Immigratioin: Foundational principles of our country are weakening on many fronts

DONALD TRUMP is hammering away at the principles that have been the foundation of the United States. While some actions such as the Muslim Ban garners headlines, it is the little things that will make a profound and lasting difference in the way we view our government and our country.

It's the little things:

The lead U.S. agency tasked with granting citizenship to would-be Americans is making a major change to its mission statement, says The Intercept.

In an email sent to staffers on Wednesday (Feb. 21), obtained by The Intercept, US Center and Immigration Services director L. Francis Cissna circulated the agency’s new mission and said that “this simple, straightforward statement clearly defines the agency’s role in our country’s lawful immigration system and the commitment we have to the American people.” 

The new statement also excluded the word “customers,” which previously described those the agency served, claiming that the term’s use “leads to the erroneous belief that applicants and petitioners, rather than the American people, are whom we ultimately serve.” When asked about the exclusion of the “nation of immigrants” phrase, USCIS said that the “statement speaks for itself.”

The USCIS' new mission statement reads:

"U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values."

USCIS’s previous mission statement, still available on the agency’s website Thursday, read:

"USCIS secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system."

Note the difference? The old statement emphasized the "service" provided to "customers."


“As U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services' name clearly states, its purpose is to serve citizens and immigrants, not function as law enforcement," said the Asian Americans Advancing Justice in a statement. "This change is just one of a daily onslaught of attacks on immigrant communities that is rooted in nativism and fear-mongering about immigrants. Director Cissna can change the words on a website but he cannot change our nation’s core values as a nation of immigrants.

With the new statement, the Trump-appointed leaders of the USCIS give the agency the image of a law enforcement agency with the task of keeping people out.

Cissna solidified this impression in the rest of his email: “I believe this simple, straightforward statement clearly defines the agency’s role in our country’s lawful immigration system and the commitment we have to the American people.” The director highlighted, specifically, the removal of the word “customers” from the new mission statement, making the case that the word gave a false impression.

“What we do at USCIS is so important to our nation, so meaningful to the applicants and petitioners, and the nature of the work is often so complicated, that we should never allow our work to be regarded as a mere production line or even described in business or commercial terms,” Cissna wrote. 

“In particular, referring to applicants and petitioners for immigration benefits, and the beneficiaries of such applications and petitions, as ‘customers’ promotes an institutional culture that emphasizes the ultimate satisfaction of applicants and petitioners, rather than the correct adjudication of such applications and petitions according to the law.” 

Cissna added -- and this is important-- “Use of the term leads to the erroneous belief that applicants and petitioners, rather than the American people, are whom we ultimately serve.”

“All applicants and petitioners should, of course, always be treated with the greatest respect and courtesy, but we can’t forget that we serve the American people,” the director wrote.

Again, Trump and his people, have his very narrow view of who and what "the American people" that they purport to represent, is all about.

In poll after poll, survey after survey, report after report, the overwhelming majority of Americans see our country as "a nation of immigrants." We believe and espouse the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty that starts, ""Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

"The American people" Trump represents is actually in the minority -- a segment of the U.S. population that is getting smaller and smaller as we speak. 

"The American people" are not only Trump supporters. The majority of Americans voted against the charlatan candidate in November of 2016.

As Pew reports, "The American people" are increasingly coming from Asia. and whether or not Trump likes it or not, they're also coming from Africa and Latin America. Yes, the very countries he called "s--hole countries."

Without mainstream media looking over their shoulders, it's the little things that we tend to miss or overlook in this Trump administration. This is not the first time the government under Trump has sought to change the duties and priorities of the government. 

Since Trump has taken office, these "little thing" have been implemented. This is timely, one of the very first things Trump did when he took office, was that he rescinded the Obama-era rule that restricted weapons sales to the  mentally ill. Besides weakening the Affordable Care Act, rewriting the tax code to favor the rich and proposing massive changes in who's allowed to immigrate to the U.S., among the "little things" enacted or proposed by the Trump peope include:

• Removal of any reference to "climate change" from government websites;
• Allowing oil companies to drill off our coasts.
• Rescinding parts of the Clean Water Act  to exclude certain water sources that had been under federal protection.
• Appointing scores of judges who reflect Trump's anti-immigrant, pro-ultra rich, anti-labor, anti-environment. racist and xenophobic values.
• Removing thousands of acres of historic and cultural significance from National Monument designation and opening them up to drilling and mining;

 Little things ... that make a big difference.

(UPDATED: Feb. 23, 11 a.m. to add AAAJ statement, links and minor editing.)

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