I have always thought that there was no such thing as an ethnic American. Sure, there were native Americans, but they were in effect pre-Americans. They were barely part of this country, dispossessed and  murdered in great numbers, set out on remote reservations where they were sometimes patronized and sometimes ignored, and – truth be told – barely part of this country.

Then there were the European explorers who roamed the country for over 100 years without really settling here, and then for over 150 years there were the English settlers (and a few wealthy Dutch), who came and stayed, starting on the east coast and moving west slowly, while Spanish priests and their fellow travelers moved north from Mexico. And I can’t forget the many, many Africans brought here in slavery starting in the 17th century and ending in the 19th.

Once we became the United States of America, we opened our doors, at least to anyone we deemed White, not even setting any limits on White integration until the 1920s. Before that, we did have the Chinese exclusion act, and I don’t think members of other racial groups even tried to come here in any significant numbers.

For the last hundred years, our immigration policy has waxed, waned, and grown more and more complex. And for the last 50 or more years, with increases in world populations and in the ability to move from place to place, there has been more and more pressure on our southern border, and greater differences of opinion as to how we should respond.

Everything was magnified during the Biden years, as more and more people flooded our southern border, not only trying to get in, but succeeding. To me, it was very worrisome. We did not have an “open border”, as many on the radical right like to say, and there were attempts to track, and to adjudicate the asylum claims of those who got in, but the border was certainly permeable, the numbers of incomers extraordinarily high, and the system overwhelmed.

Unti the fourth year of his term, although the number of those turned back was large, the number who got into the country and were placed in a collapsed immigration system was enormous.

In my pre-blog days, some of you may remember my saying over and over: immigration will kill the Democrats’ chances in 2024. And there you have it.

Our fluid southern border gave Donald Trump his victory. Effectively closing the border and ruthlessly changing the rules and hunting down those who came into the country seeking asylum, or just hoping to fade into a new homeland, has set thevtone for his presidency. Not only for his presidency, but for his attempt to turn this country into a Fascist dictatorship. Who would have thunk it?

But here we are. Let’s do a quick look at what is happening. ICE and Homeland Security police are rounding up people who either came into the country illegally or who are here having filed valid asylum claims, they are rounding up people who were living in the country under unquestioned temporary permits (such as Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans, etc.), they are rounding up people who have been living here even with green cards if they are accused (not convicted) of committing any sort of crime (I have read of at least one case where the “crime” was driving with a blown out headlight), or who are living here with a valid visa but have been caught at a protest or writing an article which promotes a policy (most commonly, the policy regarding the residents of Gaza) that our current government disagrees with.

They are rounding these people up whether or not they have lived here a week or 20 years, whether or not they have been productive members of society contributing to social security, paying taxes and so forth. They are rounding them up accusing them of being gang members (whether or not they themselves have committed a crime) and sending them to remote prisons, sometimes out of the country (where they claim they are also out of their control). They are raiding businesses, they are do random automobile checks. These people may be married to American citizens, and may have children who are American citizens. Of course, they want to take the citizenship, guaranteed by the constitution, away from these young children.

And now they are talking about trying to remove both birthright citizenship and the right to be able to face your accusers and state your case, both guaranteed by the constitution, and by law. Law and constitution, be damned.

And, in case you have not noticed, none of these people seem to fit their definition of “White”.

At the same time, as part of its policies of turning day into night, the government has ended (ruthlessly again) all programs developed to give members of minority groups (now, we are talking mainly about citizens) an opportunity to even the playing field when it comes to education, jobs and so forth. They are turning DEI programs from preferred to outlawed overnight. Everyone, they say, should be treated equal and if your race or religion makes it more difficult for you to compete, so be it. Tough. Even if it makes it harder for you to vote. Tough, we don’t want you to vote anyway.

And now, their programs regarding immigrants being set, their disregard of law and constitution being clear, they are out to rewrite history (the head of the Board of Education of Oklahoma thinks you can talk about the Tulsa Race Riots without mentioning race, for example) by banning books, redirecting museums and museum collections and so forth. Will they succeed? Sadly, we don’t know. Back in my high school days, the very conservative Ladue superintendent of schools and board of education required a class titled “American Problems” to be renamed “American Progress” – there is nothing new under the sun.

I could go on and and on, I guess, until they stop me. But here I will stop myself. Have to get to Michelle’s for brunch. Happy Mothers’ Day.

The one point I am trying to make is that the Trump administration has turned an inherited immigration challenge into an excuse to make White racism the cornerstone of this country.