Viewpoint: The Anti-Catholic roots of Trump's immigration rules

Image: Catholic Charities

In his article entitled 'Penalizing Poverty' Paul Moses writes in Commonweal Magazine:

Donald Trump was in the federal courthouse in Manhattan, and very happy to be there. It was 1988, and his wife, the former Ivana Zelníčková of Gottwaldov, Czechoslovakia, was one of 142 immigrants just sworn in as US citizens. By then, the Trumps had been married for eleven years and had three children. "It was about time I became an American," Ivana Trump told me, a reporter on the court beat, after a joyful ceremony that, as she put it, "made it hard not to cry." Donald Trump added: "It's a great country, and that's where a great woman should be."

The oath ceremony is a nearly religious ritual in which the American gospel - the good news of freedom and democracy-is preached to the newest members of the choir. "By your presence, America is vastly enriched," the judge told the new Americans. He was not referring to their net worth.

That lesson has eluded Donald Trump the president: his administration has just changed the standard for citizenship in a way that, as the New York Times headlined, "could alter the face of the American immigrant." A new rule redefines who is likely to become a "public charge," and is therefore ineligible for citizenship. It changes the process to put much more emphasis on an applicant's income....

To read on see: www.commonwealmagazine.org/penalizing-poverty?tid=74