To the people of Syria and Iraq and France and Germany and Mexico and Canada and the World, permit me to apologize on behalf of the citizens of the United States of America for the unforgivable actions of the man who has assumed power here. I speak for those of us who unlike Trump, unlike the sycophants who surround him, unlike the hate filled souls and the conscious optional bigots who applaud him, unlike the Russian puppeteers who may be manipulating him. I speak for those of us who have not forgotten, and will not forget that WE are the descendants of the immigrants, often the refugees, we are the modern equivalents of those who Fuhrer Trump has just banished, degraded, and in many cases likely, literally sentenced to death. Our greatness and more importantly our goodness has since the cliche of the arrival at Plymouth Rock, stemmed entirely from people who came here from elsewhere. The only true natives of this continent are the victims of persecution and marginalization and genocide, if this gargoyle Trump really believed in “America first” he would lead the deportation of those who brutally stole these lands from their rightful inhabitants.
Indeed, if there is anything this country can offer, it is mitigating evidence against our original sin. It is that the land our forefathers invaded. It became a place of freedom; a destination for those who literally had no other place to turn. We became great and greater and greatest – because to these shores came a world of brave men and women – who could not be certain it would be better here, but who knew it could not be worse than where they were. They gained a sanctuary, and we gained their courage, their dedication, and their hard-work and their belief that if life would not be better for them it would be better for their children. In us, in this place, they saw the light of the world, and because of them we became that light – and now Trump has extinguished it. He has extinguished the light of the world. Not because it was necessary, not because it was protective, because it will almost certainly indeed prove the opposite – but because many of those who support him cried out for scapegoats and for people to hate because they believe a different religion, they looked for people to blame because they looked different and in their hate – he, without conscience sold morality he capable of proudly mocking tears of those stricken by the human cost of his cruelty over the weekend, saw only how to gain more power. He has extinguished the light of the world, not because he wanted to prevent terrorism or reduce the flow of would be terrorists, but because the political currency of 21st century America is making the gullible afraid, of convincing them that a foreigner lurks around every corner when the greatest risk of death to Americans are other Americans who have guns.
The seven countries to whose residents visas will not be issued are: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. From data researched by the libertarian think-tank, the Cato Institute. The number of Americans killed in terrorism on American soil by people from those countries from 1975-2016 was… none. The countries of the Middle-East against Trump did not act include the home nations of all the 9/11 hijackers and the San Bernardino attackers: Pakistan and the United States and most cynically all, those countries in which Trump has business dealings. None of Donald Trump’s grandparents were born in this country, virtually none of his supporters who style themselves as “real Americans” are NOT the decedents of immigrants or refugees, the nation they know, the things here that have given them life, has been built entirely by the children and grandchildren of exactly the kind of people whose banishment and punishment they now
cheer.
I am the child of immigrants, and my eyes well with prideful tears that transcend time that I get to freely enjoy the fruits of their labor, their hard-work, their struggle, their blood, and their determination. Donald Trump’s grandfather, Frederick Trump came to America a scared teenager from western Germany 132 years after his arrival, his Grandson betrayed him. Friday he took a first step to changing the law in such a way his own grandfather would not have been certain to get a Visa waiver to get into this country, and even if Frederick Trump had gotten in here and gotten a Green Card he still might not have been safe, for his own grandson, and his chief-of-staff – (the son of a woman who grew up in Sudan) initially, they went after the Green Card holders, they locked out legal residents of this country in what may very well be interpreted as the early passive aggressive stage of a kind of ethnic cleansing and thus, Trump has betrayed every other kind of immigrant and every other refugee and every other man or woman the world over who looked to us then or who have looked to us now and who believed we were who we said we were. I’m sorry.
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Donald Trump has branded himself a traitor to everything this country has ever stood for. We have already acted against him in the streets, and in the courts. We will remove him. We will welcome you again. We will even again let you think that you are getting more from us, even though history proves in generation after generation with nationality after nationality, that it is us who are getting everything from you. And until that day, we, the citizens of the United States, beg your forgiveness.
Wild Honey 