Last year President Donald Trump ordered his U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, to develop a plan that would “fast track” immigration by wealthy Europeans into the United States. It does not appear he ordered similar plans from any other ambassadors.
Sondland (photo, fourth from left) is now an embattled entity, having delivered damaging testimony confirming President Trump extorted a bribe from the President of Ukraine.
But when he first took over as Ambassador to the E.U., Sondland “started talking to subordinates about a need for more skilled and wealthy European immigrants in the United States,” The Washington Post reports.
Believing Sondland’s orders were “racially motivated,” U.S. diplomats that the E.U. mission “were unsettled by the idea.”
One said, “the way this was going to come off was that the United States is fishing for white people, while reducing opportunities for needier people to immigrate.”
That diplomat was correct – not only in how the efforts would be perceived, but in their motivation.
That’s because President Trump, immediately upon Sondland being confirmed and taking over in Europe, tasked him with “developing a proposal to ‘fast track’ immigration from the E.U.,” and ordered Ambassador Sondland to consult with Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Miller, a known white nationalist, has been at the center of Trump’s successful efforts to block all refugees from entering the U.S. He was also behind Trump’s Muslim ban, and Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents. He called the latter a “simple decision.”
Image by U.S. Department of State via Flickr