Is Trump burying the American dream?
US President Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to the DACA programme introduced by the Obama administration which protects the children of illegal immigrants from deportation. In line with his slogan America first, Trump justified the move by saying that American workers must come first. Europe's commentators are appalled.
Lady Liberty has mutated into a zombie
Trump has crossed a red line in ending the DACA child protection programme, the Berliner Zeitung laments:
“The 800,000 so-called 'dreamers' are at the core of the American immigrant society. ... If Donald Trump now discontinues the programme he'll be shaking US culture to the core. The president is going one step further than with his entry ban for citizens of certain Muslim states: that discriminated against newcomers. Now, however, for the most part well-integrated new Americans could be deported. The Statue of Liberty, once a symbol of hope, has mutated into the zombie of a nationalist policy that stirs up hostility against all things foreign.”
American dream becoming a nightmare
By ending the programme that protected migrant children in the US from deportation Trump is risking social unrest, writes the Wiener Zeitung:
“The cruel move of the US president marks more strongly than all his previous statements the end of the American dream. An unscrupulous right-wing populist is sitting in the White House who couldn't care less about social peace in the United States. … Trump's cynical decision has all the ingredients to generate social conflict. Trump's unbearable reaction to a right-wing mob that killed a peaceful counter-demonstrator in Charlottesville has already deepened the rift in American society. Trump is about to turn the American dream into a nightmare.”