One wonders if Sen. Dick Durbin ever objected to the phrase "chain of custody" in judicial proceedings as evidence of racism in a justice system said to be unfair to blacks.  Or maybe he thought "chain smoking" is a phrase coined by Klansmen watching slaves harvest tobacco.  Has he ever participated in a chain letter?

The phrase "chain migration" is what Durbin and his fellow liberals like to call a racist "dog whistle," but this dog won't hunt.

Democrats like Durbin like to view everything through race-colored glasses, and the phrase "chain migration" is no exception, with Durbin claiming President Trump's use of the term reminded blacks of slavery:

Durbin told the media on Friday that he reprimanded Trump for using the term "chain migration" in immigration negotiations, claiming [that] it [is] associated with racism, despite the Illinois senator just this week also using the term.

Durbin said in an interview:

That was the nature of this conversation.  When it came to the issue of, quote, "chain migration," I said to the president, do you realize how painful that term is to so many people?  African-Americans believe they migrated to America in chains and when you talk about chain migration, it hurts them personally.

Durbin used the word "chain," despite it allegedly being a code word for slavery, in the famous televised immigration meeting just before that private meeting:

Durbin, though, just days ago, used the exact term in a meeting at the White House where he sat next to Trump to negotiate the terms of an immigration deal.

Durbin said during the White House meeting:

You said at the outset that we need to phase this.  I think the first phase is what Chuck and Steny and I have mentioned, and others as well: [w]e have a deadline looming and a lot of lives hanging.  We can agree on some very fundamental and important things together on border security, on chain, on the future of diversity visas.

On "chain"?  In the 2010 debate on the DREAM Act, Sen. Durbin not only used the phrase "chain migration," but advocated ending it as a policy:

In 2010, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) advocated on the Senate floor for ending the process known as "chain migration," whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S., a term that he now claims insinuates racism.

While asking Congress to pass the expansive and failed "DREAM Act" amnesty, which would start by legalizing millions of illegal aliens, Durbin touted the fact that the legislation at the time would have ended chain migration, preventing newly amnestied illegal aliens from bringing their extended family members to the U.S.

"The DREAM Act would not allow what is known as chain migration," Durbin said.  "In fact, DREAM Act students would have very limited ability to sponsor their family members for legal status."

Sen. Durbin should be familiar with racist catchphrases, since he has used them in the past – such as when Senate Republicans delayed a vote on the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be attorney general until after a vote on a bill to prevent human trafficking.  He said Republicans were pushing Lynch "to the back of the bus."  This came from a man who, during the Bush administration, when he opposed the nominations of black Americans Condoleezza Rice and Janice Rogers Brown and hispanic Miguel Estrada.  As Investor's Business Daily editorialized at the time of Lynch's nomination:

Last week, Durbin accused Republicans of forcing Lynch, President Obama's African-American nominee to replace Eric Holder, to "sit in the back of the bus" until a vote on a controversial sex trafficking bill could be held.

That thinly veiled reference to the moment in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat in a Montgomery, Ala.[] bus was meant to paint Senate Republicans as racists.  This came as news to Tim Scott, R-S.C., the first black elected to the Senate from the Deep South since reconstruction.

"It is helpful to have a long memory and remember that Dick Durbin voted against Condoleezza Rice during the 40th anniversary of the March (on Selma)," Scott noted.  "So I think, in context, it's just offensive that we have folks who are willing to race-bait on an issue as important as human trafficking."

Not only did Durbin oppose the nomination of the first black woman, and only the second woman, to be secretary of state, but he also fought President Bush's nomination of hispanic Miguel Estrada to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals:

Durbin also opposed the nomination of Miguel Estrada, President George W. Bush's U.S. appeals court nominee.  Estrada was described in a Nov. 7, 2001[] borderline[] racist staff memo to Judiciary Committee member Durbin as "especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is [l]atino[,] and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.  They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible."

"They" were left-leaning special[] interest groups such as the People for the American Way, the National Organization of Women, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund[,] and the Alliance for Justice – groups that, like current Democrats, believe that you must be the "right kind" of [h]ispanic or black to hold high public office.  Conservative blacks and [h]ispanics need not apply.

Estrada, who was rated "well qualified" by the American Bar Association, and who had enough votes to be confirmed in the absence of a filibuster, remained in limbo for more than two years until he gave up in frustration and withdrew his nomination for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003.

Durbin also had no problem opposing the nomination of a black woman, California Supreme Court justice Janice Rogers Brown, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit:

Durbin was fine with sending Janice Rogers Brown to "the back of the bus" and filibustering her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where she became the first African-American woman to serve.  Twice Durbin voted against cloture motions on her nomination.

Brown, the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, was the first black woman to sit on the California Supreme Court and was re-elected with 76% of the vote.  Was filibustering her nomination racist, Sen. Durbin?

Liberals such as Durbin tout "diversity" and "equality[]" but hypocritically oppose a Hispanic such as Estrada because he is a "dangerous [l]atino" and Brown because, as a Sen. Ted Kennedy staff memo said, "we can't repeat the mistake we made with Clarence Thomas."

So where does Durbin come off accusing Trump of using an allegedly racist phrase, a phrase he has used himself to describe a policy he once opposed, while having a history of opposing black and hispanic nominees of a Republican president because they weren't the "right kind" of blacks and hispanics?

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor's Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.