The “invasion” of refugees and asylum-seekers at the Mexico-U.S. frontier, according to the president, is a national security issue and he has stirred up deep-seated nativism, racism, and xenophobic feelings among the populace, especially his base of supporters, to the extent that the nation is unhinged about the issue and Donald Trump is playing it for all it's worth as a primary issue in next year's election.

According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Refugee status or asylum may be granted to people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

Let's start with how old the tradition of asylum and the welcoming of refugees is in the U.S. It did not start with Emma Lazarus' poem that was inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor...” But it was a popular concept from the beginning.

In George Washington's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in 1795, according to a 1939 pamphlet by Louis Adamic, he urged his fellow citizens “humbly and fervently to beseech the kind Author of these blessings...to render this country more and more a safe and propitious asylum for the unfortunate of other countries.” He was aware from the beginning of the importance of welcoming the tired and poor from other lands, even as the founders ignored the the stain of chattel slavery as they did so. So did other leaders in the U.S., such as the Republican platform of 1864, which was said to be strongly influenced by Abraham Lincoln.

The platform read, in part: “Resolved that foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development of resources, and increase of power to the nation, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.” Adamic wrote in 1939 that the same principle was retained by the Republican Party in 1868, 1876, and 1892. He noted that a Republican platform plank in 1912 read, “The right of asylum is a precious possession of the people of the United States, and it is to be neither surrendered nor restricted.”

The GOP was a different creature in those days, riding a wave of abolition and electing a man that presided over the official end of chattel slavery, not the racist and xenophobic entity that it has become since the “southern strategy” of President Nixon nearly a half-century ago, when the Dixiecrat Democrats became Republicans. Trump has simply put the topping on the toxic mix the party has become and he has added so much to fuel hatred of the “other,” especially stirring up his base against those seeking asylum from the south, from Mexico, Central America, and South America.

How valid is his impulse to wall off the U.S. from anyone who seeks asylum or are refugees fleeing violence from any source? He has tried to add to the list of reasons that an individual might be rejected for recognition as an asylum-seeker. Many asylum seeker languish in doubt for months or years, waiting to see if they will be accepted. For most of the history of this country, it has meddled in the affairs of all of the countries in the Western Hemisphere, often overturning democratically-elected leaders, only to replace them with autocrats and dictators who will bend to the will of U.S. corporations and their enablers and supporters in government.

It should not surprise anyone that hundreds of thousands in those countries have sought refuge in other countries and that thousands are knocking at the door of the U.S., the nation most responsible for the disruption of their lives. This is especially true of the most recent wave of asylum-seekers, largely from the Central American nations of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Since the rejection by Trump of his nation's long history of welcoming refugees and asylum-seekers, many of those seeking respite from the violence of their own cities, villages, and communities have settled on Mexico as a place for that respite. But it is a choice of last resort, since they are seeking refuge in the U.S., the country that exacerbated or caused much of the violence and death in their own countries.

While Trump has moved to curtail the entrance of any people of color into the U.S. (his ban on people from Muslim-majority countries is an example of this), it's very difficult to block them all, even if he were to construct his racist wall from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico. There are still those pesky traditions, laws, and agreements that welcome the tired and poor of the world. His latest attempt to put the burden on Mexico is bound to fail, just as so many of his attempts of executive rule have failed. Recently, he promised to place a tariff on Mexican goods coming into the U.S., gradually until the tariff on everything reaches 25 percent, unless Mexico stops the migration of asylum-seekers through that country to the U.S. southern frontier.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) declares that the new policies make obtaining asylum more difficult in certain cases, separating families and forcibly returning asylum-seekers, including women and children, to Mexico to wait for their claims to be processed.

The IRC states: “Under federal law and international treaty obligations, the U.S. cannot force someone to go to a country where they will be in jeopardy of persecution or torture. There are concerns about whether Mexico can provide basic humanitarian protections. 2017 was Mexico’s deadliest year, with a record 29,168 homicide victims—a 27 percent increase from 2016. Xenophobic targeting of refugees and migrants has been documented in Baja California, the Mexican state just south of California that includes Tijuana and other high-crime cities.”

Trump cannot blame Mexico for the asylum-seekers at the southern frontier, for when they enter Mexico, it is not their first choice to seek asylum there, but to move through to the U.S., where they believe they will be safe and have an opportunity to live out their lives. There is no requirement for them to stay (or return to) Mexico at the direction of Trump.

Significantly, no mention is specifically made for those asylum-seekers who are fighting against destruction of rainforests and the environment generally in many developing countries. These environmentalists are fighting not only for their homelands, their environments, but are fighting off the depredations of transnational corporations that are devastating rainforests, rivers, lakes, and agricultural lands for profit that will be removed to rich countries, leaving waste in their wake. People who are fighting for their lands and waters are under constant threat of death at the hands of powerful foreigners and their governments. Too often, they are killed with impunity, but they can hardly leave to seek asylum while opposing the destruction of their communities and nations, so asylum is infrequently an option for those brave and unarmed champions against ecocide.

In his 1939 pamphlet that was prepared for secondary schools and teachers' colleges, Adamic quoted New York Governor Al Smith, who knew something about immigration, racism, and who felt the sting of religious bigotry, as a Catholic running for president, from 1933: “As our country has become older and wealthier, as bigotry and snobbishness have raised their ugly heads among us, we have tended to forget that this country was built up by immigrants who, in the vast majority of cases, came here to escape poverty, oppression, social restrictions, and lack of opportunity at home.

“The American who does not realize this has neither mental honesty, nor knowledge of our history...I am fully aware of the persuasive arguments for cutting down unrestricted immigration into this country. I have always suspected, however, that some of the more drastic provisions of our laws and some of the national quotas which were established, were fixed on the basis of fantastic Aryan theories rather than American principles.”

The pamphlet Adamic wrote was published at a time when the Nazis were coming to complete power in Germany. The “Aryan theories” that Governor Smith warned about in 1933 may have subsided in the U.S. to some extent in the years since, but white supremacy and xenophobia have made a definite comeback in recent years, especially since the advent of Trump in the White House. The president has said as much, when he asked why immigrants could not come from places like Norway, rather than Mexico and the nations to its south, along with Africa and the Caribbean, where the people are of a darker hue than the current president, who prefers Norwegians.