The only thing that Fox News or any Right-Wing media covers with vigor right now is the crisis on the border.

The COVID crisis, Congress’s inability to function, climate change devastating our national landscape, even the redistribution of money from billionaires to the people from whom they stole it (those folks making $8/hr), it’s all largely irrelevant because the country hasn’t fallen apart under Biden. In fact, it’s doing fairly well.

The border is a crisis and there is no point in us trying to report around it. Put simply, Stephen Miller’s fantasies which became policy under Trump were so draconian, so terrifying, such a violation of international law (at least as applied to refugees), that many who sought refuge in the United States held back, afraid of losing their children, afraid of spending years in jail awaiting a hearing, afraid of the Border Patrol.

It created a backlog. The next president, without regard for whom it might have been, even Ron DeSantis, was going to face a mad rush to the border, sure that the policies had to be more humane. It would overload the system. Indeed, it has overloaded the system. The pictures are terrible. But the policies are humane. Trump is proud of his inhuman record, the MAGAs love it and thus they love criticizing the situation on our southern border.

To that end, in addressing migration, this time from the Caribbean (Haitians have been attempting to immigrate in large numbers as the country destabilizes), Geraldo wrote a tweet today that was half brilliant, half moronic, Given that tweets are, by their nature, short spurts of thought, this half and half thing was quite an accomplishment:

Haiti is about 200 miles from Cuba. If they reach our shores, most Haitians are deported. Most Cuban refugees are granted asylum. Suspicion has long been that it is a function not of race, but of Florida politics. Most Cubans will vote Republican. Most Haitians become Democrats.

— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) September 21, 2021

Geraldo, c’mon, man. Live in the real world for at least one tweet. There is no question that politics plays a role in immigration policy. Cubans tend to vote Republican, in large part because Republicans tend to be much harder on the Cuban communist government, whereas Democrats are a little more open to normalizing relations. It is absolutely true that politics plays a role.

But to say it is not racially based, too, is an absurd statement. Cuba is a country that traces its lineage almost entirely to Spain, which is to say “European.” Haiti is a country that traces its lineage almost entirely to freed slaves, from the United States, Africa, and elsewhere. The vast majority of Haitians are black. The vast majority of Cubans are Latin/Spanish (Of course, there are exceptions).

Race impacts every issue in this country. Geraldo makes a fantastic point about politics and then blows it up by denying there is a racial component. One could say this is typical Geraldo, who, on occasion, can make unique and legitimate observations, while also maintaining a comfy place on Fox.

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