US President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a permanent halt to migration from “Third World countries”, the withdrawal of public benefits from foreigners and the withdrawal of citizenship from “disturbing migrants”. America's problems, he argued, could only be solved by “reverse migration.”
The president announced his intentions on the social networking site Truth Social late Thursday evening, Thanksgiving Day. In the post, he expressed his best wishes for this holiday and blamed migrants for almost all of the US's social problems. He announced radical moves in immigration policy to “greatly reduce the number of illegal and destructive populations.”
“I will permanently halt migration from all Third World countries to allow the American system to fully rebuild, end all millions of people illegally admitted by (former President Joe – PAP) Biden (…) and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States or is incapable of loving our country,” Trump wrote.
“I will end all federal benefits and subsidies to non-citizens of our country, strip citizenship of migrants who undermine domestic peace, and deport any alien who is a public nuisance, a security threat, or incompatible with Western civilization,” he announced. “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully remedy this situation,” he added, without specifying what he meant by this term.
“Again, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those who hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for. You won't be here long!” – Trump wrote.
In a lengthy post that the White House X account described as one of the president's most important messages, Trump argued that immigration has thwarted the fruits of technological progress and worsened Americans' living conditions. He said the official number of foreigners in the U.S. is 53 million, and most of these people “are on welfare, come from failed countries, prisons, mental hospitals, gangs or drug cartels” and constitute a burden on “patriotic American citizens who, because of their beautiful hearts, are not willing to openly complain or cause trouble in any way.”
“The actual immigrant population is much higher. This refugee burden is a major cause of social dysfunction in America, which was not the case after World War II (failing schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages and huge deficits, etc.),” Trump added.
Some of the changes announced by the president may be illegal, e.g. depriving immigrants of their acquired citizenship. Such cases are extremely rare; the law provides for this possibility when naturalized persons concealed important facts or obtained citizenship by fraud.
Trump posted his tweet a day after a legally admitted immigrant from Afghanistan, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, attacked two National Guard soldiers in Washington. Lakanwal, a former collaborator of the CIA and the US military, came to the US in 2021 as part of a program granting residence to Afghan allies of the US during the ended war in Afghanistan.
On the day of the attack, the American immigration office USCIS announced the suspension of processing applications from Afghan citizens, and on Thursday a review of the decision to grant green cards to citizens of 19 countries from Africa, South America and Asia was announced.
Back in June, Trump ordered, by executive order, the suspension or restriction of visa issuance to citizens of: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The issuance of visas to residents of: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela has also been partially reduced.
According to data collected by CBS television, despite initial announcements that the target of deportation actions would primarily be criminal immigrants, in recent weeks immigration services have mainly detained people with clean records. Currently, they constitute 48 percent. all detained.
From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)
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