The Refugee Scare and Trump's Latino Problem

I. The Syrian Refugee Scare
The recent massacres in Paris, bringing death or injury to between 400 and 500 people, and the early reports that one of the attackers had a Syrian passport, which he used to "hide " among the refugees streaming into European countries, have brought on a hysteria about the admittance of Syrian refugees.

Both former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) are supporting the admittance of only those Syrians who are Christian. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has called for the admittance of only "certified" Christians but has not given a description of the certification process. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson has told a story about parents bringing their children into the house if the word is that there are "rabid dogs" in the neighborhood -- some have heard him as saying "rabbit dogs." Carson has not explicitly linked Syrian refugees to the description, nor is it clear if he is talking about refugees in general. Donald Trump was asked by  a NBC News  reporter about the prospect of a database and whether Muslims would be required to be registered; and Trump answered, "They have to be." Trump later Twittered that he didn't suggest creating a database but was only answering a reporter's question; however, he did not disavow creation of a registry.

Jeb Bush called the prospect of a registry "abhorrent." Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said the idea was "unnecessary"  and it was not  something Americans would support. Senator Cruz said: "I am not a fan of government registries on American citizens." Cruz also said that the First Amendment protects religious liberties.

With the overwhelming support of Republican lawmakers and 47 Democratic lawmakers joining in, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill tightening restrictions on admittance of Syrian refugees by requiring major agency heads to sign off on every refugee admitted; also, the bill requires the briefing of Congress on how the vetting process in going.

The governors of 31 states have declared that they are opposed to the admission of any Syrian refugees; however, immigration and refugee policy is the prerogative of the national government. It is also the case that a 1980 law allows the president to admit up to 50,000 refugees and more if certain provisions are met.

The current vetting process for refugees appears to be quite robust. The head of World Relief says it consists of 13 steps and consumes about 18 months. President Obama says the vetting process takes about 18 months to two years. A career official in vetting of refugees told MSNBC that it was about an 18-month process and required the involvement of the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the CIA. I have heard numbers of 1,400, 1,900 and 2,000 in reference to Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. in the past four years and there is no documented record of any Syrian thus admitted as being involved in terrorist-related activity.

II. Donald Trump's Latino Problem
In the November 14, 2015 issue of the Albuquerque Journal, a republished article of the syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette takes Donald Trump to task for resurrecting the "historical black eye known as 'Operation Wetback.'" In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower removed more than one million Mexicans from the U.S. Some of the deported died while being transported and many were dumped in a desert well into the Mexican interior. Navarrette writes: "Relaunch Operation Wetback? You might as well suggest bringing back Jim Crow and interning Japanese-Americans."

Ruben Navarette cites polls to show how how strong is the Latino disapproval of Trump. "In mid-July, a Wall Street/NBC News/Telemundo poll found that 75 percent of Latinos disapproved of Trump. In a Univision poll taken at the same time, 79 percent of Latino voters said that they considered Trump's comments offensive, and 71 percent had an unfavorable view of him."

Navarrette concludes that Donald Trump sealed his fate with Latinos when he trashed the 14th Amendment by proposing the elimination of birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of the undocumented.