Free Republic

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s closing argument is now clear: Build tent cities for migrants. End birthright citizenship. Fear the caravan. Send active-duty troops to the border. Refuse asylum. Immigration has been the animating issue of the Trump presidency, and now — with the possibility that Republicans could face significant losses in the midterm elections on Tuesday — the president has fully embraced a dark, anti-immigrant message in the hope that stoking fear will motivate voters to reject Democrats. In a rambling speech on Thursday afternoon that was riddled with falsehoods and vague promises to confront a “crisis” at the border,...

Faced with the upsurge in xenophobia in Europe, MEPs want to take firm action against neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups, which currently benefit from a certain level of discretion in several countries. EurActiv France reports.Xenophobia is fueled by neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups in Europe, which should be banned as a matter of urgency, the European Parliament demanded on Thursday (25 October). MEPs have adopted a resolution condemning the surge in the number of incidents related to hatred and intolerance in Europe. The resolution also calls for action to be taken against small far-right groups which fuel the rise in xenophobia. According...

The lead promoter and founder of East Coast Comicon, Cliff Galbraith, bragged on social media about banning Christian conservative actor Kevin Sorbo from the upcoming geek convention in New Jersey because of the actor’s friendship with Sean Hannity. “I turned down Kevin Sorbo for East Coast Comicon,” organizer Galbraith wrote on Facebook over the weekend. “He’s pals with Sean Hannity. Just can’t do it.” As with video games, YA literature, and tech, the comic book and nerd culture convention circuit has become progressively left-leaning over the past few years–and East Coast Comicon is no exception. Its founder, Cliff Galbraith, advertised...

A radical group linked to rogue billionaire George Soros has been providing scripts containing anti-Trump talking points for constituents to read aloud during congressional town hall meetings. One of the scripts distributed by the Revolutionary Love Project encourages town hall participants meeting with their member of Congress to accuse the Trump administration of – wait for it – “xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia.” Constituents are urged to use those precise words to “forcefully condemn” President Trump’s immigration and border security initiatives, Aaron Klein reports at Breitbart News. Information about the scripts came as leaked audio from anti-Trump activists associated with the...

Despite jihadist terrorist attacks and the refugee crisis an annual survey measuring levels of racism in France has revealed the French are becoming more tolerant of minorities, and that there has been a drop in the number of racist and anti-Semitic incidents. The survey, carried out by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH), revealed on Thursday the French were more tolerant to minorities compared to previous years. The annual survey by the rights commission linked to the government is carried out to get an idea of levels of racism, xenophobia and intolerance in the country. After the studies...

California State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) is renewing a demand to see First Lady Melania Trump’s immigration papers — an issue Democrats first raised during the election campaign.Skinner expanded on her demand in an interview with Politico this week: “No one in the Trump operation has released any of the documentation to indicate what was the circumstance, or whether she had full legal status. … We only know they had a lawyer look at whatever papers she chose to give.”In 2010, when Arizona passed a controversial immigration law that allowed state and local law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of anyone...

NEW YORK (AP) — You might have thought about it, heard it. A lot. You might have even felt it: Dictionary.com's word of the year is "xenophobia." While it's difficult to get at exactly why people look up words in dictionaries, online or on paper, it's clear that in contentious 2016, fear of "otherness" bruised the collective consciousness around the globe.

This Monday, the first-ever UN summit on refugees and migrants is set to agree on an international response to the largest displacement crisis since World War II. Some 65 million people are on the move worldwide, fleeing wars such as the carnage in Syria, as well as repression and poverty. In total, 21 million refugees are competing for too few resettlement opportunities. At the summit, the UN's 193 member countries are expected to adopt a political declaration that human rights groups have already said falls far short of breaking new ground to ease the refugee crisis. The following day, Obama...

At an interfaith gathering hosted by the Democratic National Convention Committee in Philadelphia, Rev. James A. Forbes, senior minister emeritus of the Riverside Church in New York City and president of the Healing of the Nations Foundation, said Sunday that the nation faces problems of bigotry, climate change, greed and the “demonic matter” of xenophobia. During the gathering titled, “Stronger Together: In Pursuit of Love and Kindness,” Forbes referenced the lyrics of the 1960s musical, The Music Man, “Ya got trouble, folks, right here in River City. Trouble with a capital ‘T’ and that rhymes with ‘P’ and that stands...

Whether it’s here in the United States or across Europe, immigration has become a flashpoint in policy discussions. Legitimate concerns are expressed over factors ranging from potential competition for jobs or resources to feed the needy, to worries about terrorists crossing borders in the guise of desperate refugees. Liberal thinkers frequently deride such concerns, labeling those who utter them as “xenophobes” or racists. If you happen to publish any material questioning or criticizing generous immigration policy or loose restrictions here in America you can expect to come under attack by opponents all across the media spectrum. Fortunately, that’s pretty...

Japan accepted only 27 refugees last year and rejected almost all applications, officials said Saturday, as rights groups urged the government to allow more people in. The country has long been nervous about an influx of refugees into its homogeneous society and has tightly restricted the number it accepts. Of the thousands seeking refugee status, five were Syrian, only three of which were accepted -- a far cry from the massive influx of Syrians into Europe from the war-torn Middle East nation last year....

...The unprecedented scale and speed of the autumn’s refugee crisis has forced even the Swedish political class to acknowledge that the ground beneath its feet has shifted forever. There is simply no more money, and no more housing, for everyone who wants to come, and for everyone who was entitled to do so under the old rules.

New Yorkers may be rude to tourists, but at least we aren’t the worst. Big Apple residents are only No. 2 in rudeness, taking a back seat to the citizens of Arlington, Texas, according to a puzzling nationwide study. Data analysts at AlchemyAPI, in a study commissioned by air company Stratos Jet Charters, looked at tweets containing the word “tourist” between June 2014 and July 20 of this year.

Can Trump keep it up? When will he implode? What explains his rise in the polls? How do we stop him? The pundits wring their hands. Josh Marshall thinks Trump is a doofus who uses sophisticated military strategy. Peggy Noonan, who penned the phrase "1000 points of light" for George H. W. Bush, declares Trump to be a sign of molecules in motion. Statistician-pundit Nate Silver assures us Trump will meet his doom. Charles Blow has had enough and will no longer mention Trump's name. George Will was moved to pen a glorious sentence which begins, "Every sulphurous belch from...

Donald Trump is a racist, sexist hypocrite who doesn't understand the economy (or basic math) and probably doesn't have anything resembling an inner life—but the man sure can put on a good show! Good enough that thousands of people who get off on the xenophobic, hate-filled subtext of his blathering will pack half a stadium to watch his combover blow in the wind. Which leaves one question for the sane among us: why is a television punchline appealing to people now? Andrew Kaczynski ✔ ‎@BuzzFeedAndrew Pro-Trump Twitter is such a weird place 11:30 AM - 23 Aug 2015 · Big...

One thing about Donald Trump, you don’t have to guess what he’s really thinking … if you can call it that. Republican-for-now presidential candidate Trump has set himself apart – and ahead in the polls – from the crowded field of GOP candidates with his candid tell-it-like-he-sees-it pronouncements, particularly regarding the hot-button issue of immigration – certainly a topic presidential contenders should address. There are an estimated more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and more than 451,000 deportation cases in U.S. immigration courts. After calling some Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, Trump has now proclaimed that all...

Did you know that there are too many white people in Pittsburgh? That's what the deputy director of the Allegheny County Department of Health's Bureau of Public Policy and Community Relations told NEXTPittsburgh.com. “My two main gripes (about Pittsburgh) are: too many white people and not enough public transportation,” Abby Wilson is quoted as saying in a July 20 profile written by Gina Mazza. Ms. Wilson also cited Pittsburgh's “homogeneity and provincialism that accompany working here.” Wilson's comments were part of Ms. Mazza's profile of “four movers and shakers who have recently returned to Pittsburgh” on a site that touts...

Cardinal Timothy Dolan has penned an op-ed reacting to Donald Trump’s speech at his campaign launch for a 2016 presidential run–six weeks ago–calling the Republican candidate a harbinger of anti-Catholic, racist “nativism.”Cardinal Dolan writes at the New York Daily News:During those happy days decades ago when I taught American religious history to university students, I spent a chunk of time in class on the ugly phenomenon called nativism, defined by the scholar and author Ray Allen Billington as, “organized, white, Protestant antagonism toward the Catholic immigrant.”

In the wake of last week’s tragic shooting of a San Francisco woman by an undocumented immigrant, front-running GOP candidate Donald (“The Duck”) Trump is fanning the flames of racism and xenophobia among his Republican base. His strategy is to use anti-immigrant hysteria in order to win the White House next year. Why does the issue of immigration resonate with the GOP base, and what will the GOP candidates be pushing this election cycle? The primary divide within the GOP on immigration is primarily between two factions. One faction consists of xenophobic populists (such as Trump and Cruz) who want...