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xenophobia
Trump's America Hosts the World Cup, But the World Is Not Welcome
Preventing fans and players from freely entering the United States, and forcing them to bear the personal cost of policies directed at their governments, produces no discernable security benefit but does produce a steady stream of international criticism.
Jun 16, 2026
The 2026 FIFA World Cup has begun on American soil, the first time the United States has hosted the tournament in 32 years. When it concludes, the country will begin preparing for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In exchange for the privilege of hosting the world’s two largest sporting events, and the enormous revenue they generate, a host nation should ease its visa policy to the fullest extent consistent with ordinary security interests.
Previous World Cup host nations made this the norm. South Africa in 2010 created a dedicated events visa and waived normal fees entirely for ticket holders. Brazil in 2014 created a fee-waived visa category tied directly to match tickets. Russia in 2018 abolished visa requirements entirely for Fan ID holders. Most recently, Qatar in 2022 created a universal entry document for all fans and loosened its terms further mid-tournament.
Instead, the United States has adopted the widest nationality-based exclusion policy since the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Nationals from 39 countries currently face US entry restrictions, ranging from partial limitations to outright bans. Among those 39 are 4 countries whose national teams qualified for the tournament. Haiti and Iran face complete entry bans; Ivory Coast and Senegal face partial restrictions. Although players are exempt from the presidential ban, fans have no pathway to acquire tourist visas to support their teams, player families cannot watch their loved ones play in the biggest match in the world, and local media cannot obtain visas to cover the games stateside.
President Trump has also barred the Iranian national team from sleeping on American soil, requiring the players to overnight in Tijuana and cross the border only to compete.
At the same time, the United States created a system called FIFA PASS, which gives World Cup ticket holders the ability to schedule a prioritized consular interview. So, while some are fully banned, those who are not can expedite their visa appointment. This pattern recurs throughout this administration’s approach: Those fully excluded receive nothing, while those who are not excluded receive an expedited benefit unavailable to the general public.
One might wonder how these bans are allowed in the first place. The legal vehicle is INA section 212(f), a provision historically invoked with restraint and for targeted purposes. Before Donald Trump, presidents used it for specific suspensions tied to specific conduct: Haitians intercepted at sea under Ronald Reagan, maritime interdiction extended under George W. Bush, senior Haitian government officials (affiliated with the 1994 coup) under Bill Clinton, and persons responsible for grave human rights abuses by the Iranian and Syrian governments under Barack Obama. Despite leading a country built by immigrants, Trump has used the same authority to ban ordinary people from large portions of the world. This is unlike anything seen among fellow Five Eyes countries.
Although nationality-based exclusion has historical precedent, the current bans appear to function as instruments of punishment rather than legitimate security measures. The justification typically rests on elevated visa overstay rates or insufficient governmental cooperation, meaning that individual nationals are effectively penalized for the conduct of others. This year’s World Cup will reflect that reality in diminished diversity, and the consequences extend beyond mere attendance. President Trump has also barred the Iranian national team from sleeping on American soil, requiring the players to overnight in Tijuana and cross the border only to compete.
No story captures this more sharply than that of Omar Artan. Named Africa’s best male referee in 2025 and selected by FIFA for the tournament, Artan was set to become the first Somali referee ever to officiate at a World Cup. He cleared the visa process, boarded his flight, and landed in Miami. US Customs and Border Protection denied him entry over unspecified “vetting concerns,” and FIFA removed him from the tournament. He returned home to a hero’s welcome in Mogadishu, received by thousands at the stadium and by Somalia’s prime minister, who wrote that Artan had “already won the hearts of millions.”
As in the first Trump administration, serious questions remain about whether these bans serve any genuine security purpose. Instead, they appear to function as diplomatic punishment aimed at governments this administration dislikes. Preventing fans and players from freely entering the United States, and forcing them to bear the personal cost of policies directed at their governments, produces no discernable security benefit. What it does produce is a steady stream of international criticism. On the opening day of a World Cup the United States is hosting, Omar Artan’s story is the image America has projected to the world.
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We Should Never Forget That Diversity Is What Makes America Great
Amid Trumpian attacks on immigrants and erasure of history, it is more important than ever that we stop and examine the record of who we are and how we got to where we are as a country and an American people.
Jun 16, 2026
June is National Immigration Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the diverse peoples and cultures that have made America great.
This year–when not only immigration and cultural diversity are being challenged, but also the complex history of our country is being erased–it is more important than ever that we stop and examine the record of who we are and how we got to where we are as a country and an American people.
First, we should never forget that this country was born with two “original sins”: slavery and genocide. The current administration in Washington wants to rewrite our history by eliminating mention of negative events and practices that defined our past, focusing instead on the “greatness and industriousness” of our founders and their “glorious victories.” In reality, there would be no America if not for the surplus wealth created by the labor of enslaved people across the South and the riches accrued by those who benefited from the theft of Indigenous peoples’ lands.
Nor should it be forgotten (although it is) that the Declaration of Independence names one reason for the War of Independence against the British Empire as the American settlers’ grievance that King George would not defend them against “merciless Indian Savages,” who were resisting having their lands taken from them. And, of course, we fought a civil war not so much to end the deplorable practice of human slavery, but to rein in the power and independence of the Southern states.
What would be American food, fashion, music, art, humor, literature, diplomacy, and so much more be without the contributions of African Americans, the Chinese, Italian, Greek, Polish, Irish, Jewish, Latino, and Arab immigrants (and so many more)?
As the country grew and with the industrial age upon us, the need to build infrastructure to transport people and goods, mine coal for power; and operate factories opened the doors to new immigrants from countries far afield. Chinese built railroads; Irish dug canals; Irish and Eastern and Central Europeans worked in the mines, and they were joined in the mines and factories by Italians, Greeks, and Arabs.
As needed as these new immigrants were for America to grow and prosper, their very presence, growing numbers, and unique cultures provoked a backlash among the earlier northwest European settlers who had come to see themselves as the original and “real Americans.” The “new immigrants” were demeaned, discriminated against, and subjected to state and vigilante violence.
Tragically, we see the same pattern of behaviors playing out today as Americans are confronting our newest immigrants. In a brilliant paper written a decade and a half ago for the Immigration Policy Center, Jeffrey Kaye examines the immigration history of one town in Pennsylvania. He notes that when the Irish, Italian, and Eastern and Central Europeans were first moving into the community, newspaper articles and speeches by City Council members described the Irish as “drunkards,” the Slavs as “peculiar,” the Hungarians as “ignorant, immoral, and filthy,” and the Italians as “the most disreputable.” All were subjected to derision for their “queer languages” and not fitting in. The tragic irony is that one century later, the descendants of these same groups are now saying the very same things about the newest immigrants who were mostly from Latin American countries.
Forgotten in this history of miserable repetition are the lessons we should have learned and the benefits we accrued along the way. We now know that the early English settlers in New York and the eastern colonies learned lessons in governance and agriculture from the Native Americans, and yet they referred to them as “savages.” And we know that it was the hard work, for no wages, that brought wealth to white Southern landowners who nevertheless demeaned Blacks as lazy and shiftless. Much the same can be said about the immigrants of the industrial age. Despite the bigotry and violence they endured, we can ask, “Where would America be today if not for the hard work and inventiveness of these immigrant communities?” Further, what would be American food, fashion, music, art, humor, literature, diplomacy, and so much more be without the contributions of African Americans, the Chinese, Italian, Greek, Polish, Irish, Jewish, Latino, and Arab immigrants (and so many more)?
The lesson here is a simple one: We should never forget that what makes America great is its diversity and its capacity to absorb so many peoples and cultures. What threatens our greatness is when we forget this and stupidly attempt to fabricate our history and “whitewash” our culture.
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The Fertility Panic Is a Racist, Sexist Tool to Push More Austerity
Reporting that covers birth rate decline without the critical contexts of immigration policy, gender norms, and economic inequality masks the regressive ideologies behind the purported solutions.
May 05, 2026
If you haven’t heard the argument that civilization is about to collapse because women aren’t having enough babies, you haven’t been consuming much media.
“The Birth-Rate Crisis Isn’t as Bad as You’ve Heard—It’s Worse,” announced The Atlantic (6/30/25). Business Insider (8/21/25) ran a piece titled “America’s Great People Shortage,” which opened, “America is about to tumble off the edge of a massive demographic cliff.” And NPR‘s Brian Mann warned on PBS (4/10/26) that, as a result of the birth rate decline, “many people say” that the US soon “will be unrecognizable.”
It’s repeatedly in the news in part because it’s a priority of the “pronatalist” right, which has prominent backers in the Trump administration. Vice President JD Vance has called the US birth rate decline a “civilizational crisis.” He said people with children should have “more power” at the polls, and “more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic” than those without.
Elon Musk, who regularly posts on the subject and has fathered at least 14 children, has claimed that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.” “There will be no West if this continues,” he said. And President Donald Trump has called for a new “baby boom.”
It’s instructive to recall, as Vogue (5/3/25) does, that fertility was likewise central to the Nazis, who also offered medals to (Aryan) women who bore many children.
The story generally goes like this: Fewer babies being born in the US leads to fewer working-age adults relative to retired adults, which means—as The Atlantic piece put it—”higher taxes, higher debt, or later retirement—or all three.”
But there’s a lot more to the story, and ignoring it masks the white nationalism, regressive gender ideals, and economic inequality driving the narrative.
Hidden Xenophobia
The numbers might look striking on the surface: As news reports pointed out (e.g., CNN, 4/9/26), the number of births and the fertility rate (births per 1,000 women) in the US have dropped to record lows. Both decreased by 1% from 2024 to 2025; the fertility rate has fallen by about 20% over the past 20 years.
In terms of births per woman, that’s about 1.6—well below the “replacement” rate of 2.1, which would be required to maintain a population without migration.
But that last detail is key. If you believe we need a certain number of working-age adults to support an aging population of retirees, there are—or at least were, until Trump’s brutal immigration regime—millions of people willing and eager to come to this country and help make up that deficit. Even with the declining birth rate, the US population grew by more in 2023-24 than it did in 2003-04.
Even so, immigration was conspicuously missing from too much of the birth rate coverage. For instance, in a long piece on Trump contemplating a “baby bonus,” CBS (4/25/25) reported:
A declining birth rate can spell long-term economic problems, including a shrinking labor force that’s financially strapped to pay for medical services and retirement benefits for an aging population.
It managed to go in depth on why the birth rate might be declining, what a baby bonus might look like, how much it would cost, and whether it could work. But it never mentioned immigration policy.
On CNN (4/18/26), anchor Michael Smerconish explored the falling birth rate with economist Melissa Kearney, who told him:
We’re now looking at, you know, being a society that’s aging, with fewer young people going to school, entering the workforce. This poses demographic headwinds for our economic growth and dynamism going forward.
They discussed the “threat posed in terms of the sustainability of Social Security” and ways to address the problem, but neither ever raised the impact of immigration.
When news outlets ignore that obvious facet of the issue, they hide the xenophobic assumptions underlying the claims of “crisis.”
‘To Save Civilization, Reject Feminism’
And then there’s the misogyny. Right-wing media are quick to blame women for this impending “crisis.”
A New York Post column (9/9/25) by Rikki Schlott, for instance, drummed up the “fear of a baby bust,” blaming it in particular on Gen Z (which is having fewer kids than previous generations at the same age) lacking “positive, empowering messaging that teaches you can prioritize marriage, family, and children while also valuing independence, career, and financial stability”:
“I don’t need a spouse” (or, for that matter, children) feminism has told left-leaning young women that pretty much everything else is more important than family.
That’s a very sad development.
Columnist Victor Joecks, syndicated from the Las Vegas Review-Journal (8/2/25; reposted in Daily Signal, 8/10/25), took things even further in a piece headlined “To Save Civilization, Reject Feminism and Honor Mother.” He opened by declaring, “The triumph of modern feminism has put society on the path to demographic collapse.”
Joecks further opined:
Society applauds women for becoming executives, not moms with kids. Reports on the mythical [sic] gender pay gap describe motherhood with the word “penalty.”… Modern feminism has left many women lonely and depressed. It has put the globe into a demographic downward spiral that’s going to be hard to reverse.
‘National Motherhood Medal’
Women-blaming in right-wing media is no surprise, particularly given the surge of pronatalism on the right. But centrist media coverage of that movement also sometimes boosts it.
The New York Times (4/21/25) ran an article on the pronatalist groups pushing the Trump administration on increasing birth rates, noting that “advocates expressed confidence that fertility issues will become a prominent piece of the agenda.” Among their ideas: a “National Motherhood Medal” awarded to women with six or more children, and tax credits to married—but not unmarried—couples with children that increase with successive children.
The gradually shifting worker-retiree ratio does start to become a bigger problem if productivity gains are siphoned off to only accrue to the rich. Which, as it turns out, they increasingly do.
It’s instructive to recall, as Vogue (5/3/25) does, that fertility was likewise central to the Nazis, who also offered medals to (Aryan) women who bore many children.
While the misogyny embedded in the pronatalist movement generally comes through loud and clear in the Times article, the paper insisted on normalizing it, calling the coalition “broad and diverse,” including both “Christian conservatives” who see a “cultural crisis” in need of more marriage and gender inequality, as well as those who “are interested in exploring a variety of methods, including new reproductive technologies, to reach their goal of more babies.”
‘Collapse of our civilization’
The New York Times repeated the economic collapse narrative in its description of the pronatalist movement’s
warning of a future in which a smaller work force cannot support an aging population and the social safety net. If the birth rate is not turned around, they fear, the country’s economy could collapse and, ultimately, human civilization could be at risk.
By making no effort to analyze that narrative, the Times lent it legitimacy.
Similarly, in a USA Today piece (3/10/26) on whether Trump’s effort to be known as the “fertilization president” was sparking a baby boom (“that question is complicated,” the paper concluded), reporter Madeline Mitchell quoted a pronatalist podcaster saying that the declining birth rate “is going to lead to the collapse of our civilization.”
That piece was part of a package that interviewed many women of varying ages to understand why they were or were not having children; those pieces included perspectives about the financial and existential struggles facing women who want to have children and feel they can’t afford to, or don’t feel the world is stable enough to bring children into.
It’s an important perspective, and interviewing women on this subject is something all outlets should be doing. But without addressing the question of whether a falling birth rate will, in fact, bring about imminent civilizational collapse, as the widely disseminated right-wing narrative claims, the framing pits women’s feelings and choices against the survival of civilization—hardly a fair contest.
Since birth rate is not a significant problem for the US in the foreseeable future unless you prevent immigration, the idea repeated in these pieces that “civilization” will collapse from a falling birth rate actually means “white civilization.” Pronatalists, you see, tend to share a lot in common with Christian white nationalists.
‘The Problem Is Teens’
Another New York Times article (2/27/26) headlined “The Birthrate Is Plunging. Why Some Say That’s a Good Thing,” pointed out that the drop in the US is mostly among teens and women in their early 20s, and reminded readers that
30 years ago, the growing number of teenage and single mothers was seen as a societal crisis, with poor economic and health outcomes for mother and baby. The most vociferous critics called these women “welfare queens” and said they were draining public coffers.
It is indeed whiplash-inducing to hear today’s right-wing mouthpieces, like Fox News‘ senior medical analyst Marc Seigel (4/10/26; Media Matters, 4/10/26), saying:
The problem is teens and young adults. From ages 15-19, the fertility rate is down 7%, and it’s down 70% over the last two decades, meaning we’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait until they’re in a more stable life situation.
In any case, despite its better gender framing, the Times still pushed the “not enough workers” economic narrative—and downplayed the administration’s xenophobia with euphemism:
If the birthrate drops too far for too long, it could eventually present problems, as the country needs workers to support an aging population. The population can grow through immigration too, but that issue has become politically sensitive, with numbers falling sharply under the Trump administration.
Vanishing Productivity
The economic doomsday argument being spread applies both in the US and globally. Declining fertility isn’t just happening in the US—it’s a worldwide phenomenon. In fact, the US’ “demographic cliff” is much less dramatic than in many countries. China, for instance, has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and that nation’s population is already beginning to shrink.
While some might think this slowdown (and even potential reversal, many decades from now) in global human population growth could be a positive development, there are plenty of media outlets looking to fearmonger about it. “The demographic cliff will end us, unless we act quickly,” declared Forbes‘ Alexander Puutio (6/9/25).
The Atlantic‘s Marc Novicoff (6/30/25) presaged that within a few decades “rich countries will all have become like Japan, stagnant and aging.” After arguing that United Nations population growth projections are overly optimistic, he addressed those who remain skeptical of doomsday warnings:
If you’re not sure why this is all so alarming, consider Japan, the canonical example of the threat that low fertility poses to a country’s economic prospects. At its peak in 1994, the Japanese economy made up 18% of world GDP, but eventually, the country’s demographics caught up with it. Now Japan’s median age is 50 years old, and the country’s GDP makes up just 4% of the global economy. Measured per hours worked, Japan’s economic growth has always been strong, but at some point, you just don’t have enough workers.
Who cares what percentage of world GDP a country produces? If you’re a resident of Japan, what you care about is your quality of life. As Novicoff acknowledges, Japan’s productivity hasn’t weakened. And if you look at the human development index, which measures gross national income per capita, years of schooling, and life expectancy, Japan continues to improve over time. So it’s entirely unclear on what basis he makes his claim that Japan doesn’t “have enough workers.”
But it is clear what readers are being primed for: Governments and companies cutting retirement benefits. As The Atlantic piece concludes:
If the birth rate continues to drop around the world at its current pace, economic growth and workers’ retirement prospects will go the way of those projections: adjusting every few years to a smaller, sadder, poorer future.
Productivity Swamps Demographics
That neoliberal push for austerity is the third ideological agenda that lurks behind many of these population crisis stories. Even those news outlets that acknowledged the role of immigration in a country’s economy often took it as further evidence that the economic outlook is bleak. NPR (4/9/26), for instance, told its audience that
many demographers and economists see the apparent shift toward smaller families and fewer children as a significant concern for the nation and its labor force, especially as immigration into the US has also plunged under the Trump administration.
What such economic warnings hide is that, just as population size isn’t solely dependent on the native fertility rate, economic growth isn’t solely dependent on the working-age population.
It’s true that increasing life expectancies mean that the ratio of the US working-age population to the retired population is slowly decreasing, even with a growing population. That can put pressure on things like Social Security, which operates like a social insurance program in which taxes from current workers go into a fund for current retirees. A shrinking, aging population does require some policy adjustments. But it doesn’t mean the sky is falling. Progressive economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 1/11/19) explains:
Even pulling out the impact of immigrants, the reality is that we have been seeing a fall in the ratio of workers to retirees pretty much forever. Life expectancies have been rising as people have better living standards and better healthcare. (Recent years have been an exception, where life expectancies have stagnated.) In 1950 there were 7.2 people between the ages of 20 and 65 for every person over the age of 65. This ratio now stands at just 3.6 to 1.
Over this 70-year period, we have seen huge increases in living standards for both workers and retirees. The key has been the growth in productivity, which allows workers to produce much more in each hour of work. (We also have a much higher rate of employment among workers between the ages of 20 and 65, as tens of millions of women have entered the labor force.) The impact of productivity growth swamps the impact of demographics.
Not enough babies? Too many billionaires
The US has experienced an average of over 2% annual productivity growth in the nonfarm business sector since World War II, and there’s no reason to expect that to end. The gradually shifting worker-retiree ratio does start to become a bigger problem if productivity gains are siphoned off to only accrue to the rich. Which, as it turns out, they increasingly do.
Look at Social Security, which is frequently pointed to as being in peril because of the aging population and decreasing birth rate. An op-ed in USA Today (8/21/25), advocating for “killing” Social Security, claimed that, “due to a collapse of the American birth rate, the program is expected to be unable to pay the full promised benefits to retirees within the decade.”
There are important policy conversations to be had about supporting people in having the size family they want to have.
An CNBC article (5/30/25) told readers that “fewer births mean fewer future workers to support programs like Social Security and Medicare, which rely on a healthy worker-to-retiree ratio.” (That idea was supported with a quote from the director of the “Get Married Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies”—a right-wing think tank that recently launched a “Pronatalism Initiative.”)
But none other than the Chief Actuary at the Social Security Administration, Karen Glenn, testified to Congress (3/25/26) that birth rate has nothing to do with impending shortfalls in the program. Instead, one of the biggest factors imperiling Social Security is the problem of greater-than-expected income inequality.
Since 1980, when income inequality began to increase sharply, the amount of wage income that exceeds the cap for Social Security tax has doubled. The vast majority of us—those who make up to $184,500 a year—pay Social Security tax on all of our income; those who make more pay nothing above that cap. Simply removing the cap would eliminate three-quarters of the Social Security fund’s long-term projected shortfall.
Economic Value Judgments
And, of course, there are all the other ways the rich avoid paying their fair share in our economy, whether it’s through low capital gains rates, or simply through the fancy accounting that lets the super rich—including those who own the news outlets reporting on such things—pay next to nothing in federal taxes. Jeff Bezos, for instance, owner of The Washington Post, paid an effective income tax rate of under 1% on the over $4 billion he amassed from 2014-18 (ProPublica, 6/8/21).
So when The New York Times (3/26/26) tells you in its reporting on US population change that “the country needs a population of young workers and taxpayers large enough to finance infrastructure like schools, hospitals, and healthcare for older residents,” understand that they’re making a value judgement about taxation. The more objective statement would be that the country needs an economic output large enough to finance these things, which is certainly true.
There are important policy conversations to be had about supporting people in having the size family they want to have. Many Americans have fewer children than they want because of financial limitations—like lack of affordable childcare or housing—or concerns about the state of the world or the environment. News outlets can and should be addressing these issues.
But reporting that covers birth rate decline without the critical contexts of immigration policy, gender norms, and economic inequality masks the regressive ideologies behind the purported solutions.
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MAGA Is Anti-Black
No matter what Trump or his allies allege, the video depicting the Obamas as apes is entirely consistent with their racist worldview; for them, Black is ugly, dangerous, and savage, while white is beautiful, safe, and civilized.
Feb 08, 2026
On February 5, a video was posted on President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle. The racist depiction of Black people as primates dates back centuries. It is meant to represent them as ugly, savage, and unintelligent—as fundamentally incapable of building a human (white) civilization.
The post was deleted 12 hours later. The White House initially blamed an unnamed staffer for posting it. One White House adviser told reporters, “The president was not aware of that video, and was very let down by the staffer who put it out.” Apparently, they forgot that Trump himself had claimed that only he and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino have access to his social media account.
Later that day, Trump admitted that he knew about the video before its posting. He told reporters, “I looked at the beginning of [the video]. It was fine.” He then added, “Nobody knew that that was at the end. If they would have looked, they would have had the sense to take it down.” Neither the current president of the United States nor his staff is apparently capable of watching a 1-minute video before posting it.
Trump refused to apologize, insisting that he “didn’t make a mistake.”
In some respects, Leavitt is right—that Truth Social post shouldn’t surprise anyone. Trump is the nation’s Racist-in-Chief.
Notably, even conservatives condemned the post (albeit meekly). Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) posted on Twitter-X that this is “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) shared Scott’s post, writing, “Tim is right. This was appalling.” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) similarly wrote: “This post was offensive. I’m glad the White House took it down.”
Democrats, by contrast, used stronger language. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said, “Fuck Donald Trump and his vile, racist, and malignant behavior.” Finally, bipartisanship has been achieved!
Despite this outcry, the White House was quick to dismiss the post as being anything newsworthy. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt demanded that journalists “please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
MAGA and Anti-Black Racism
In some respects, Leavitt is right—that Truth Social post shouldn’t surprise anyone. Trump is the nation’s Racist-in-Chief. It’s a slow day indeed if that video is the only racist thing Trump did all day.
In recent months, he has referred to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a sitting Black congresswoman, as “a disgusting person, a loser,” and “garbage.” Trump says that she, a US citizen, “should be thrown the hell out of our country.” To emphasize, not her country, but “our country.”
More broadly, he says that Somalis are “low IQ people” and that Somalia is “barely a nation.” It “stinks” and is “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.” For Trump, Somalis are savage, ugly, uncivilized, and unintelligent people—fundamentally distinct from the “nice people” from civilized societies like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Notice the direct parallels between how Trump explicitly describes Somalis on the one hand, and the underlying racist meaning behind comparing Black people to primates on the other. Trump is applying the exact same set of stereotypes in both instances.
For MAGA Republicans, that success is always vulnerable to the threat of “foreign cultures” and Black immigrants, which in this case include both Ilhan Omar and Barack Obama.
Somalia is not the only example. He refers to Haiti as a “shithole” and “hellhole.” That Haitians are “eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats.” This narrative—not only wildly racist, but demonstrably false—was amplified by several Republicans, including Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and then-Vice President-Elect JD Vance.
Trump’s racism is not an anomaly among MAGA Republicans. Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller remarks, “If Somalians cannot make Somalia successful, why would we think that the track will be any different in the United States? If Libya keeps failing, if the Central African Republic keeps failing, if Somalia keeps failing, right? If these societies all over the world continue to fail, you have to ask yourself, […] what do we think is going to happen?" For Miller, no matter where those people go, the result will be the same: “consistent high rates of welfare use, consistent high rates of criminal activity, consistent failures to assimilate.” Test scores will also consistently drop: “If you subtract immigration out of test scores, all of a sudden our test scores skyrocket!” Like Trump, for Miller, Africans and their descendants are incapable of building a human (white) civilization.
Indirectly, Trump applies this standard to Obama too. Per Trump’s birther conspiracy theory, Obama was born in Kenya. At the same time he promoted that lie, Trump insisted that Obama allowed the US to collapse to the level of “a third world country.” Taken together, from Trump’s perspective, Obama is an African immigrant whose “destructive” policies led to the country “dying.” This is precisely what he and others in his administration allege that African immigrants always do.
A MAGA Black History Month
One might (confusedly) object that all of this is xenophobia, not anti-Black racism specifically—truly a distinction without a difference.
On February 3, Trump issued a proclamation emphasizing that “the history of black Americans is an indispensable chapter in our grand American country.” Thus, he calls upon “public officials, educators, librarians, and all the people of the United States to observe [Black History Month] with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.”
Yet, this objection overlooks a crucial detail: Trump’s proclamation is explicitly not a recognition of diversity—“This month, however, we do not celebrate our differences.” For Trump, Black History Month is not a celebration of Black people, but rather of the ability of “black American heroes” to successfully embrace and defend the “very special culture” that America and Europe inherited. Importantly, for Trump and his allies, the values, beliefs, and principles of that special culture are uniquely white.
This is the white-washed version of Black History Month that MAGA recognizes—one where Black people’s contributions to America are completely divorced from their lived experiences; where it is white values that abolish slavery, end discrimination, and save the nation.
Trump is not honoring Black arts, culture, or philosophy. He is calling on us to remember Black people’s “enduring commitment to the American principles of liberty, justice and equality.” It is those principles that freed the Western Hemisphere from “empires, ended slavery, saved Europe, put a man on the moon, and built the freest, most just, and most prosperous society ever known to mankind.” Black patriots like Coretta Scott King, Booker T. Washington, and Thomas Sowell “fiercely defended the values set forth in the Declaration of Independence and helped to make our Republic the greatest country in the history of the world.”
For Trump, America’s “bedrock belief in equality” is inextricably tied to the nation’s Christian foundation and the belief that all are equal under God. It is that belief “that drove black American icons to help fulfill the promise of [America’s] principles.”
What Trump is expressing here is entirely consistent with the racist worldview that he and other MAGA Republicans endorse. Black values and cultures ruin societies, while white values uplift them. This is why Haiti, Somalia, Central African Republic, and Libya fail to develop, while the US thrives. If Black people succeed, it is because they have championed Christian and Enlightenment (white) principles and values. This is the white-washed version of Black History Month that MAGA recognizes—one where Black people’s contributions to America are completely divorced from their lived experiences; where it is white values that abolish slavery, end discrimination, and save the nation.
For MAGA Republicans, that success is always vulnerable to the threat of “foreign cultures” and Black immigrants, which in this case include both Ilhan Omar and Barack Obama. This vulnerability is why US cities like Baltimore, where more than half the residents are Black, can become “dangerous,” “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
No matter what Trump or his allies allege, the video depicting the Obamas as apes is entirely consistent with their racist worldview. In every instance, their comments reflect the same underlying dichotomy: Black is ugly, dangerous, and savage, while white is beautiful, safe, and civilized. This is true whether they explicitly state it or metaphorically represent it.
It is this racism that leads Trump to blame Black Americans for violent crimes. It is this racism that leads the Trump administration to invade Minnesota. It is this “racial and national origin animus” that spurs their desire to end Temporary Protection Status for Haitians. It is this racism that makes everyone, regardless of race or citizenship status, vulnerable to the Trump administration’s Christian and ethnonationalist agenda. It is this racism that we must all resist.
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As Trump Terrorizes Immigrants, Spain Offers Permanent Residency for 500,000 People
Responding to the deadly US crackdown, one Spanish leftist leader said, "If they kidnap children and murder, we give papers."
Jan 27, 2026
As President Donald Trump terrorizes immigrants and Americans alike with his deadly mass deportation blitz while warning European leaders to tighten their borders by raising the racist specter of "civilizational erasure," Spain's government is moving against the xenophobic tide by offering hundreds of thousands of migrants a chance at permanent legal residency.
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the leftist Podemos party reached an agreement Monday following the collection of more than 700,000 petition signatures in favor of a legislative initiative to legalize up to 500,000 undocumented migrants.
Those who can prove that they were in Spain for at least five months before December 31, 2025 and have no criminal record will be eligible for permanent legal residency with permission to work.
Spanish Migration Minister Elma Saiz (PSOE) said during a press conference that "today is a historic day" for starting the process of legalizing hundreds of thousands of immigrants in a country that has made great strides in overcoming its legacy of racism and xenophobia.
The far-right Vox party called the legalization plan "madness" that promotes "barbarity."
However, Saiz said that legalization will help Spain “recognize, dignify, and give guarantees” to people who already live and work in the country.
“We’re reinforcing a migratory model based on human rights, on integration, and on coexistence that’s compatible with both economic growth and social cohesion,” she added.
Responding to arguments that legalizing so many migrants would severely strain Spain's social safety net, Podemos Secretary General Ione Belarra said on social media, "What overwhelms public services are your cuts and privatizations."
Belarra also said that some opponents of legalization are angry that they will no longer be able to exploit migrants by paying them less than legal workers.
Podemos Political Secretary Irene Montero said Tuesday that "we have a legal obligation to guarantee [migrant] rights and that is what this regularization is, which we hope will reach all the people without papers in Spain who were here before December 31, 2025."
Spain's population is approximately 49.4 million. Legalizing half a million immigrants would be the equivalent of granting permanent residency to about 3.6 million migrants in the United States. There were believed to be about 7.1 million foreign nationals living in Spain at the beginning of last year, of whom an estimated 840,000 were in the country without authorization.
Sánchez's PSOE-led government has been supportive of immigrants since coming to power in 2018, offering safe harbor for migrants arriving in Europe by sea when other European Union nations have moved to restrict their entry. More than 10,000 migrants died trying to reach Spain in 2024, according to the Spanish advocacy group Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders).
Meanwhile, Trump's latest National Security Strategy, released last month, urges the US to "cultivate resistance" to immigration in Europe, espousing racist "great replacement" ideology while warning of “the real and stark prospect of civilizational erasure."
“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less," the document states.
European nations including Denmark, Germany, Greece, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have recently tightened their migration and asylum policies, in some cases partially due to pressure from Washington.
Responding to Trump's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown—which has killed both immigrants and US citizens—Montero said Tuesday that “in the United States at the moment there are millions of people who are afraid in their own homes because Trump’s migration policy enters people’s homes and takes them away."
“We cannot accept that there are people who live in fear and without rights," she added. "We cannot accept racist violence. Racism is answered with rights. If they kidnap children and murder, we give papers."
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Why the Trump Admin Can't Investigate Minnesota Fraud Without Scapegoating Somalis
By framing what’s occurring in Minnesota as ‘the Somali fraud network,’ the Trump administration is looking to legitimize its months-long attack on the Somali community and distract from its own unpopularity.
Jan 03, 2026
On December 26, YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video entitled, “I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal.” So far, the video has amassed over 2 million views and has been lauded by major conservatives including Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance. Via Twitter, Vance posted that, “This dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 @pulitzercenter prize.”
In response to the outcry from this video, the Trump administration is reportedly freezing federal childcare funding across all states. Deputy Health and Human Services Secretary Jim O’Neill called the measure necessary given the “blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country.” While each state will face new requirements to regain funding, Minnesota will be subject to stricter scrutiny.
This is a drastic response, especially since Shirley’s video didn’t reveal anything new. The Department of Justice (DOJ)—under both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden—was already investigating fraud in Minnesota. In 2022, 47 people were charged for their role in a $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally funded nutrition program during the Covid-19 pandemic. Several news outlets had reported on allegations of fraud regarding federally funded childcare centers in Minnesota months prior to Shirley’s video.
Shirley also doesn’t discover any new evidence. This is unsurprising given his deeply flawed approach. For instance, in the video, Shirley and his crew visit several Somali-owned daycare centers and ask the workers: “Where are the children at? Are there children here today?” Even if fraud was occurring at the sites he visited, the workers’ refusal to take a stranger with a camera to see the kids reveals nothing. Maybe there were no kids present. Or maybe they are simply responsible workers protecting the safety of the children from a potential creep.
This is not about fraud. It’s not about justice. It’s poor political theater from a battered and desperate administration.
Ultimately, if widespread fraud is occurring anywhere, then the people responsible should be held accountable. The problem, however, is that this outrage is being manipulated by the Trump administration to further scapegoat the Somali community.
Consider for instance this comment made by Attorney General Pamela Bondi via Twitter-X. She writes that the DOJ has been investigating this alleged daycare fraud case for months. Thus far, the department has “charged 98 individual—85 of Somali descent—and more than 60 have been found guilty in court.”
There is no reason whatsoever for Bondi to draw attention to the ethnic or racial background of any of the people being charged. She is emphasizing that information in order to help fuel and justify the Trump administration’s xenophobia.
By framing what’s occurring in Minnesota as “the Somali fraud network,” the Trump administration is looking to legitimize their months-long attack on the Somali community. In December alone, President Trump remarked: “We always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they’re good at is going after ships.” Vice President JD Vance said that Democrats “are not sending their best” in reference to Minnesota State Senator Omar Fateh. He claimed that Fateh was Representative Ilhan Omar’s “candidate for mayor of Mogadishu. Wait, I mean Minneapolis.” US Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller shouted, “If Somalians cannot make Somalia successful, why would we think that the track will be any different in the United States?”
The Trump administration is exploiting public outrage to further its assault on immigrants and their families. Already House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) has called for deporting all Somalis linked to fraud in Minnesota, including naturalized citizens. He further adds, “Our nation will not tolerate those who take advantage of our charity and refuse to assimilate into our culture.” Putting aside that most fraud in the US is committed by white Americans, stipulating that the US will not tolerate those who fail to embrace US culture has far wider implications than punishing criminals. This is about punishing diversity.
This is also why the administration has moved to freeze all federal childcare funding. Again, this fraud was already known and is still being investigated. To implement a measure that so indiscriminately and callously harms Americans—during an affordability crisis—is meant to redirect people’s genuine frustrations with the Trump administration onto the Somali community.
They will be the scapegoats for Trump’s violence. And they are only the beginning. On December 31, Trump posted on Truth Social: “There is more FRAUD in California than there is in Minnesota, if that is even possible. When you add in Election Fraud, then they are tied for first. Two Crooked Governors, two Crooked States!”
Trump will capitalize on the public’s legitimate concerns about fraud to attack his political opponents, like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. He will use it to further villainize immigrants. After all, California is the state with the nation’s largest immigrant population—guess who will be blamed for fraud there?
Trump has regularly insisted that Democrats “use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens.” These fraud allegations provide him with the perfect opportunity to extend this false narrative. The fact that the DOJ’s investigation thus far has charged less than 100 people is irrelevant. Most of them are of Somali descent, and Minnesota’s governor is a Democrat (who just ran against him as Kamala Harris’ vice presidential pick). That’s all Trump and his allies care about.
This is not about fraud. A truly anti-fraud president would not commute the sentence of David Gentile, a private equity executive convicted for his role in a $1.6 billion Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors. As part of his pardon, Gentile will no longer be required to pay $15.5 million in restitution to his victims. Perhaps if Gentile were of Somali descent, then Trump would be more concerned with justice and respect for the law.
There is no legitimate rationale for withholding childcare funding from the entire country because of the actions committed by so few. Trump supporters might argue that this extreme measure simply demonstrates President Trump’s unwavering and firm commitment to law and order. That he is simply rooting out fraud from the system in the most direct way possible.
But if this is true, then why only take these measures after a YouTuber posts a video about it? Why wait until there is public outcry?
It’s because that outcry; these extreme measures; and this anti-Somali, xenophobic framing are all politically useful for the Trump administration. This is not about fraud. It’s not about justice. It’s poor political theater from a battered and desperate administration.
2025 was a difficult year for the country, and 2026 is starting off on a rough foot. As the midterm elections approach, the Trump administration will likely resort to more drastic and violent measures. We cannot give into despair. Trump is waging a battle of attrition against the American public. He wants us stressed, afraid, and divided. The only remedy is for us to remain vigilant, unyielding, and united.
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Stephen Miller, Frank Sinatra, and the Promise and Limits of American Liberalism
Looking back at exemplary moments of American liberalism to counter MAGA rhetoric is an entirely understandable and even comforting move to make, but there is no golden age to return to.
Dec 29, 2025
Stephen Miller misses no opportunity to exult in racism and xenophobia. Friday’s Common Dreams headline gets right to the point regarding Miller’s most recent offense: “’Horrible Racist’ Stephen Miller Slammed for Using Classic TV Christmas Special to Bash Immigrants.”
Apparently Miller spent Christmas day watching a 1967 holiday special called “Christmas with The Martins and The Sinatras” and, being the miserable misanthrope that he is, the show—featuring Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, two very famous children of first-generation Italian Americans—prompted him to wax nostalgic about a world in which America was Great and there was no mass immigration. Everything that Miller says or does deserves outrage, and his X post was no exception. One form the justified outrage has taken recently crossed my Facebook feed:
The Sinatra video that has gone viral is a clip from a 10-minute film short that premiered in November, 1945 called “The House I Live In.” It’s a powerful film, featuring a young and very charismatic Sinatra both speaking and singing against bigotry and for toleration and cultural pluralism.
The film begins with Sinatra, playing himself, in the studio recording a love song. He then takes a break, goes outside, and encounters a group of boys on an unnamed American city street who are very much modeled on Hollywood’s 1940s “Dead End Kids.” He finds them taunting a young, somewhat different-looking boy who is pretty clearly Jewish, and stops to interrupt the taunting and to engage them in conversation about the meaning of “America.”
When the boys inform him that they are bullying the (Jewish) boy because “we don’t like his religion,” Sinatra teases them: “You must be a bunch of those Nazi werewolves I’ve been reading about.” When one of the boys incredulously suggests he is “screwy” to think this, Sinatra replies: “Not me, I’m an American.” When the boys insist that they too are Americans, and one of them volunteers that his father had indeed been wounded in the war, Sinatra points out that the dad had probably needed a blood transfusion, and then points to the excluded boy: “Maybe his pop’s blood saved your dad’s life.”
Sinatra then delivers a monologue:
Look fellas. Religion makes no difference, except maybe to a Nazi or somebody who’s stupid. Why, people all over the world worship God in many different ways. God created everybody. He didn’t create one people better than another. Your blood’s the same as mine, mine’s the same as his. Do you know what this wonderful country is made of? It’s made up of a hundred different kinds of people and a hundred different ways of talking. A hundred different ways of going to church. But they’re all American ways. Wouldn’t we be silly if we went around hating people because they comb their hair different than ours?... My dad came from Italy. But I’m an American. But should I hate your father because he came from Ireland or France or Russia? Wouldn’t I be a first-class fathead?
He then tells them a story about how, after Pearl Harbor, American airmen had inspired the entire country by bravely bombing a Japanese battleship: “They sank it, and every American threw his head back and felt much better. The pilot of that ship was named Colin Kelly, an American and a Presbyterian. And you know who dropped the bombs? Meyer Levin, an American and a Jew. You think maybe they should have called the bombing off because they had different religions?”
Sinatra then heads back to the recording studio. But before entering, he stops to sing for the boys the song he is recording inside, “The House I Live In.” Here are the lyrics:
What is America to me?
A name, a map, the flag I see,
A certain word, "Democracy."
What is America to me?
The house I live in,
A plot of earth, a street,
The grocer and the butcher
And the people that I meet,
The children in the playground,
The faces that I see;
All races, all religions,
That’s America to me.
A place I work in
A worker by my side
A little town or city
Where my people lived and died
The howdy and the handshake
The air of feeling free
And the right to speak my mind out
That’s America to me
The things I see about me
The big things and the small
The little corner newsstand
And the house a mile tall
The wedding and the churchyard
A laughter and the tears
And the dream that’s been a growing
For 180 years
The town I live in
The street, the house, the room
Pavement of the city
Or a garden all in bloom
The church, the school, the clubhouse
The millions lights I see
But especially the people
That’s America to me.
Sinatra then smiles, returns to the studio, and the boys walk off together, inviting the Jewish kid to join them, while the music of “America the Beautiful” plays in the background.
The film is very powerful and uplifting. It is emblematic of the spirit of American liberalism in the immediate aftermath of WWII, a spirit perhaps symbolized by the stardom of Sinatra, the child of working-class Italian immigrants who grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey. Critics of Miller, and of President Donald Trump, are right to invoke the film, and to evoke the idealism of Rooseveltian liberalism, as a reproach to MAGA xenophobia.
At the same time, there are at least three important ways that the film exemplifies the limits of Rooseveltian idealism and the depth of the forms of illiberalism repudiated in the very lyrics of “The House That I Live In”—forms of illiberalism with which we are still reckoning today.
The first relates to the political circumstances surrounding the song itself. The music was written by Earl Robinson, a composer and folk musician from Seattle who belonged to the Communist Party from the 1930s through the 1950s; collaborated with Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger, and other well-known leftist artists and performers; and was blacklisted during the McCarthy period. And the lyrics were written by Lewis Allan, the pseudonym of Abel Meeropol, also a Communist at the time, who also composed the lyrics to “Strange Fruit,” the anti-lynching song made famous by Billie Holiday, and later adopted the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their parents were executed as Soviet agents in 1953.
Robinson and Meeropol were two of the hundreds of writers, artists, musicians, and performers who made seminal contributions to American culture during the 1930s and 1940s in connection with the Popular Front, described by historian Michael Kazin as “a vigorously democratic and multiracial movement in the arts and daily life that was sponsored but not controlled by the Communist Party.” The patriotic rhetoric of “The House I Live In”—both the song and the film—bears the traces of Popular Front leftism even as the connections to the left, and to anti-capitalism, were as disguised, and erased, as the actual name of the lyricist.
The second is the way in which the film’s repudiation of antisemitism, and its message of tolerance, is advanced—through an understandable anti-fascist patriotism that is juxtaposed to evil “Nazi werewolves” and invading “Japs.” Sinatra’s uplifting story of the bombing of the Japanese battleship Hiruma three times uses the racist term “Japs.” Erased from the story are some very memorable recent events: the wartime incarceration of well over 100,000 Japanese Americans; the 1945 American fire-bombing of Tokyo that killed over 100,000 Japanese civilians; and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945, months before the film’s release. (It is worth nothing that the film’s producer-director, Mervyn Leroy, also produced the 1944 film “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” a glorification of the 1942 “Doolittle Raid,” the first US bombing of Tokyo, starring Spencer Tracy). The film’s valorization of American democracy is thus linked to a racially-tinged narrative of American innocence with increasingly illiberal ramifications as the Cold War evolved.
And there is, finally, the striking fact that while Sinatra powerfully gives voice to the idea that “God created everybody, he didn’t create one people better than another,” and that “your blood’s the same as mine, mine’s the same as his,” every person in the film—Sinatra, the boys, the studio orchestra—is white.
To point these things out is not to disparage “The House I Live In,” a very important cultural creation that contained genuinely progressive elements while also condensing some of the contradictions of its time. It is simply to note the complexity of the recurrent historical contests over what it means to be “an American,” and the lack of innocence of even the most appealing episodes of the past. Trumpism is xenophobic, racist, deeply anti-liberal, and literally reactionary. Looking back at exemplary moments of American liberalism to counter MAGA rhetoric is an entirely understandable and even comforting move to make. Rewatching “The House I Live In” this holiday season was genuinely uplifting for me. But post-WWII liberalism at its height was no Golden Age, and we can no more return to it than we can to the time of Andrew Jackson, or William McKinley, or 1920s racist Madison Grant, or George Wallace, or Bull Connor, or whoever it is that warms Stephen Miller’s deformed and shriveled heart.
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Trump's Fascist National Security Strategy Is Full of Hemispheric Menace
The document promotes white supremacism, xenophobic nationalism, militant patriarchy, and takes a brazenly imperialist approach to Latin America.
Dec 13, 2025
On Thursday, December 4, the White House released a new National Security Strategy, a document that lays out the Trump regime’s “America First” designs on the world order.
The Trump regime’s new United States National Security Strategy (hereafter the “T47NSS”) is a significantly fascist as well as classically imperialist document.
Channeling far-right racist “Great Replacement Theory” and the notion of creeping “white genocide,” the T47NSS claims that Europe is facing “civilizational erasure” because of loose immigration policies. It commits the US to “promoting European greatness” by aligning with “patriotic European parties” that want to keep their nations majority white.
This is a call for US to promote racist and xenophobic nationalist, blood and soil, neofascist, white-nationalist parties like German’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), Vox (Spain), Austria’s Freedom Party, the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, the Swedish Democrats, the Danish People’s Party, the Brothers of Italy (Lega), France’s National Rally, and the like.
It is... an appeal for the US to drop egalitarian and missionary pretense while unabashedly pursuing nothing but raw profitable advantage in dealing with other nations.
The T47NSS calls for the US to “deepen ties” with “the healthy nations of Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe,” by which the administration means nations where authoritarian, racist, nativist, and patriarchal parties hold power.
Not satisfied to promote just 2 of the 3 great pillars of neofascism—white supremacism and xenophobic nationalism—the document makes a full-throated cry to the third—militant patriarchy—by declaring that the Trump regime wants to create a new American “golden age” that “cannot be accomplished without growing numbers of strong traditional families.” That is not-so veiled code language for the rolling back of women’s, gay, and trans rights in the US—a curious thing to be advocating in a foreign policy document.
Along the way, the T47NSS channels the fascist cult of personality with laudatory references to President Donald Trump and his supposed superior vision, which is said to be bringing about a “course correction” steering the US away from what Trump calls (in a cover letter at the front of the document) “disasters and catastrophes” rooted in the “weakness” imposed by the “extremism” of “radical gender ideology” and “woke lunacy.”
Contrary to myth, fascism is imperialist, not “isolationist.” The T47NSS’ much ballyhooed call for a retreat from supposedly democratic US-America’s supposed democracy- and freedom-promotion in Russia, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America is not at all an argument for US global retreat. It is instead an appeal for the US to drop egalitarian and missionary pretense while unabashedly pursuing nothing but raw profitable advantage in dealing with other nations.
The T47NSS takes a brazenly imperialist approach to Latin America. It calls for the US to “enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere,” “protect… our access to key geographies throughout the region,” restrict Latin American immigration, prevent non-US companies from winning business contracts in Latin America, and “enlist” pro-US and pro-business governments across the region in support of US regional dominance.
That makes for some darkly interesting reading as the US commits cold-blooded extrajudicial executions of Venezuelan and Colombian people in the Caribbean and prepares for a possibly imminent regime change war on Venezuela. The T47NSS’ call for the US to shift its global military footprint more heavily onto the Western Hemisphere—away from more distant “theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined”—suggests that the Trump fascist regime’s ongoing war crimes and ominous military buildup in the Caribbean will continue and indeed intensify. The document is rightly seen as menacing by Latin Americans and most especially by the people of Venezuela and Colombia.
The T47NSS calls for the US to sustain America's “military overmatch” of China to deter its chief competitor state in the Western Pacific. That contradicts not just the notion of the Trump regime as isolationist but also the notion that the regime is content to grant China unchallenged dominance in its own regional sphere of influence.
Trump’s NSS cover letter is darkly amusing. It says that “America is strong and respected again and because of that we are making peace all over the world”—this as the Trump regime is shown to have criminally executed more than 80 mariners and boat passengers in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific over the last three months and as the Trump Pentagon assembles massive military assets for a likely criminal regime change war on Venezuela. So far the Trump regime’s aggression against Venezuela has graduated from the criminal serial killer boat strikes to declaring the air space over that country closed to flying fighter jets over the nation to seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker just off the nation’s coast, an act of brazen piracy capped by trump claiming the US will “keep the [interdicted ship’s] oil.”
Trump is also threatening to attack Colombia, saying this about that nation’s left president: “He’ll be next soon. I hope he’s listening, he’s going to be next.”
It is likely that the US is more disrespected around the world than it has ever been under Trump47.Keep ReadingShow Less
How Immigrant Fiction Can Reshape American Realities
As the politicos do their darndest to render the Statue of Liberty little more than a New York City tourist trinket, what can American immigrant literary fiction offer our nation in terms of imagining a more welcoming, inclusive, and promising future?
Aug 20, 2025
Immigrants have been reshaping America since the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Or perhaps earlier than that fateful day in 1620, if you count Viking excursions dating back to 1021 and Spaniards landing in Florida in 1513. After the subjugation and genocide of the continent’s Indigenous people, and the establishment of the United States, wave after wave of newcomers from all over the globe, forced and unforced, have helped build what so many call “a nation of immigrants.”
Despite those facts, immigration has always been a topic of debate and a lightning rod for racism, xenophobia, and nationalism, a tool of political manipulation that appeals to people’s worst instincts and fears. Since the political rise of Donald Trump and his descent down that golden escalator in 2015, the debate on immigration and the US-Mexico border has shifted considerably to the right, after decades of centering on moderate concepts calling for comprehensive immigration reform and enhanced border security.
In the 2024 election cycle, both parties have skewed further in the same direction, narrowing the debate and placing immigrants and their advocates in an ever-tightening corner, with Republicans calling for mass deportations and Democrats supporting limits to asylum for refugees and backing away from providing public services (such as health and education) to undocumented immigrants and their children.
As the politicos do their darndest to render the Statue of Liberty little more than a New York City tourist trinket, what can American immigrant literary fiction offer our nation in terms of imagining a more welcoming, inclusive, and promising future?
Humanity, New Visions, and Hope
We are all human beings. To me, that’s what any good book reminds us of at its core. Authentic immigrant stories chronicle the desperation, urgency, and desire for safety and progress that drive immigrants to America’s shores in the first place. Immigrant and multicultural literature explore the process of becoming American, the rifts between immigrant generations and those born and raised here, and the sacrifices and rewards experienced by families and communities through acculturation, assimilation, and simply the act of living in a country full of promise yet also torn apart by a legacy of racism and discrimination. But, no matter where the readers and the writers come from, when one walks in the shoes of another, one gains empathy. In this way, immigrant literature builds bridges that foster unity in our shared humanity and multigenerational American experience.
Before embarking on my own journey as a writer of literary fiction steeped in the immigrant experience, some of the books that most deeply touched me were likewise immigrant or multicultural narratives. Even though they may not have been specifically about the Latino perspective, I saw myself and my family reflected in their characters’ struggles and dreams. At an early age, that experience as a reader opened my mind to cultures other than my own.
I did not get to New York City until I was a college student in New England, but I felt like I’d been there as a child making Jewish friends in the tenements of Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep. I never spent a night in Harlem, but I could feel the dust on the floorboards and the tension between father and son in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain. I’d never seen a ghost, but I saw myself and began to recognize my own voice as a writer in Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
When we recognize our genuine shared God-given humanity, the man-made machinations of maps fall into the shadows and the hope of who we could be and what we could do if we embrace each other lights the way in a blaze of glory.
When we see each other as more the same than “other” and “different,” we see that artificial constructs—such as borders and citizenship and legal documents providing permission for human beings to live in peace on various patches of the Earth’s soil drawn on maps by men who waged and won wars decades or centuries past—are just that: artificial, man-made, and by their very nature should be malleable. To connect and lift each other up, we must work toward more togetherness and less division.
Immigrant fiction is a laboratory for the creation of new visions for where we could go as a nation, as a continent, as a people united rather than divided. Just like science fiction has laid out blueprints for many of the high-tech devices and inventions that are now either fixtures in our daily lives or soon to revolutionize the way we live, immigrant fiction can help us imagine, envision, and thus create a new reality.
In my novel, The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez, I imagine a world where a multigenerational utopia is built on a city that straddles both sides of the Rio Grande, a place where not just the borders between nations fade away but also those between life and death. In a manuscript I’m currently working on, I envision an America where someday there will be no borders at all. The walls and fences will be pulled down. The coils of razor wire will be retired. The militarized forces will be deployed elsewhere, far from the fertile farmlands of the Rio Grande Valley, far from the vast and perilous Chihuahuan Desert. The river will gleam with promise and flow in tranquility as it snakes its way like a shimmering serpent toward the Gulf of Mexico. Bridges will be built. And people will move safely back and forth, north and south, along with trade and commerce. When this happens, cultural harmony will rise, economies will boom, and illegal narcotics, weapons, and human trafficking will become ancient history.
Imagine that. Instead of masses huddled along fences and politicians saber rattling and fearmongering, countries will work together to solve the hemispheric problems that they cannot solve alone. Stronger than ever, fueled by access to opportunity and more affordable labor, the combined Americas will be able to compete with the surging global powerhouses of China and India.
For that to happen, we must stop seeing the border as a problem and seize it as an opportunity. We need stories that inspire hope in us, faith that we can see past each other’s differences and find the common ground that binds us together: a love of family and freedom; a desire for each generation to do better than the one that came before; a respect for our fellow human beings regardless of where they were born, the color of their skin, or the language their mother whispered into their ears as newborn babies cradled in their arms.
We all have hearts that ache for love, minds that crave understanding, souls that yearn to be seen. This human connection—cognizant of the pain we all bear as living, bleeding beings but fiercely determined to cling to an optimistic view of the future we can share—drives the narrative arc of my new novel, The Border Between Us. It is the story of an immigrant family, of a young American raised on the border and kept afloat by the love of family and irrepressible buoyancy of the American dream. And many people who have read it have told me how they were touched by it in varied ways.
People didn’t focus so much on the border or the immigrant aspects when they shared their reactions. They mention seeing their own lives reflected in the novel: the strains of complex parent-child relationships, the balancing act between pursuing one’s own aspirations while living up to family responsibilities and obligations, the grief and hardship of losing loved ones before their time. When we recognize our genuine shared God-given humanity, the man-made machinations of maps fall into the shadows and the hope of who we could be and what we could do if we embrace each other lights the way in a blaze of glory.
Listen to me, America. I’m from the border, born and raised. I love the border. And, I believe the borders should be erased. Anyone supporting the proposed mass deportations (as well as the racial and ethnic profiling and vast detentions these would entail) should read Farewell to Manzanar, chronicling the mistreatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. They should also do some research on the inhumane Operation Wetback, through which over 1 million Mexican migrant workers were deported in the 1950s. These are cautionary tales from our not-so-distant past.
We can be more than we are today as a nation and as a people. For that to happen, we must avoid the errors of the past, stop limiting ourselves, and expand our horizons. Until then, pick up some immigrant or multicultural fiction, learn from history, and imagine the possibilities. Someday, we can turn honest memories and empathetic visions into a new and more welcoming reality.
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'Jocelynn Deserves Justice!': 11-Year-Old Texan Kills Herself After Bullies' Deportation Threats
"This is what violent nationalism does," said one observer. "It seeps into the minds of children and turns playgrounds into nightmares."
Feb 19, 2025
An 11-year-old Texas girl took her own life following relentless bullying from classmates, some of whom threatened to call U.S. immigration authorities to deport her mother—who says she was never notified by school officials who knew of the abuse.
Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, a sixth-grader at Gainesville Intermediate School in Gainesville, located about 70 miles north of Dallas, died on February 8 in a Dallas hospital after spending five days in its intensive care unit, The Latin Times reported Tuesday.
"I waited a whole week for a miracle that my daughter would be well, but unfortunately nothing could be done," the girl's mother, Marbella Carranza, told Univision in an interview in which she asked authorities to investigate the incident.
"She was a happy girl. My daughter will always live for me, and I will always love her," Carranza added.
According to The Latin Times, classmates bullied Carranza over her family's immigration status and threatened to call U.S. Immigration and Customst Enforcement. Newsweek reported that some of Carranza's tormentors taunted her about being abandoned if her parents were deported.
"This is what happens when you support and vote for a clown that blames immigrants for everything."
School officials knew Carranza was being severely bullied and sent her for multiple weekly counseling sessions. However, the officials reportedly never notified the child's mother, who says she only found out about the abuse after her daughter's hospitalization.
Carranza's death came amid increased anti-immigrant bigotry fueled by the return of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump to the White House. Trump—whose winning campaign strategy included falsely smearing migrants as pet-eating invaders and disease-spreading terrorists—quickly began his promised mass deportation drive.
This includes sending some deportees to the notorious Guantánamo Bay naval base and prison in Cuba, while some are being detained in a Panamanian jungle camp described as "primitive."
On Monday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem introduced a video warning people who are in the United States without authorization to "self-deport and stay out." The ad—which is part of a campaign reportedly costing taxpayers $200 million—tells undocumented migrants to "leave now" or "we will hunt you down."
Ruth Delgado, the digital media manager at the immigration reform group America's Voice, called Carranza's death a "heartbreaking story" in a Tuesday post on the Bluesky social media site.
"Her story is one of the many real human consequences of Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric," Delgado added.
An 11-year-old girl in Texas took her own life after she was bullied over immigration status. Students threatened to call ICE to deport her family. This is what violent nationalism does. It seeps into the minds of children and turns playgrounds into nightmares. RIP Jocelynn Rojo Carranza
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— Fifty Shades of Whey (@fiftyshadesofwhey.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Another Bluesky user said that "the cruelty and terror is the goal of this horrible regime."
"Jocelynn did nothing wrong," he added. "We failed her. I'm so sorry."
One immigrant from Mexico wrote on social media that "this is what happens when you support and vote for a clown that blames immigrants for everything. The way in which the MAGA cult is poisoning the mind of this kids is outrageous. Jocelynn deserves justice!"
A Italian study of fifth grade students published in 2022 found a correlation between campaigning by the xenophobic right-wing Lega Nord party and school bullying.
"Our main result is that during electoral campaigns in places where Lega Nord is active there are large increases in bullying victimization within schools that is concentrated solely on children from immigrant backgrounds," the study's authors concluded. "These effects are absent for municipalities in which Lega Nord has little support, where no elections occurred, and for native children."
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline—which offers 24/7, free, and confidential support—can be reached by calling or texting 988, or through chat at 988lifeline.org.
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