Serious Discrimination Against and Cruel Treatment of Immigrants Fully Expose Hypocrisy of 'US-Style Human Rights'
China Daily | Updated: 2020-07-10 07:30
3. Xenophobia in US Immigration Policies Has Caused Serious Consequences
As regards immigration, the United States essentially pursues white (Anglo-Saxon) supremacy. It suppresses other races through extreme xenophobia and violates the basic rights and personal dignity of immigrants. This has exposed the hypocrisy of the so-called "US-style human rights".Social contradictions are deeply entrenched in US society, and it is extremely difficult to solve these contradictions.
Extreme immigration policies and xenophobia have intensified social conflicts and hate crimes in the United States. As reported by the website of The New York Times on August 5, 2019, from the morning of August 3 to the early morning of August 4, large-scale shootings occurred in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, killing 31 people and injuring several dozens, and according to the officials, before the El Paso shooting, the gunman spread hate and racist speech in a statement accusing Latin American immigrants of "invading" Texas. The public generally believes that the gunman's motive is related to his general hostility toward immigrants. As reported by the website of the British newspaper The Guardian on August 27, 2019, white supremacists should be held accountable for 71 percent of the deaths in US terrorist attacks between 2008 and 2017.
The divergence in immigration policies existing in different sectors of the United States has exacerbated the country's internal divisions. The current Republican administration and Democrats have long been deadlocked over congressional budget appropriations to build the border wall, about a quarter of federal government agencies had been "shut down" for as long as 35 days since December 22, 2018, and about 800,000 federal government employees have been forced to work without pay or take vacations during this period of time. This federal government shutdown has greatly affected the US people's lives. Many states in the US have strongly criticized the federal government's immigration policies. On August 26,2019, 19 US states and Washington, DC jointly filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration's new rules that allow illegal immigrant families to be detained indefinitely.
The US immigration policies that are full of racial discrimination have seriously damaged the recognition for national identity and the fusion of races in the United States. As reported by the VOX news website on August 12, 2019, the US government's xenophobia against immigrants who cannot be assimilated has reached an unprecedented extreme in US history, which delivers a negative message to the public: "If you are brown, black, or an immigrant, you are no longer welcome here." This will fundamentally challenge the tradition of the United States as an immigrant country and exert a strong influence on the national and social well-being.
Since the independence of the United States, immigrants have offered abundant labor resources for the United States, made great contributions to its economic prosperity and development, facilitated scientific and technological exchanges and innovation, and shaped the diversity of its ethnicity and culture. Nevertheless, now the US government is showing extreme xenophobia and rejecting and discriminating against immigrants, while chanting human rights slogans. This act is not only ironic, but it also undoubtedly ignores the traditions and reality of the United States. The reality of severe discrimination against and cruel treatment of immigrants has completely exposed the hypocrisy of the so-called "defender of human rights".