U.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi issued a statement Monday regarding President Donald Trump’s executive action on immigration.
“I agree with President Trump taking steps to limit immigration. As I have said for the last two months, America needs to put Americans first,” Sethi said in an emailed press release.
“As our country gets back on its feet, we must prioritize Americans and make sure every American has a job before we allow workers from other countries to come to our country. I will be a Senator who always puts America first.”
As The Tennessee Star reported last week, Sethi released a statement about the U.S. Supreme Court’s DACA decision and he also touched on his parents’ experiences as immigrants.
“This is a travesty: My parents waited seven years to immigrate to America legally, and they gave back to the community here in Tennessee,” Sethi said.
“It’s incredibly offensive to me as a first generation American to see other people break the law get benefits, and their children be rewarded for it. Congress needs to fix the system by building the wall, ending chain biased migration, and pausing all legal immigration until we get our economy back on track.”
As reported Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Trump’s effort to end legal protections for 650,000 illegal immigrants, a stunning rebuke to the president in the midst of his reelection campaign. For now, these individuals retain their protection from deportation and their authorization to work in the United States.
The 5-4 outcome, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and the four liberal justices were in the majority, seems certain to elevate the issue in Trump’s campaign, given the anti-immigrant rhetoric of his first presidential run in 2016 and immigration restrictions his administration has imposed since then. It was the second big liberal victory at the court this week, following Monday’s ruling that it’s illegal to fire people because they’re gay or transgender.
The justices rejected administration arguments that the eight-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program is illegal and that courts have no role to play in reviewing the decision to end DACA.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
As an alien himself, Manny Sethi should be mindful about attacking other aliens and nationalities that seek to come to the U.S. Right now, the anti-alien sentiment focuses chiefly on the Chinese, Russians, Mexicans, Arabs, and Central American refugees. So far, the anti-immigrant activists have not yet targeted India. But these attacks on one ethnic or nationality have a way of suddenly focusing on other nationalities or ethnics that come to our shores. Last night’s PBS Documentary on the opioid crisis focused on a John Kapoor (sp.?) (originally from India himself) who became an unethical entrepreneur determined to hard-sell a contagious drug named fentanyl. Due to Kapoor’s prominence, his conviction could cause anti-India sentiment that could even endanger law-abiding citizens like Sethi. Moreover, India’s gross human rights violations against Muslims within its borders on a par with what China has done to its ethnic minorities could come back to haunt India and anybody of India origins living in the U.S. in the event that the U.S. should get on bad diplomatic terms with India. So, my advise to Sethi is not to help xenophobic whites fan anti-immigrant sentiment lest it focus on Sethi’s ethnicity as well. What goes around can come around.
We need to permanently solve our immigration problems and get rid of the big business visa scams. The visa changes are temporary, and I am concerned about what happens when restrictions are lifted. Does that mean later we will see Americans laid off and forced to train their visa replacements? Politicians on both sides have allowed that to happen.