There was a point during that now infamously intense huddle between President Donald Trump and a “bipartisan” convening of Senators when the president appeared amenable to a deal.
Congressional leaders seemed confident they could reach a compromise on Deferred Action Childhood Arrival, although there would be a tough border-wall pill to swallow for Democrats.
While not happy by any measure, Washington was dispassionately optimistic for a quick moment; there were no winners or losers, and maybe they’d achieve something markedly significant despite the rampant dysfunctionality of the town.
As the end of a temporary federal budget Continuing Resolution from the previous year was approaching the January 19 deadline, there was hope among lawmakers that a stable, more complete budget would be passed along with resolution on the question of more than 700,000 “Dreamers.”
Yet, reportedly, Trump and White House senior advisors grew perplexed then visibly irritated on the matter of Black migrants. Hence, the notorious “shithole” (or “shithouse”) remark.
The Central American country of El Salvador, a large source of Latinx migration to the United States, was included in that mix of countries assaulted by presidential tongue during negotiations over DACA and the budget. But the predominant highlight of Black Diaspora regions from the Caribbean to the African continent was rather significant. It not only marked the first time in recent memory that a sitting president casually used vulgar language in a formal government setting to describe such countries, but it underscored a strikingly clear moment in which White House policy towards Black populations in the United States was on vivid and official display.
Missed in the outrage and condemnation over those comments is a larger question of whether Trump administration actions over the past year could be viewed as a deeply troubling and accelerating process of “ethnic cleansing.”
“It’s definitely more hostile and it could be considered ethnic cleansing,” argues Christina Greer, a noted national expert on Black migrant trends and a McSilver Institute fellow at New York University. “Of course, President Obama had his fair share of deportations, let’s not forget that. But the big difference here is that this administration is actively making it a lot more difficult for people to come in, especially from African countries. And not only is it more difficult, but they are making the country much less hospitable.”
“In the President’s racist mind, you can only create so many white people. We’ve essentially reached a white population max in this country. And, so, this administration and his party are coalescing around white supremacy, making sure this country maintains its white status. You do that through immigration policy.”
And in the context of the U.S. Black population, it’s not just a matter of limiting Black migration into the country. A number of trends are happening rapidly and simultaneously, all similar in the way they place potentially devastating social, economic and political restrictions on Black progress since the Civil Rights movement.
It’s the question that stands out considering migrants from the African continent and the Caribbean constitute 10 percent of the overall Black population in the United States – and that’s the official estimate.
According to projections, Black migrants will grow to nearly a quarter of the overall Black U.S. population, and that’s not counting the number of Black American-Black migrant blended families and offspring.
Nearly 40 percent of the U.S. Black migrant population is comprised of Africans, a nearly 15 percent increase since the year 2000 – they represent the general 137 percent increase in Black migrant make-up in the U.S. since the dawn of the 21st century.
However, Caribbean immigrants are the dominant Black migrant community in the United States, comprising half of foreign-born Blacks. Jamaica and Haiti are, respectively, ranked 1st and 2nd in terms of Black migrant origin in the U.S.
While much of the immigration discussion has focused primarily on migrants from Latin American countries, there are visible signs that African and Haitian migrants are also experiencing unprecedented pressure from Trump administration policies.
Out of the eight countries listed in the White House Executive Order banning travel from mostly Muslim-majority countries, three – or nearly 40 percent – are on the African continent. Administration reasoning points to increased terrorist activity and civil instability in those countries.
The world is gripped in the largest migrant crisis since World War II – now more than 1 percent of the global population, or 70 million, is technically displaced, most seeking asylum, “internally displaced” according to the United Nations or considered a refugee. Europe and the Middle East are epicenters of that crisis, with countries finding themselves overwhelmed by a constant flow of refugees escaping zones of conflict in battlespaces such as Syria, Libya, other parts of North Africa and Western through sub-Saharan Africa.
As that crisis grows, the percentage of permitted refugees to the United States has dropped dramatically, by 83 percent during Fiscal Year 2018 (the first year of the Trump administration) compared to Fiscal Year 2017 – the last complete year of the Obama administration. Interestingly enough, two out of three of the largest concentrations of the more than 3,100 refugees allowed in FY 2018 came from countries on the African continent 627 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo and nearly 300 refugees from Eritrea. Migration from Somalia, which was second to Syria in terms of refugees admitted by the Obama administration in late 2016, has virtually stopped.
On its face, permitted migration from DRC and Eritrea offers the impression that the Trump administration is not eliminating African migration. But there is a noted shift away from Black and Brown – or Arab – nations as Ukraine, an Eastern European, and Bhutan, a small Asian country located on China’s southern border are suddenly on the list of permitted refugees. That shift may suggest a subtle preference for European and Asian migrants by the Trump administration.
That preference, coupled with a broader hostility to Black Diaspora and Black American policy interests, could also be driving a Trump White House proposal to eliminate the long-standing Diversity Immigrant Visa program. Established in 1990, the “visa lottery” was originally created for Irish and Italian immigrants struggling for easier pathways into the United States. Fast forward into the new century and African migrants have become some of the biggest (and most unexpected) beneficiaries of the program, since the number of “lottery” slots designated for countries like Mexico and China have diminished over time from high volume and use.
The proposal to cut the visa lottery entirely – dramatically slashing the number of Black migrants entering the country – also occurs at a time of worrisome domestic developments for the larger African American population.
Some observers argue a “Black depopulation” effort is afoot, with Republican-led federal and state agencies, between immigration lockdowns and voter suppression strategies and mass disenfranchisement of the formerly incarcerated, crafting creative ways to decrease the overall Black population footprint.
There are concerns that the upcoming 2020 Census, a crucial decennial exercise projected to cost $15.6 billion, is being deliberately underfunded by a Trump White House and Congressional Republicans who are not interested in a reliable or accurate counting of a growing “minority” population that will be the majority by 2050. Already, recent Census surveys show more than half of all children in the United States under the age of 10 are non-white. However, an underfunded Census may undercount a growing Black and Brown population.
The inability to adequately fund the Census – compounded by the appointment of questionable leadership — will carry enormous, and potentially, devastating consequences as state legislatures design Congressional districts and the federal government determines which communities receive the lion’s share of nearly $700 billion in federal funding.
“Demographics and our place of residence are the facts that undergird an accurate representation of our country and a fair allocation of resources,” notes Urban Institute’s Diana Elliott. “In an era when facts and data are threatened, maintaining the integrity of the decennial census should be front of mind for all Americans.”
These abrupt changes in policy are also coupled with the concerted rollback of what Greer describes as “the three most beneficial pieces of legislation to Black people in modern history:” the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. “It’s important to see these acts as not being separate from one another. This administration is making simultaneously assault on all three of them.”
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