FAMU Law professor addresses U.S president’s comments regarding immigrants from Haiti, Latin America and African Countries

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Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Law Distinguished Professor for International Law Jeremy Levitt recently wrote an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel on comments attributed to President Donald Trump.

From “We Need Immigrants – Especially from Developing Nations”:

President Trump’s atomic comments Thursday during a White House meeting with congressional lawmakers about immigration trampled the red line of racism, bigotry and prejudice — from which there is no return. Until now, I have been reluctant to label Trump a racist, noting the important differences between racism, bigotry and prejudice.

Isn’t it ironic that on the eve of two monumental anniversaries — the mega-earthquake that devastated Haiti and killed at least 300,000 on Jan. 12, 2010, and the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 15, 1929 — Trump asked why the U.S. accepts immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America rather than people from places like Norway?

Neither the White House nor Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, a Cuban-American who was at the meeting, disputed the president’s remarks nor condemned them. Why not? Sen. Marco Rubio, who resides in Miami-Dade County, with one of the largest concentrations of Haitians in the nation, has been stunningly silent. Finally, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, an ardent supporter of Trump and would-be candidate for U.S. senator, distanced himself from Trump’s comments, but only conditionally: “If this report is true.”

American values like liberty, equality, self-government, individualism, diversity and unity do not derive from the benefactors and heirlooms of enslavement, racial segregation and white privilege; they descend from the emigrants from the countries Trump disparages: These are the courageous people who have defended this nation in every war since its inception, even against the benefactors and heirlooms of white nationalism. I don’t get it: Perhaps Trump believes that pandering racialized vulgarities to white Nordic folk will inspire the Norwegian Nobel Committee to create a “Nobel Chaos Prize.” Not.

Let’s agree that the president’s comments do not represent Americans or American values and ideals. Let’s also agree that we are a nation of immigrants and that black and brown Americans from countries dissed by Trump built and defended America in enslaved and segregated circumstances. America was not built by Nordic Vikings nor their progeny, yet Trump seems to want to limit immigration to whites who believe in Valhalla and “The Song of the Hooded One,” not in Jesus and our national anthem.

Read the full op-ed here.

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