Hours after President Donald Trump announced Monday night he would be temporarily suspending all immigration, “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt questioned on-air what that meant for her and others like her, given her au pair is foreign-born.
Earhardt, recently divorced and a now operating as a single mom, reflected on how the immigration ban could affect farmers in America on work visas, then said, “Many families here — including mine — we have au pairs and we rely on them. I go to work at 3 o’clock in the morning so I need her there and I need her in my house so that she can help me with my daughter.”
The mother of four-year-old Hayden continued her critique of the president’s vague plan, saying, “Many families rely on child care from other countries. These au pairs come here on work visas. They have to go back to their country to get the visas renewed and we’ve been talking in my house about how that’s gonna happen. So these are all things — these are questions that we have that hopefully the president will roll out a plan and we’ll all be in informed on all of this is going to affect all of our lives.”
In an interview with People last fall, Earhardt elaborated on what life looks like for her now that she’s a single mother whose job starts before the sun is up. She picks her daughter up from school herself, given the unique hours of her gig. Still, she admitted at the time, “It does have its challenges because it’s just me.”
Using the current coronavirus pandemic as only partial justification, Trump announced Monday that he intends to sign an executive order halting all immigration to the United States on a temporary basis.
“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States,” Trump tweeted on Monday night.
It is unclear what prompted the decision on Monday, or why protecting “jobs” was included as a justification. While it’s true that the U.S. is currently mired in a severe economic contraction, the situation is a side effect of shutdown measures taken across the country in an attempt to facilitate social distancing and slow the spread of coronavirus, which has killed more than 40,000 people domestically since Feb. 29. There is no evidence that any of the jobs lost since the shutdowns began were actually just given to immigrants instead.
Ainsley Earhardt is concerned about Trump's temporary immigration ban because her au pair is an immigrant: "Many families rely on child care from other countries … hopefully the president will roll out a plan and we'll all be informed" pic.twitter.com/7OkUrBfdKX
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) April 21, 2020