OPINION
01/26/2018 10:49 am ET Updated 23 hours ago

The White House Dreamer Deal Isn’t A Compromise. It’s A Racist Ransom Note.

Aaron Bernstein / Reuters
Stephen Miller seen at the Capitol on Jan. 17.
As the White House’s senior advisor for policy, Stephen Miller seems to have one goal: to take a wrecking ball to the Statue of Liberty and shove the remains into the Upper New York Bay.
It’s no secret that Miller, along with Gen. John “Adult In The Room” Kelly, has been penning some of the most heinous immigration policies coming out of the White House. One might even wonder if Miller and Kelly, not President Donald Trump, are running the government from the sidelines ― exploiting Trump’s short attention span.
Which brings us to this moment, when the White House is preparing to erode America’s reputation as a nation of immigrants and replace it with toxic immigration policy, which it has disguised as a way to save young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children, known as “Dreamers.” The Trump administration has said it supports extending a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 800,000 Dreamers that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy currently protects from deportation and for other young immigrants who are eligible but don’t currently hold the protections ― an estimated 1.8 million people in total.
On Monday, you will hear White House officials present their outline as nothing short of a heroic attempt to reform our nation’s broken immigration system. Do not be fooled. What the White House is selling the American people is nothing but a nativist wish list that would reduce the number immigrants, especially people of color born in countries that Trump considers “shitholes.”
Remember, this is supposed to be a plan to deal with the Dreamer crisis that Trump himself created by ending DACA, a crisis that affects my family and me directly.
In addition to a Dreamer fix, the White House plan will likely include an extreme reduction of legal immigration and a complete end to the diversity visa program. It also would empower more agents to immediately deport people like my parents or children fleeing violence. The result of enacting all of these policies? Slowing down the browning of America ― or at least Miller can hope.
And then there’s the wall. The “big, beautiful wall,” Trump’s signature policy goal and maybe the only one he fully understands. What else can a $25 billion wall be than a big middle finger to Mexico and countries south of the border? Keep out and stay out, the wall says.
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