Of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant actions, the best known are the barring of immigrants and refugees from Muslim countries, and the rounding up and deporting of undocumented immigrants, even those without criminal records or those who came to the United States as children. Now Trump has proposed slashing the number of legal immigrants, restricting family reunification, and moving towards a “merit-based” system that favors highly-educated, highly-skilled, and English-speaking applicants.
The impact of this era’s anti-immigrant sentiment is broad, and touches immigrants and native-born Americans in unforeseen ways. The problem is that Angelenos don’t yet recognize just how broadly this atmosphere is hurting immigrants of all backgrounds, because too many different kinds of people get left out the narrative. Some of these omissions are due to prejudice and divisions within immigrant communities themselves.
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