As the Coronavirus ravages our country, our president has decided to halt immigration in the name of stopping the spread of the Coronavirus. In reality, he is using the Coronavirus as a cover to support his own anti-immigration agenda. 

“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens,” President Donald Trump said in a tweet, “ I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”

Although it may seem that our president has our best interest at heart, his claims fall short when he implies that the immigrants will put American jobs in danger. He talks mainly about protecting the jobs Americans, not preventing the spread of the Coronavirus. A few days later when writing his executive order he went back on his promise of stopping all immigration and decided to only block some new entrants who do not already have visas or other travel documentation for the next 60 days. Asylum seekers and potential refugees can still travel into the United States under his current order. 

Not only did President Trump scare refugees and make them more uncertain than they already are, he also misinformed the American public about what he was planning to do. This confusing action is not the first of its kind during his presidency and it could be hurting voters who don’t know exactly how their vote will be used. 

This so-called act to stop the spread of the Coronavirus is one of the only things he has done to help. Other than this he has denied New York ventilators and sent them to other states that didn’t need them, supported anti shelter in place protests and in the beginning of this crisis denied it was even happening. 

President Trump has also been using the crisis to boost his own reputation, accusing his political opponents of mishandling and spreading lies about Covid-19. In his tweets, he calls his opponents cruel names and blamed them for the crisis, claiming that they were taking advantage of the quarantine and making it their “endless vacation.”

Overall his handling of the situation shows that he doesn’t really care about the people that are affected by this crisis. President Trump mainly seems to care about what he can get out of it politically as he has been on a rampage of making false promises, deflecting blame and overall under reacting to the crisis. His actions have been so out of order that legislation has been proposed in the senate to investigate his dealing with this pandemic.