Trump administration welcomes white South African ‘refugees’ while making it easier to deport brown ones

If you’re Black, get back.

If you’re brown, stick around.

But if you’re white, you’re all right.

I’m paraphrasing the old blues song where these lyrics originated, but you get where I’m going with this.

What’s happening in our country in terms of race relations is disturbing.

It’s not enough that President Donald Trump wants to destroy diversity, equity, and inclusion. His administration also flew in 59 white Afrikaners — descendants of the European colonizers whose segregationist practices led to the formalization of apartheid in South Africa — granting them refugee status while doing everything in his power to deport Black and brown migrants.

The quiet part behind what it’s doing isn’t even being whispered anymore. The Trump administration is essentially saying it out loud, underlined, and in boldface type with all-capitalized letters. The bias, the racism, the white supremacy, the hate is just that blatant.

Take what happened Monday. On the same day a U.S. State Department official warmly greeted a group of newly arrived South Africans at an airport, Trump officials removed protections for nearly 10,000 Afghan refugees, making it easier to deport them. Returning to Afghanistan will mean certain death for some of them. And, as my colleague Trudy Rubin has reported, many of those seeking asylum risked their lives to help American service members during the long war in their country.

» READ MORE: Democracy in crisis: America and South Africa’s parallel paths | Opinion

That same day, protesters in New Jersey linked arms during a demonstration outside Delaney Hall, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark, where that city’s mayor was taken into custody on Friday.

Mayor Ras Baraka, along with several New Jersey members of Congress, were attempting to enter the 1,000-bed facility last week when a scuffle ensued, and he wound up being arrested and charged with trespassing.

I don’t know Baraka, who is running for governor. Nor do I have any personal insight into his motivation for showing up on Friday other than what he says. But what I do know is that he and the congressional representatives were well within their rights to check on the facility.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that the elected officials assaulted an officer — which they deny — and have threatened to arrest other lawmakers who accompanied Baraka.

The incident, which was caught on video, bothered me so much that I stopped by on Monday myself just to look around. I knew I wouldn’t be allowed in, but I figured I could at least see the building in person.

I stayed for about two hours, which was just about as long as I could stomach watching a heavily armed goon with his face covered parade in front of Delaney Hall like a tough guy.

Afterward, I made the 15-minute drive to Liberty State Park, which seemed appropriate given the circumstances.

Off in the distance, I could see the Statue of Liberty, and wondered what the so-called Mother of Exiles would make of what is going on at Delaney Hall, which is only about four miles away.

What would she say about the Afrikaners — who, according to their own government, are not being persecuted — getting special treatment while darker-hued immigrants in this country are being hunted down like dogs?

When it was presented to the United States in 1886, the statue was meant to commemorate the Union victory in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.

But she has never meant the same thing to African Americans — whose enslaved ancestors mostly arrived in the belly of slave ships — as she has to European immigrants.

Many Europeans viewed her as a beacon of hope as they approached Ellis Island by sea, but for descendants of Africans, the promise she represents has remained largely unfulfilled.

Anyone needing proof of that need only look upon the faces of those white South Africans flown here on a U.S. government chartered plane, while so many Black and brown people — likewise yearning to make a home here — still find themselves waiting on the other side of the golden door.