Despite an evening that showed the nation the deep divide between Democrats and Republicans, both parties stood as one in a standing ovation when President Trump introduced a North Korean defector during the State of the Union last night.
“(Ji) Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom,” said Trump. “Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death.
“Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most — the truth.”
Ji Seong-ho’s story was the only, rare moment of unity in #SOTU pic.twitter.com/b0gSgkSpDz
— ModelMajorityPodcast (@ModelMajorityP) January 31, 2018
A train ran over Seong-ho’s leg during his escape. Today he has a new leg.
“Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all,” said Trump.
Among the many guests the president did not introduce were the more than 20 Dreamers invited by Democrats.
Representative Judy Chu (D-CA) gave her State of the Union guest pass to Jung Bin Cho, a 23-year-old South Korean who has been a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiary. He has been in the U.S. at the age of seven, Think Progress reported.
“[My parents] came to Virginia — they wanted their kids to have the best education possible and to achieve the American dream,” Cho said in a phone interview with Think Progress. “Since America had a great reputation for the best schools in the world, my parents wanted me to go to a four-year college and become successful in America.”
Dreamers are undocumented migrants who arrived in the United States as children and were protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Trump ended the Obama-era protection of DACA immigrants and threatens their deportation.
While the media presents undocumented immigration as a primarily Latin American/Hispanic issue, “people don’t generally think of Cho when they see Dreamers,” wrote Think Progress.
“I wanted to put another face out there that not only Hispanics are impacted, but Asians are impacted — South Korea is one of the next top populations affected besides Hispanics,” Cho said. In fact, roughly 1.5 million undocumented immigrants are of Asian descent.
“These Dreamers have set roots here,” Rep. Chu told ThinkProgress. “They’ve gone to college. Many of them have their jobs. They’ve contributed to their country. To rip them up by their roots and to deport them is beyond imagination. I wanted to make sure that Donald Trump could see with his own eye the type of person that he is hurting through his policy. In addition to this, I wanted to make sure that Donald Trump and everybody else knows that there are Asian American Pacific Islanders [AAPI] Dreamers.”
“All he asks is not to be deported to a home he never knew,” Chu said, The Los Angeles Times reported. “Here he has roots, community and a future, and there are so many others like him.”
Trump began the topic of immigration by talking about MS-13, a violent criminal gang with ties to El Salvador that has been linked to grisly killings around the country.
Trump recognized two families from Long Island whose daughters had been killed by members of MS-13 as the camera focused on the grieved parents.
“Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors,” Trump said.
“Tonight I am calling on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country,” Trump said.
He then went on to tout the “four pillars” of his immigration plan: creating a path to citizenship for an estimated 1.8 million Dreamers; $25 billion for border security; attacking family reunification visas for relatives of U.S. citizens; and ending the diversity visa lottery program.
Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), formerly the Attorney General for California and a former D.A. in San Francisco, argued that Trump acted irresponsibly by citing MS-13 crimes in attempting to justify his demand that broader immigration reforms be attached to helping Dreamers.
“We’re not supposed to convince the American public of policy because we make them afraid. And that’s what this president apparently thinks he needs to do and it’s irresponsible,” Harris said.
Harris further blasted Trump, “MS-13 is an example of some of the worst of criminal gang behavior. To equate that with Dreamers and DACA was completely irresponsible and it was scapegoating and it was fear-mongering and it was wrong,” Harris said, speaking of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
“It was wrong technically in terms of the nature and character populations, and in terms of the difference — in terms of who they are and how they live their lives,” said the Indian American senator. “And it was wrong because that’s not what leaders are supposed to do.”
Republicans and this Administration have spent the past year relentlessly trying to repeal and sabotage the Affordable Care Act. For the first time since the ACA passed, the percentage of Americans who are uninsured has gone up. This is on them. #SOTU
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 31, 2018
Harris elected to bring UCLA graduate and Dreamer, Denea Joseph, as her guest, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“If a program like DACA is completely eradicated, many of us would become subject to detention, deportation, and separation from our own families — there’s so much at stake. And as a result, the advocacy just cannot stop,” Denea Joseph explained in an interview with Pop Sugar.
Joseph added what she hopes to be an outcome of the attendance of Dreamers at the State of the Union. “I really hope that tonight, through the representation of myself and the other DACA recipients who are going to be in the room, that we can uplift members of our community.”
More than 20 Dreamers were guests of high-profile Democrats, KWTX reports.
They watched as Democrats expressed her feelings about the President’s speech.
Democrats booed when Trump said the current system allows a single immigrant to bring in “virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.” “Not true, not true,” mouthed @RepJudyChu.
— Cristina Marcos (@cimarcos) January 31, 2018
Views from the Edge contributed to this report
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RE: North Korean Defector and Dreamers attend State of the Union: Judy Chu is an embarrassment to all AsAms. ???. And Harris needs to figure out whom she wants to represent instead of spouting hate speeches. Thankfully there are real Asian heroes like North Korean defector, Seong-Ho, who is working selflessly in Seoul against real evil! The 23 yo DACA recipient from South Korea, Jung Bin Cho, should look to Seong-Ho for an example of what truly brave people are doing in South Korea. Instead Jung Bin Cho and Denea Joseph choose to stay in a country where they are not citizens and cannot even travel outside the US where they might learn about other countries —including their own birth country; they will always be stigmatized minorities no matter if they later gain US citizenship. Also granting amnesty to Dreamers is Not fair to hard working legal immigrants who stood in lines, were separated for years from their family members, and paid a lot of fees to get US citizenship while also not getting a US education during the waiting period. Ruminate on the above and do something constructive for your birth country.
RE: North Korean Defector and Dreamers attend State of the Union: Thank you for your opinion. A Fox News poll shows you are in the minority on this issue, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/09/28/fox-news-poll-83-percent-support-pathway-to-citizenship-for-illegal-immigrants.html
Randall: Some facts of the September 24-26, 2017 Fox News poll in which “83 percent [of 1,017 registered voters] support pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants”:
1) The Fox News Poll was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R).
2) The poll was conducted by telephone with live interviewers September 24-26, 2017 among a random national sample of 1,017 registered voters.
3) Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
4) Landline (443) and cellphone (574) telephone numbers were randomly selected for inclusion in the survey using a probability proportionate to size method, which means phone numbers for each state are proportional to the number of voters in each state.
Fox News Poll Question: What do you think should happen to the illegal immigrants who are currently working in the United States — do you favor deporting as many as possible or do you favor setting up a system for them to become legal residents?
1,017 Responses:
Deport as many as possible: 14% or 142.38 people
Set up a system to become legal: 83% or 844.11 people
Don’t know: 3% or 30.51 people.
Note: there is no information regarding how many of the 1,017 respondents are registered Democrats, registered Republicans, or Independents. Nor is there a breakdown of the ethnicity of these 1,017 respondents.
Consider this too: Of the 1,017 households contacted, 443 still have landlines and the other 574 actually answered a call from an “Unknown” number.