The Final Solution: U.S. Bars Refugees

Demonstration in front of Trump International Hotel Washington D.C (photo Ted Eytan)

"Trump Administration Considers a Drastic Cut in Number of Refugees Allowed to Enter U.S.," was the headline in the online edition of The Times, (NYT, 9/6/19). Actually, the version in the print edition which came out the next day was more unforgiving, “U.S. Discusses A Plan Barring Most Refugees,” NYT, 9/7/19. “The White House is considering a plan that would keep most refugees who are fleeing war, persecution and famine out of the United States, significantly cutting back a decades-old program…” began the article. There have always been parodies of The Times and one’s first response is to regard this as some kind of journalistic spoof, the kind of thing that’s found in The Onion. How much worse can it get? Transgender bathroom rights are repealed, regulations on mercury emissions are rescinded along with the protection of endangered species. You become numb and eventually it seems possible that you could pick up the newspaper and find a story about the Trump administration allowing selective lynching in areas where there are law enforcement shortages, that President Trump cancelled high-level talks with Boris Johnson when England refused to sell him Scotland, that trade talks with China will be held at newly created Trump Hotel and Casino in Pyongyang, that the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral will become the Trump Real Estate Space Center (whose motto is “if you’re looking for space in outer space, we got it!”) that the name of the earth will be changed to Trumposphere, that after next week's mass shooting, the president will reassure the nation he’ll speak to Mitch McConnell about it and that the White House will be renamed The House of Trump after 2020 when the country becomes a monarchy.