MSNBC Guest Tumlin: ‘Our Immigration System Has as Its Feature Being Racist’

Immigration attorney Karen Tumlin said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that the U.S. immigration system had “as its feature being racist.”

When asked about the Supreme Court’s order that the Biden administration restarting former President Donald Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy, Tumlin said, “It is so important to say what does this really mean? I want to be clear. This isn’t just about immigration. If we need to look at this court case. If you’re a progressive and care about reproductive rights and trans rights, what is happening is a red state strategy to undo all of the Biden administration’s progressive agenda. It’s coming up against a court system that may be ready to do some of its bedding. We need to be making noise now, not just those who have seen the program up close, but all progressives need to be standing behind this.”

She added, “What does this mean for real people? I’m so glad that you asked that. There is chaos and confusion right now in terms of what will this mean and what is the Biden administration going to do to ensure that we have a truly welcoming system that is not expelling asylum seekers, that is not sending them back into some 2.0 acceptable version of remain in Mexico where folks will be kidnapped and raped and killed. Here’s what I really want to say. We need to understand that one of the key laws that the Texas decision relies upon is a 1996 law that has racist origins. So that mandatory detention law was not designed to come after my white immigrant mother. It was designed to lock out people from Latin America. So until we get about the business of looking at the fact that our immigration system has as its feature being racist, that it’s not a flaw, it’s a feature, we can’t expect to have a truly equitable system. That’s what we need to address.”

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