Trump’s Attack on Immigrants Will Redefine What It Means To Be American
The administration’s immigration aims and the meaning of citizenship.
Tomorrow, December 10: Join Senators Mark Kelly and Peter Welch in DC
At The Next Move, we argue, we disagree, but we share a fundamental cause: Strengthening democracy and putting the authoritarians on the back foot.
We’re inviting you to continue the conversation in person on December 10, 2025, for the final day of the Renew Democracy Initiative’s Frontlines of Freedom Conference, in Washington, DC.
Join us tomorrow for a star-studded roster of speakers, including US Senators Mark Kelly and Peter Welch. We hope you’ll join us!
Linda Chavez is the Vice-Chair of the Renew Democracy Initiative and chairs the Center for Equal Opportunity. She formerly served as the Director of Public Liaison in the Reagan White House and was the U.S. Expert to the United Nations Human RIghts Sub-Committee on The Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Chavez is the author of four books and was a nationally syndicated columnist for thirty years. She continues to write frequently on immigration, civil rights, and politics.
The horrific Thanksgiving eve attack on two National Guard soldiers in Washington, DC, by an Afghan refugee has given President Trump an excuse to do something he has wanted to do since day one: totally remake US immigration policy.
The alleged shooter now charged with murder, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was a former member of a CIA-backed military unit in Afghanistan who came to the US in 2021 after the fall of Kabul. Like all refugees, especially those Afghans who came as part of Operation Allies Welcome, Lakanwal was thoroughly vetted before arriving on US soil and was granted asylum in April by the Trump administration. But that has not stopped the president from using the murder of Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and wounding of Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe to halt all asylum claims and suspend even temporary admission of anyone from Afghanistan. He promises to go further to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” and even denaturalize citizens “who undermine domestic tranquillity,” whatever that means. It is all part of his radical immigration agenda, which has been misunderstood from the beginning.
Trump’s real aim has never been just to stop illegal immigration but to drastically curtail all immigration and redefine American citizenship, as I first wrote about in 2015 in Commentary Magazine.
The Trump administration’s focus on deporting illegal immigrants has rightly captured much of the attention since Trump resumed office on January 20. The administration claims to have already deported more than a half million immigrants and spurred the voluntary departure of some 1.6 million more who left in anticipation they might be apprehended. But the number of illegal immigrants in the US—reliably estimated at 14 million at the start of the Trump administration—was just a fraction of the total immigrant population at the time, 53.3 million. The anti-immigration movement in the US has always been clear that their intent is to severely restrict legal immigration not just stop the flow of illegal migration. The architect of Trump’s policy, Stephen Miller, has never been shy about the goals. “The first and most important thing is to turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor,” Miller boasted to a group of Trump supporters in 2020, declaring “mission accomplished,’’ when Trump issued a proclamation that temporarily halted all immigrant visas in response to the Covid 19 pandemic.
Trump is using this tactic again by exploiting the shooting of the two National Guard soldiers. In addition to at least temporarily suspending all asylum claims, the administration went further, halting all cases for immigrants from 19 non-European countries. The action goes beyond a June 2025 order, which denies entry to new immigrants from those countries, to prevent individuals already in the process of gaining permanent residence or becoming naturalized citizens from doing so. Even those about to be sworn in as citizens will not be allowed to take the oath until the administration lifts its hold. In a naturalization ceremony in Boston recently, four people about to take the Oath of Allegiance to the United States in were pulled out of line, including a Haitian woman who had been a legal resident for more than 20 years.
Trump wants to remake America. He has made no secret of his disdain for immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, referring to them as coming from “shithole countries.” He would prefer to admit white South Africans, Scandinavians, and others he deems more likely to fit into his ideal America. What he is really after is reshaping the American demography, and he is using whatever means available to do so.
Hispanics now number 68 million in the US, or 20 percent of the population, and 26.7 million are immigrants. In addition, 14.6 million Asian and another 2.5 million sub-Saharan African immigrants live in the US, making up an additional 5 percent of the population. Trump’s only hope to slow this browning of America is to keep out these immigrants. At his recent cabinet meeting he railed against groups he regards as “garbage” and announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would immediately target Somalis in Minnesota and elsewhere following a scandal involving some 59 Somali immigrants convicted of defrauding the government of nearly $1 billion for phony food and housing programs in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Deporting immigrants who have committed major crimes is certainly justifiable, but he’s not just talking about the individuals involved, but the entire community of Somalis in the US, most of whom are guilty of nothing but coming from a country he reviles.
But perhaps the most radical policy Trump has proposed is to strip naturalized Americans of their citizenship. Denaturalization has usually been reserved for extreme cases involving individuals who egregiously lied during their applications for citizenship, for example Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk who concealed being a camp guard at the infamous Sobibor extermination camp in Poland during the Holocaust. Over a nearly 30-year period prior to Trump’s first term, the US denaturalized only 305 persons, mostly war criminals, but in the four years of the first Trump administration, the government pursued denaturalization in 168 cases. The Trump Justice Department has recently greatly expanded the priorities for denaturalization and seems especially willing to go after cases involving people from countries Trump deems undesirable. Trump has even suggested denaturalizing New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, and said Somalia born-Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) should “be thrown the hell out” of the US
These attacks show a contempt for the naturalization process, which has been an important part of America’s success at absorbing newcomers and making them into full-fledged Americans. If 24 million naturalized citizens can be deprived of citizenship because the president decides he doesn’t want certain people living here, much less voting and being elected by their fellow citizens, citizenship itself becomes devalued.
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for so many years, we could assume an immigration/assimilation model that had held for over 200 years, yes even back before nationhood - people came here and assimilated with each other in the cities and the farms. One could grant citizenhood to new arrivals with a high degree of confidence that they and their children would take a path leading to Americanization.
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That is no longer true. Islamic religion and culture call for adherents to NOT assimilate, to convert or kill non-Muslims. This is uncomfortable to discuss but must be discussed. Immigration from the middle east must be managed differently.
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We have a luxury, a blessing, in that we can see what failure to manage Muslim immigration has done, and continues to do, in the nations of Western Europe. We have an object lesson unfolding before our eyes.
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Is Trump's approach best, arguably of course not. But are we lucky to have a president finally doing something to change the arc of this problem, to do something about? UNarguably YES.
So let's focus on how to achieve the goals, and avoid blocking the changes we need to make as a nation.
Its time we return lady liberty to France. Maybe erect a statue of hitler