What has Trump really accomplished? For all the talk, not much - except in one big area

[DonViejo]

What has Trump really accomplished?

For all the talk, not much - except in one big area, as 11 million immigrants can suddenly attest.

By MICHAEL GRUNWALD February 28, 2017

For all the sound and fury of his first 39 days in office, President Donald Trump has not yet dismantled President Obama’s health reforms, Wall Street regulations, or climate rules. He hasn’t started overhauling America’s tax code, rehabbing America’s infrastructure, or building a border wall. But even though Trump has done less to change federal policies than his blustery boasts and fiery tweets might suggest, he’s already having a real impact on Jaime, a 15-year-old undocumented immigrant living just a few miles from his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Jaime is not the kind of illegal alien Trump would call a “bad hombre.” His grandmother brought him to the United States last September, after gang members in his hometown of La Union, El Salvador, showed up at one of his soccer games and killed his grandfather. He’s now living with his mother, a hardworking house cleaner who snuck into to the U.S. in 2008, and he’s doing well in school, even though he has to use a Spanish translation app to decipher his homework assignments.

But Jaime and his family—except for his 2-year-old brother, an American citizen—are violating America’s immigration laws, and they are now at constant risk of deportation. In recent years, the Obama administration had made a policy choice to stop pursuing most non-criminal aliens, and to help reunite many undocumented children with their parents in the U.S. But unlike laws and regulations, policy choices can be reversed in a hurry, and the Trump administration has done that. His Department of Homeland Security has issued two new memos specifically reversing Obama's directives for leniency at the border and inside the country, declaring that "the Department no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement."

“I’m scared when I go to school that I’ll get caught. I’m scared when my mom goes to work that she won’t come back,” says Jaime, who used a pseudonym to avoid alerting immigration officials to his case. “I don’t know what would happen.”

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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/what-has-trump-really-accomplished-214838

[murielm99]

1. What has he accomplished?

He has made us look at our Latino neighbors as human beings like us.

He has galvanized people who may not have voted. He has inspired many of them to register to vote and join their local Democratic party.

He has caused many more people to participate in town hall meetings and to call, email or write their Congressmen.

He has brought Jews and Muslims together in the U.S.

He has gotten people to look at our Constitution, possibly for the first time since high school civics class.

He has gotten people out into the streets, getting more exercise and learning more about how the American system should work. Some of them are actually speaking to their neighbors face to face instead of just texting them.

He has improved the circulation of the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Maybe, just maybe, he will wreck the repubbie brand for a long time to come.

Keep up the good work, moran.