Oh thank heavens, Donald Trump has finally decided to do something about the raging coronavirus pandemic, now that 42,000 Americans and counting have died:
In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citi⦠https: //t.co/4eufzv6Ng9
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1587434782.0
Hahaha, did you think it was going to be a real testing plan, since all these red states are about to reopen and literally every epidemiologist and public health expert says the only way you can safely reopen is if you have a robust testing regime in place to determine where the virus is, so you can actually track the damn thing?
That's too hard, involves science and big words, Donald Trump does not like it. Let's scapegoat immigrants!
"We're trying to do everything, the president's trying to do everything he can to put the health of the American people first during this crisis," [National Security Advisor Robert] O'Brien said on Fox News Channel. "So this is one step. It's not dissimilar to the restrictions on travel from China that he implemented back on Jan. 29 at the very outset of this public health crisis."
Fuck you.
Now wait, is Trump doing this because unemployment is really high right now, or because he is racist? Because Trump has wanted to stop immigration in pretty much all its forms, including the legal forms, since the very beginning, even when we were riding high on his beautiful economy (that he inherited from Obama). That seems to suggest that actually Trump is just a xenophobic fucking pig who wants to distract us.
He loves to brag about halting travel from China, which quite frankly he did too late, considering how the virus was already here. (He also did it three days after Italy did, and then lied about that too.) And now he says on Twitter he's going to stop immigration — all legal immigration! — because of how he doesn't want to talk about WHERE ARE THE FUCKING TESTS, and suspending all immigration is a racist move to help bolster his racist image with his racist base.
As the New York Times reports, the Trump administration has already been using coronavirus to even further hasten Trump's anti-immigrant wet dreams, and that "[e]ven before the tweet, it had expanded travel restrictions, slowed visa processing and moved to swiftly bar asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants from entering the country." This is just more of the same, because it's the only card he knows how to play. Stephen Miller, the Trump White House adviser most likely to be voted Trump administration Nazi Of The Month every single month , almost certainly has his paws in this, because he's been jonesing to ban legal immigration forfuckingever.
But wait. Is there actually an executive order yet? PFFFFFT, why would Trump think through a policy before sharting it onto Twitter? Lou Dobbs probably said something that got him excited. NBC News r eports that somebody in the White House said Becky told them Chad heard that Hunter totally said the details of Trump's order "will be forthcoming." So, if we know this White House as well as we think we do, that means they are all running around this morning like "OH FUCK!" and trying to abracadabra a racist immigrant order together as we speak.
Politico has more:
Trump's tweet did not make clear what specific action he would take: He could simply suspend entries for a period of time, or cancel a specific program altogether for the year.
The Department of Homeland Security is still drafting the executive order, according to three people familiar with the situation. One possibility that has been discussed is an exemption for temporary guest workers, including those who work on farms.
But wait. Can Trump even do this with an executive order? Un-fucking-clear. As the Times wrote, "It was not immediately clear what legal basis Mr. Trump would claim to justify shutting down most immigration." On the other hand the Washington Post talked to some goon from the Cato Institute who said maybe he can.
Oh well, we're sure they'll work out the details ASAP, and then they can get sued into oblivion. Meanwhile, anybody hear anything about WHERE ARE THE FUCKING TESTS?
No? Just checking.
As we said above, more than 42,000 Americans have now died of COVID-19, we have almost 800,000 cases that we know of and we don't know about many more because WHERE ARE THE FUCKING TESTS , and Trump is trying to ban all immigration. It's funny, because if anybody's suspending immigration, nations should be suspending immigration from here, since due to the Trump administration's disastrous response, America is by far the world's hairy cesspit for this disease.
Let's close this post with some tweets from people who see this for the bullshit it is, starting with the Americas Advocacy Director for Amnesty International:
When youâre a xenophobe, bans on migration are the only tired, failed, hateful solution you can think of. Suspend⦠https: //t.co/aaKmnvOX5A
— Charanya Krishnaswami (@Charanya Krishnaswami) 1587436495.0
This action is not only an attempt to divert attention away from Trumpâs failure to stop the spread of the coronavi⦠https: //t.co/vi5OamXzYb
— Joaquin Castro (@Joaquin Castro) 1587437410.0
Once again, rather than rise to the moment, Trump uses shameful anti-immigrant rhetoric as he faces re-election. Sa⦠https: //t.co/NLwuvdVsbb
— Stacey Abrams (@Stacey Abrams) 1587476443.0
Hey, has anybody heard anything about WHERE ARE THE FUCKING TESTS?
Somebody should really look into that.
[ AP / Politico / New York Times ]
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Testing is down. Dying continues, but can be written off to "we don't know".