Will Trump remove Lady Liberty’s plaque too?
by digby
THE LEAD U.S. AGENCY tasked with granting citizenship to would-be Americans is making a major change to its mission statement, removing a passage that describes the United States as a nation of immigrants. In an email sent to staff members Thursday and shared with The Intercept, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director L. Francis Cissna announced the agency’s new mission statement.
It reads:U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.
USCIS’s previous mission statement, still available on the agency’s website Thursday, read:
USCIS secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system.
A lot of people seem to be coming around to the idea that maybe Trump is just a buffoon and isn’t really any worse than your average neoliberal shill when it comes to policy. But in a thousand different ways, large and small, he is changing the fundamental way we think about our country. American has never been anything close to perfect. But it had some ideals that made some members of each generation feel they had something to live up to. And in fits and starts, progress was made, however grudgingly.
Trumpist nationalism is changing that and it’s moving very quickly. I wish I understood how people can hate leaders like Obama or Clinton so much that they find Donald Trump and these neo-fascists preferable. They aren’t even the same political species.
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