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Life is now a war zone, and as such, the number of people considered disposable has grown exponentially, and this includes low income whites, poor minorities, immigrants, the unemployed, the homeless, and a range of people who are viewed as a liability to capital and its endless predatory quest for power and profits.
With his mendacity and increasingly virulent attacks on immigrants, Muslims, women, the press, the judiciary, the intelligence services, the F.B.I. - any group or institution that he finds threatening or useful as a scapegoat - Mr. Trump is attempting the Orwellian trick of redefining American reality on his own terms.
In the longer term, immigrants contribute more to the government's coffers than they receive in social spending. Moreover, these programs are not just welfare or a handout, but also an investment, helping ensure that families are healthy, educated, and able to work and support themselves over the course of generations.
Both my parents are English and came out to Australia in 1967. I was born the following year. My parents, and immigrants like them, were known as '£10 poms.' Back then, the Australian government was trying to get educated British people and Canadians - to be honest, educated white people - to come and live in Australia.
Countries around the world have their own immigration laws and methods of dealing with a recurring theme: desperate people searching for peace from volatile parts of the world. And nations everywhere thrive and prosper from the contributions of immigrants and the children of immigrants - including right here in the U.S.
Skills-building opportunities should be extended to people outside of the mainstream talent pool. That might include at-risk youth, veterans returning to the workforce, or immigrants struggling to make a life for themselves in a foreign culture. The process for creating wealth must begin with creating opportunity for all.
I plan to see St. Louis as a global competitor. As an international trade hub, as an incubator of new companies, as a place of culture and the arts, as a magnet for immigrants, for entrepreneurs, for animal lovers, and for gays, as a city of parks and trails, and as the sort of place that figures in young people's dreams.
I'm an Australian. And I'm speaking generally here, but Australians in general aren't patriotic or nationalistic. Our country was built by immigrants. So, by my experience, I've seen the way immigration has transformed nations. They are the key people who quite literally build civilizations, be it culturally or musically.
The study titled 'Impact of Immigration on Wages, by Education Level, 1994-2007' found that increased immigration had an effect of lowering wages for earlier immigrants by an average of 4.6 percent. Running counter to popular perception is the finding that for native-born Americans, wages actually increased by 0.6 percent.
Like so many first generation children of Indian immigrants, I learned to believe in a dream that is as much American as it is universal: a dream of equal opportunity for all based on merit, of power concentrated not in the hands of a few at the top, but fanning across a large, educated, and civically engaged middle class.
What Republicans so cynically refer to as 'chain migration' is actually family-based immigration - a humane and compassionate policy of reunifying families. It allows spouses to be together, siblings to support each other, and children to be with their parents. It allows the immigrants who are already here to be successful.
So I've got mates I've known since I was five years old. Their children know my children. There's something really lovely about it. When you're an immigrant - my parents were immigrants, their brothers and sisters lived all over the world, Florida, Jamaica, some in Europe - it's a grounding thing. That community is critical.
I understood from a very young age that school was important and that my parents were making great sacrifices for me. Every morning I saw my father get up and go to a job that he didn't really like. They came to France for the same reasons all immigrants move to another country - so their kids could have a better way of life.
I definitely think my ancestry has something to do with my politics. And I think being deeply suspicious of government and communists is implicit in a lot of first-generation immigrants, particularly from Eastern Europe. My mom came over from Romania when she was a kid and they fled the commies who took their family hemp farm.
There's a reason nationalists build walls, denigrate foreigners, and denounce immigrants: Because our people are better than those people. There's a reason nationalism has so often become violent in the past. For if we - our nation - are better, then what right do others have to live beside us? Or to occupy land that we covet?
'Heaven's Gate' was based on a true story about the cattle people: the people who had the money turned on the settlers who were in the area. And it was mainly a defense of their behavior. And the cattlemen's association had just about declared war on these people who were poaching cattle, and because they were mainly immigrants.
My parents are European immigrants. And I think as Europeans there are so many languages in close proximity that it's part of the culture to try to learn at least one other language. So my parents really encourage it in the house. Chinese would be really great to learn - like Mandarin or Cantonese. Portuguese would be incredible.
I think it's not an accident that you don't have that many Asian American women writers who are breaking out. I don't think it's an accident that you don't have that many Asian American writers, either women or men. I don't think that immigrants are encouraged to become artists. That's very gendered and racialized and ethnicized.
One of the things I wanted to do in 'The Death of Truth' was explore some of the larger social and political dynamics that fueled the rise of Trump and brought America to the point where a third of the country will casually shrug off hard facts about everything from the size of inaugural crowds to the crime rate among immigrants.
We fear the arrival of immigrants that we have drawn here with the wealth we stole from them. For much of the rest of the world we must be the focus of bitter amusement, characters in a satire we don't understand. It is British people that don't learn languages, or British history. Britain is the true scrounger, the true criminal.
Many of the concessions that leading Democrats seem willing to make - from cutting diversity visas to chipping away at family visas - would be made on the backs of black immigrants, people from Africa and the Caribbean who deserve these policies to remain intact as some of the few legal tools they have to immigrate to this country.
My grandfather on my dad's side was the first in our family to settle in the U.K. He came from Pakistan on his own in the '60s and worked in a cotton mill in Bolton, earning enough to bring over the rest of his family. My dad, Shah, was only about eight when he came to this country. Like most immigrants, he has a fierce work ethic.
The 1986 act didn't turn illegal immigrants into citizens on the spot. It granted temporary resident status only to those who could prove they had resided continuously in America for five years. After 18 months, their status could be upgraded to permanent residency, and only after another five years could they become U.S. citizens.
When Superman was originally created, by Siegel and Shuster, they were two Jewish immigrants that were desperately trying to assimilate into America. They were having a hard time because they were Jewish. They wanted to get in to mainstream publishing but they couldn't. That's why they, and a lot of Jewish guys, went into comic books.
In Sweden, I went to an English school, where there was a mishmash of people from all over the world. Some were diplomatic kids with a lot of money, some were ghetto kids who came up from the suburbs, and I grew up in between. There's a community of second generation immigrants, and I became part of that because I had an American father.
There is nothing morally objectionable in stating that a country has the inalienable right to decide on the exact number of immigrants and the exact type of immigrants that it wishes to let into its borders. As part of that calculus, it is perfectly rational to exhibit preferential treatment to immigrants who share one's cultural values.
Obama set a record number of deportations of illegal immigrants in 2011, but that fact alone is misleading. Obama has spoken in favor of and has urged Congress to pass the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow young undocumented immigrants to stay in America, their home, and achieve citizenship by going to college or serving in the military.
For the first time since 2007 there is political momentum behind fixing the immigration system. President Obama in his State of the Union speech reached out to the right-wing by saying illegal immigrants seeking citizenship will have to pay taxes, learn English and get in line behind people who are trying to enter the United States legally.
Women are the majority of immigrants yet the minority of immigrant employment visas; immigrant and native born women who work in the service arena - such as domestic workers - are not valued for their work, making pennies on the dollar compared to male counterparts; and, women are disproportionately affected by family reunification policies.
Our nation is built upon a history of immigration, dating back to our first pioneers, the Pilgrims. For more than three centuries, we have welcomed generations of immigrants to our melting pot of hyphenated America: British-Americans; Italian-Americans; Irish-Americans; Jewish-Americans; Mexican-Americans; Chinese-Americans; Indian-Americans.
Trump's blatant racism and demonization of Muslims, Mexicans, and immigrants also serves as a foil for white evangelicals. By othering these groups, Trump allows evangelicals to persist in their belief that white Anglo-saxon Protestantism is the default for true American Christianity and is best suited to lead America as a 'Christian Nation.'
Both my parents are immigrants. I've seen different struggles they've had. There's a reason you don't see me using accents. I don't do impressions of my folks. When I'm doing a crappy impression of my folks, and you're laughing, I'm thinking, 'When my parents talk to people, when they walk away do people do impressions of them? Do they laugh?'
My dad's from that generation like a lot of immigrants where he feels like if you come to this country, you pay this thing like the American dream tax: like you're going to endure some racism, and if it doesn't cost you your life, well hey, you lucked out. Pay it; there you go, Uncle Sam. I was born here, so I actually had the audacity of equality.