The New Nativist Hysteria Is Illegitimate, Divisive and Dangerous
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_new_nativist_hysteria_is_illegitimat
e_divisive_and_dangerous_20151124/
Posted on Nov 24, 2015
By Bill Blum
A man hoists a sign during a demonstration in Boise, Idaho, about the U.S.
position on refugees from Syria and other conflict zones. (txking /
Shutterstock)
The numbers could still rise, but as of the end of last week, governors in
some 30 states had announced that they would close their borders to refugees
from Syria.
The House of Representatives also roared into action, approving the American
Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act of 2015 by a resounding margin
of 289-137, in an effort to "suspend" the admission of new migrants from
either Syria or Iraq.
After securing passage of the SAFE Act, the House Republican leadership
vowed to introduce additional anti-immigrant measures. One bill-the
Protection of Children Act-would expedite the deportation of unaccompanied
alien minors. Another-the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act-would
restrict the grounds available for aliens inside the U.S. to claim political
asylum.
At the same time, out on the hustings, GOP campaign rhetoric is soaring to
new heights of xenophobia. Not content with his bellicose promise to build a
wall along our nation's southern border, Donald Trump told NBC News on
Thursday that if elected he would compile a national registry of
Muslim-Americans and that he would consider issuing them special IDs
denoting their religion. Following suit, in a speech delivered in Alabama,
Ben Carson compared some Syrian refugees with "rabid dogs."
Nativist hysteria and scapegoating are nothing unusual in our history, but
the current iteration is especially malignant because it has gone mainstream
so rapidly-even 47 Democrats voted in favor of the SAFE Act. And while the
malignancy was certainly in place before the barbaric Islamic State attacks
of Nov. 13 in Paris, the attacks have given it a veneer of legitimacy that
would have been unthinkable only a few weeks earlier.
The new nativism, of course, is anything but legitimate. Like its cousins of
bygone eras that targeted the Irish, the Chinese, Jews and many others, it
is steeped in ignorance and fear, stirred up by political demagogues and
opportunists and stoked by media outlets (newspapers in yesteryear, cable TV
today) more interested in financial bottom lines than honest reporting.
The new nativism is also, in many respects, flat-out illegal. And where it's
not flatly illegal, it's flatly irrational and offers nothing to protect us
from international terrorism.
Consider, for starters, the call for the creation of a national Muslim
database and the issuance of Muslim IDs. Notwithstanding the infamous 1944
case of Korematsu v. United States, in which the Supreme Court shamelessly
upheld the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans in an area stretching
from the state of Washington to southern Arizona, the database and ID
proposals would never pass constitutional muster today. They would plainly
violate the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments on religious liberty, privacy
and equal-protection grounds.
And then there's the threat to close state borders. Since at least 1868, the
Supreme Court has recognized that the freedom to travel from state to state
is a fundamental constitutional right (Crandall v. Nevada). Once they are
legally resettled in the U.S., refugees cannot be barred from crossing state
lines. Nor should they be.
According to a New York Times study, the U.S. has taken in 1,854 Syrian
refugees since 2012. Going back to 2011, when the Syrian civil war started,
the tally stands at just under 2,200.
Whatever the exact figure and despite the histrionics of many governors,
Syrian refugees already here have been relocated peacefully and without
reported incidents in 35 states scattered across every region of the
country. They are, the Times reports, "among the most vulnerable people"
caught up in the civil war that has ravaged their homeland: "single mothers
and their children; religious minorities; victims of violence or torture."
Only 2 percent are single men of combat age.
Just as they can't shut down their borders, state governors cannot determine
who gets to come to this country in the first place. The Supreme Court has
held repeatedly-most recently just three years ago in Arizona v. United
States-that the authority to control immigration is vested exclusively in
the federal government. Governors don't have a say.
Congress, however, does have a say, and in fact a predominant one, in
enacting and changing immigration and refugee laws. That's what makes the
SAFE Act so dangerous.
As legal commentator Ian Millhiser, the editor of ThinkProgress Justice,
noted in a widely cited column published before the House vote on the SAFE
Act, the president and the executive branch administer refugee policy. Under
current law-specifically, the Refugee Act of 1980-the president has the
discretion to admit refugees into the United States who face "persecution on
account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group, or political opinion."
The president also sets the nation's annual refugee ceiling after
"appropriate consultation" with Congress. In fiscal 2015, the ceiling was
calibrated at 70,000. In September, President Obama raised the 2016 fiscal
year quota to 85,000, largely to facilitate the entry of an additional
10,000 displaced Syrians.
Contrary to what you may have heard from Trump and cable news, the
refugee-vetting process is long, painstaking and laborious, taking on
average two years to complete.
The process usually begins with registration and screening by the United
Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The screening involves
interviews, home-country reference inquiries and biometric exams such as
iris scans. Military combatants are rejected. The process takes four to 10
months, and according to PolitiFact, the UNHCR refers around 1 percent of
applicants for overseas resettlement.
Once prospective refugees are referred to the U.S., they are subjected to
additional interviews and cross-checks lasting another 18 to 24 months,
conducted by a variety of federal agencies, including the State Department,
the Department of Homeland Security, the National Counterterrorism Center
and the FBI. After all these steps, Syrian refugees must clear yet another
layer of investigation designed especially for them called the Syrian
Enhanced Review process before they can set foot in the U.S.
Obama administration officials maintain that the current vetting system
subjects potential refugees to "the most rigorous screening of any
traveler[s]" to the country.
The SAFE Act would bring the system to a grinding halt by requiring the
directors of the FBI, the director of national intelligence and the
secretary of homeland security to personally certify each and every refugee
approval. Even FBI chief James Comey, who has questioned the current
framework's efficiency, has expressed concerns that the requirements would
make it impossible to process any refugees into the country.
To overcome a presidential veto should the SAFE Act make it through the
Senate, House GOP leaders have threatened to attach the legislation to the
omnibus spending bill Obama must sign in December to avoid a partial
government shutdown. The stakes thus could not be higher.
The fear and anxiety many Americans harbor in the aftermath of the Paris
attacks are entirely understandable. No one wants to be shot or blown to
bits while sipping coffee or attending a rock concert.
But the nativist outburst on Capitol Hill and across the heartland won't
make us any safer. In fact, it plays directly into the hands of terrorist
organizations like Islamic State.
Writing in a recent online issue of the The New York Review of Books' NYR
Daily, Middle East analysts Scott Atran and Nafees Hamid explain that
Islamic State wants to sow chaos and division in the West. Its recruitment
drives thrive on the isolation of Muslim communities and the disaffection of
the young in urban centers like Paris and Antwerp. The Nov. 13 attacks in
Paris were staged by homegrown jihadis.
With the disastrous invasion of Iraq that took the lives of an estimated
165,000 civilians, the U.S. helped to unleash the Islamic State
Frankenstein's monster. Now, the creature has us in its crosshairs.
Bringing down the monster won't be easy or happen quickly, even in the
best-case scenario. It won't happen at all if we deny refuge to victims of
Islamic State terror abroad and demonize Muslim-Americans at home. We're
better and smarter than that-or at least we should be.
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
The New Nativist Hysteria Is Illegitimate, Divisive and Dangerous
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_new_nativist_hysteria_is_illegitimat
e_divisive_and_dangerous_20151124/
Posted on Nov 24, 2015
By Bill Blum
A man hoists a sign during a demonstration in Boise, Idaho, about the U.S.
position on refugees from Syria and other conflict zones. (txking /
Shutterstock)
The numbers could still rise, but as of the end of last week, governors in
some 30 states had announced that they would close their borders to refugees
from Syria.
The House of Representatives also roared into action, approving the American
Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act of 2015 by a resounding margin
of 289-137, in an effort to "suspend" the admission of new migrants from
either Syria or Iraq.
After securing passage of the SAFE Act, the House Republican leadership
vowed to introduce additional anti-immigrant measures. One bill-the
Protection of Children Act-would expedite the deportation of unaccompanied
alien minors. Another-the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act-would
restrict the grounds available for aliens inside the U.S. to claim political
asylum.
At the same time, out on the hustings, GOP campaign rhetoric is soaring to
new heights of xenophobia. Not content with his bellicose promise to build a
wall along our nation's southern border, Donald Trump told NBC News on
Thursday that if elected he would compile a national registry of
Muslim-Americans and that he would consider issuing them special IDs
denoting their religion. Following suit, in a speech delivered in Alabama,
Ben Carson compared some Syrian refugees with "rabid dogs."
Nativist hysteria and scapegoating are nothing unusual in our history, but
the current iteration is especially malignant because it has gone mainstream
so rapidly-even 47 Democrats voted in favor of the SAFE Act. And while the
malignancy was certainly in place before the barbaric Islamic State attacks
of Nov. 13 in Paris, the attacks have given it a veneer of legitimacy that
would have been unthinkable only a few weeks earlier.
The new nativism, of course, is anything but legitimate. Like its cousins of
bygone eras that targeted the Irish, the Chinese, Jews and many others, it
is steeped in ignorance and fear, stirred up by political demagogues and
opportunists and stoked by media outlets (newspapers in yesteryear, cable TV
today) more interested in financial bottom lines than honest reporting.
The new nativism is also, in many respects, flat-out illegal. And where it's
not flatly illegal, it's flatly irrational and offers nothing to protect us
from international terrorism.
Consider, for starters, the call for the creation of a national Muslim
database and the issuance of Muslim IDs. Notwithstanding the infamous 1944
case of Korematsu v. United States, in which the Supreme Court shamelessly
upheld the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans in an area stretching
from the state of Washington to southern Arizona, the database and ID
proposals would never pass constitutional muster today. They would plainly
violate the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments on religious liberty, privacy
and equal-protection grounds.
And then there's the threat to close state borders. Since at least 1868, the
Supreme Court has recognized that the freedom to travel from state to state
is a fundamental constitutional right (Crandall v. Nevada). Once they are
legally resettled in the U.S., refugees cannot be barred from crossing state
lines. Nor should they be.
According to a New York Times study, the U.S. has taken in 1,854 Syrian
refugees since 2012. Going back to 2011, when the Syrian civil war started,
the tally stands at just under 2,200.
Whatever the exact figure and despite the histrionics of many governors,
Syrian refugees already here have been relocated peacefully and without
reported incidents in 35 states scattered across every region of the
country. They are, the Times reports, "among the most vulnerable people"
caught up in the civil war that has ravaged their homeland: "single mothers
and their children; religious minorities; victims of violence or torture."
Only 2 percent are single men of combat age.
Just as they can't shut down their borders, state governors cannot determine
who gets to come to this country in the first place. The Supreme Court has
held repeatedly-most recently just three years ago in Arizona v. United
States-that the authority to control immigration is vested exclusively in
the federal government. Governors don't have a say.
Congress, however, does have a say, and in fact a predominant one, in
enacting and changing immigration and refugee laws. That's what makes the
SAFE Act so dangerous.
As legal commentator Ian Millhiser, the editor of ThinkProgress Justice,
noted in a widely cited column published before the House vote on the SAFE
Act, the president and the executive branch administer refugee policy. Under
current law-specifically, the Refugee Act of 1980-the president has the
discretion to admit refugees into the United States who face "persecution on
account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group, or political opinion."
The president also sets the nation's annual refugee ceiling after
"appropriate consultation" with Congress. In fiscal 2015, the ceiling was
calibrated at 70,000. In September, President Obama raised the 2016 fiscal
year quota to 85,000, largely to facilitate the entry of an additional
10,000 displaced Syrians.
Contrary to what you may have heard from Trump and cable news, the
refugee-vetting process is long, painstaking and laborious, taking on
average two years to complete.
The process usually begins with registration and screening by the United
Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The screening involves
interviews, home-country reference inquiries and biometric exams such as
iris scans. Military combatants are rejected. The process takes four to 10
months, and according to PolitiFact, the UNHCR refers around 1 percent of
applicants for overseas resettlement.
Once prospective refugees are referred to the U.S., they are subjected to
additional interviews and cross-checks lasting another 18 to 24 months,
conducted by a variety of federal agencies, including the State Department,
the Department of Homeland Security, the National Counterterrorism Center
and the FBI. After all these steps, Syrian refugees must clear yet another
layer of investigation designed especially for them called the Syrian
Enhanced Review process before they can set foot in the U.S.
Obama administration officials maintain that the current vetting system
subjects potential refugees to "the most rigorous screening of any
traveler[s]" to the country.
The SAFE Act would bring the system to a grinding halt by requiring the
directors of the FBI, the director of national intelligence and the
secretary of homeland security to personally certify each and every refugee
approval. Even FBI chief James Comey, who has questioned the current
framework's efficiency, has expressed concerns that the requirements would
make it impossible to process any refugees into the country.
To overcome a presidential veto should the SAFE Act make it through the
Senate, House GOP leaders have threatened to attach the legislation to the
omnibus spending bill Obama must sign in December to avoid a partial
government shutdown. The stakes thus could not be higher.
The fear and anxiety many Americans harbor in the aftermath of the Paris
attacks are entirely understandable. No one wants to be shot or blown to
bits while sipping coffee or attending a rock concert.
But the nativist outburst on Capitol Hill and across the heartland won't
make us any safer. In fact, it plays directly into the hands of terrorist
organizations like Islamic State.
Writing in a recent online issue of the The New York Review of Books' NYR
Daily, Middle East analysts Scott Atran and Nafees Hamid explain that
Islamic State wants to sow chaos and division in the West. Its recruitment
drives thrive on the isolation of Muslim communities and the disaffection of
the young in urban centers like Paris and Antwerp. The Nov. 13 attacks in
Paris were staged by homegrown jihadis.
With the disastrous invasion of Iraq that took the lives of an estimated
165,000 civilians, the U.S. helped to unleash the Islamic State
Frankenstein's monster. Now, the creature has us in its crosshairs.
Bringing down the monster won't be easy or happen quickly, even in the
best-case scenario. It won't happen at all if we deny refuge to victims of
Islamic State terror abroad and demonize Muslim-Americans at home. We're
better and smarter than that-or at least we should be.
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