I had no idea this had been going on last summer but, once again, now that it's back, it's important to remember that, as always is the case with proposals floated by the folks at Camp Runamuck, the most obvious explanation likely is the right one. And, as always is the case with anything this president* does, the cruelty is the point. From The Atlantic:

The administration last year began pursuing the deportation of many long-term immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and other countries who the administration alleges are “violent criminal aliens.” But Washington and Hanoi have a unique 2008 agreement that specifically bars the deportation of Vietnamese people who arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995—the date the two former foes reestablished diplomatic relations following the Vietnam War.

Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) Congressional Quarterly Getty Images

These are the boat people, the people who fled here because of the ill-begotten war that this country made on theirs, and who fled because the enmity of their countrymen made their staying in Vietnam impossible. They have made peace with those circumstances. They have made homes and lives here. One of them, as Dave Weigel of the Washington Post pointed out on the electric Twitter machine, is named Stephanie Murphy, who fled with her family from Vietnam to this country in 1979. Presently, Ms. Murphy represents the Seventh Congressional District of Florida in the House of Representatives. This could get a bit sticky.

This is all about playing to the rubes (again) and using people of color (again) as props. That it reopens deep wounds that everyone thought were healed is irrelevant to a White House devoid of empathy or any sense of either honor or history. The cruelty is the point. It is the only animating principle of this American government.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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