’s Bethune-Cookman University as “meaning, all those black students were too stupid to understand her agenda.”

Manigault Newman trashes DeVos throughout the book and calls her “woefully inadequate and not equipped for her job.” She alleges President Donald Trump referred to the education secretary as “Ditzy DeVos” and promised to “get rid of her” after the Bethune-Cookman event.

View the complete article here.