Opinion: Delightful Scandal by Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jnr., Ph.D.

It is the sort of hypocrisy-laced scandal that makes it extremely difficult for any avid media critic of thoroughgoing corrupt African and Third-World governments to presume to lecture the latter by using the governments of technologically advanced Western democracies like the United States, under President Donald John Trump, as a typical emulative model of a socially and politically responsible government. I am here, of course, referring to the television documentary exposé on the criminal abuse of undocumented immigrants by the members and operatives of the so-called Trump Organization, which is a corporate entity owned and operated by President Trump and his family, according to CNN, the globally renowned broadcaster.

Asia 728x90

The documentary, which was produced by the Cable News Network, the full name of CNN, is titled “Immigration Battle” and subtitled “19 Undocumented Workers Each Say They Worked for Trump Organization Over the Years.” The documentary is hosted by the globally renowned news anchor Mr. Anderson Cooper and was part of his quite popular current affairs program titled “AC 360°.” All 19 undocumented immigrants claim to have worked in menial capacities on golf courses owned by the billionaire turned politician for years ranging from 5 to approximately 20, that is, during most of the period that the big-time businessman, realtor, gambling casino owner and the proprietor of a legion other enterprises, including television game shows, has been pontifically and self-righteously railing against illegal immigration and, in particular, undocumented Latin-American originated citizens illegally swarming and swamping the territorial boundaries of the United States, a remarkable percentage of whom, especially those of Mexican descent, Mr. Trump has frequently, incessantly and invariably characterized as “rapists, murderers and drug dealers,” among other pejorative labels.

Nearly each and every one of these 19 undocumented aliens are of Latin-American descent. From the documentary, we learn that only one of these undocumented immigrants, a Ms. Sandra Diaz, has been able to obtain the necessary documents to enable her to live legally in the United States. But even this miraculous feat, according to her lawyer, who spoke to the narrator of the documentary, Ms. Randi Kaye, was made possible only well after Ms. Diaz had left the Trump Organization as a menial worker or employee.

Now, what the preceding means is that President Trump is a double-standard charting scofflaw who scandalously seems to think and believe that, somehow, abiding by the laws of the land, or our civilized society, strictly belongs to only lesser humans like the rest of America’s “wretched of the Earth,” literally speaking (my profound apologies to Dr. Frantz Fanon, late, of Martinique and Algeria). It is also sobering to learn from the Cooper/Kaye documentary that while these 19 undocumented Latin American-descended immigrants worked for the Trump Organization, efforts were actually made to deliberately procure fake work permits for these veritable slaves of the Trump Plantation.

We also need to underscore the fact that these 19 – or 18 – undocumented immigrants constitute only a tip of the proverbial iceberg; that is, they are just an infinitesimal percentage of the total number of virtual minimum-wage slaves who worked or have worked for the Trump Organization (TO). They are also the only ones who have so far voluntarily and publicly come forward to be identified, counted and recognized as such. They may very well have decided to come forward and public this time around because they also realized that they had absolutely nothing to lose, and perhaps everything to gain in the process, as just like the estimated 7,000 Ghanaian nationals marked down for immediate deportation by the Trump Administration, these 19 undocumented Latino immigrants are imminently and desperately faced with deportation.

Coming public and authentically being able to identify themselves as former employees of the Trump Organization, by the use of pay stubs, ID Cards and work uniforms would, hopefully, give these exploited and wantonly abused former Trump employees a fighting chance at being permitted by the courts to remain in the United States, while their individual cases are sorted out with ICE. It also goes without saying that the documentary exposé in discussion significantly reduces the dignity and global stature of the United States before citizens and leaders of Third-World economies who have for decades and generations looked up to America for direction in governance best practices.

Congressional Democrats, in particular, but American politicians, in general, have got to promptly step up to the plate, in baseball parlance, and do right and just by the rest of the world, particularly by the leaders and people of the Third World, by holding President Trump and his Trump Organization to account.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com  Ghanaffairs