DIRECTOR'S DESK | The bigotry of the Trump administration’s immigration policy is on full display
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door
These are the last lines of the poem at the Statue of Liberty, set in raised letters on a bronze plate on its pedestal.
There it is, a declaration of hospitality toward people who are homeless. It astonishes me.
I don’t usually read down to those lines, but I did this week because of Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli’s vicious twist on preceding lines in the poem “The New Colossus,” written by Emma Lazarus in 1883. Cuccinelli said, “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge” on National Public Radio’s morning edition, and then dug deeper on CNN when he said that the poem referred “to people coming from Europe.”
The lines actually read, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Quite a reversal. This is gaslighting per usual from the Trump administration. Say anything, and make it so.
All of this underscores the fact that racism and economic bigotry are the driving forces of Trump’s immigration policy. Cuccinelli was defending the Trump administration’s intention to withhold green cards and visas from the poor. The rule change, going into effect Oct. 15, skews immigration away from anyone who could possibly need federal, state or local benefits such as food stamps, housing vouchers, Medicaid – favoring immigrants with wealth.
And this follows the biggest workplace raid in history when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swept up nearly 700 people working in seven food processing plants across Mississippi on Aug. 7. Many children returned from their first day of school to find their parents missing. Trump is creating tragedy, and grief courses throughout this country. He spurs forward a white supremacist agenda, igniting violence such as the mass shooting targeting Latinx people in El Paso, Texas.
FURTHER READING: How Trump incites violence: Understanding stochastic terrorism
It is within this context that many people brace for Aug. 17 when the Proud Boys, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, comes to Portland.
But while much local talk about violence is cast in terms of brawls, we must hold fast to this: It is not enough to decry violence, particularly when violence is underpinned by racism, misogyny and homophobia. Violence is not neutral. There is the violence suffered by people of color throughout this country that is rooted in its origins; there is the violence of living homeless.
Many of us in Portland are watchful about Saturday. Street Roots, in fact, rescheduled our 20th anniversary Street Party for the next day, to Aug. 18.
But on Saturday, we are still opening our vendor office for a vendor potluck and art session – cognizant that, when violence takes to the streets, the poorest people are still in the streets. Not everyone has a place to go, because the poorest of people in our city experience the violence through the compression of public spaces. Land is privatized, fenced-off and boulder-blocked, and landless people have to still exist.
Despite the 136-year-old declaration of a radical welcome on the Statue of Liberty, abdication toward the poor means that people live with daily violence. Without housing, they suffer early deaths. The annual Domicile Unknown report that Street Roots issues with Multnomah County reveals year after year that the average age of people who die on the streets is in their 40s.
In the past six months, six of our vendors have died. Grief billows big at Street Roots. It is within this daily suffering that we celebrate housing. We learned that two vendors received housing in the past week. One person told us through sobs of joy; the other, a shy smile.
Housing saves lives. As the deaths add up, we memorialize. As the housing adds up, we celebrate. The two are intimately connected.
It is not enough to cling to nonviolence, because injustice perpetuates violence. It is the fight for justice that is urgent – for the aspiration of the radical welcome that is actually inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand.
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2019 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404.
