Trump caps refugee admissions at record low – with most to be white South Africans

2025/10/31 Leave a comment

Sick:

The Trump administration will limit the number of refugees admitted to the US to 7,500 over the next year, and give priority to white South Africans.

The move, announced in a notice published on Thursday, marks a dramatic cut from the previous limit of 125,000 set by former President Joe Biden and will bring the cap to a record low.

No reason was given for the cut, but the notice said it was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.

In January, Trump signed an executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Programme, or USRAP, which he said would allow US authorities to prioritise national security and public safety.

The previous lowest refugee admissions cap was set by the first Trump administration in 2020, when it allocated 15,000 spots for fiscal year 2021.

The notice posted to the website of the Federal Register said the 7,500 admissions would “primarily” be allocated to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.

In February, the US president announced the suspension of critical aid to South Africa and offered to allow members of the Afrikaner community – who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers – to settle in the US as refugees….

Source: Trump caps refugee admissions at record low – with most to be white South Africans

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Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People

2025/10/16 Leave a comment

“Give me your privileged, your rich, / Your huddled elite yearning to breathe free…”,

The Trump administration is considering a radical overhaul of the U.S. refugee system that would slash the program to its bare bones while giving preference to English speakers, white South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The proposals, some of which already have gone into effect, would transform a decades-old program aimed at helping the world’s most desperate people into one that conforms to Mr. Trump’s vision of immigration — which is to help mostly white people who say they are being persecuted while keeping the vast majority of other people out.

The plans were presented to the White House in April and July by officials in the State and Homeland Security Departments after President Trump directed federal agencies to study whether refugee resettlement was in the interest of the United States. Mr. Trump had suspended refugee admissions on his first day in office and solicited the proposals about how and whether the administration should continue the program.

Trump administration officials have not ruled out any of the ideas, according to people familiar with the planning, although there is no set timetable for approving or rejecting the ideas. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential plans….

Source: Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People

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Top US immigration official defends rule targeting ‘anti-American’ views in green card, visa process

2025/09/11 Leave a comment

Somehow, “trust us” not that credible given various initiatives by the Trump administration:

A new rule allowing a U.S. immigration agency to scrutinize a person’s “anti-American” viewswhen applying for a green card or other benefits isn’t designed to target political beliefs, but to identify support for terrorist activity, the organization’s director told The Associated Press.

In a wide-ranging interview on Monday, the director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, delved into the agency’s contentious policy — announced last month — which allows officers to decide whether a foreigner applying for a certain benefit has endorsed what they believe are anti-American views. 

Edlow also detailed problems he sees with a training program that’s popular with international students, but hated by some Trump supporters. He described how and why he’s thinking of changing the process by which hundreds of thousands of people become American citizens every year.

Edlow is overseeing the pivotal immigration agency at a time when President Donald Trump is upending traditional immigration policyand charging ahead with an aggressive agenda that restricts who gets to come into the U.S. through legal pathways.

Questions over what constitutes anti-Americanism

The new policy by USCIS stipulates that its officers could now consider whether an applicant “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused” anti-American, terrorist or antisemitic views when making their decision about whether to grant the benefit. 

Critics questioned whether it gives officers too much leeway in rejecting foreigners based on a subjective judgment.

Edlow said the agency needs to be aware of what people applying for benefits are saying online and when that speech becomes hateful. He said the agency won’t automatically deny someone a benefit because of what they said, but it’s a factor they take into consideration.

He said they’re not looking for people who’ve posted anti-Trump speech. He said criticism of any administration was “one of the most American activities you can engage in.”

“This goes beyond that. This is actual espousing (of) the beliefs and the ideology of terrorist, of terrorist organizations and those who wish to destroy the American way of life.” 

In examples of speech that might raise a red flag, Edlow noted students who post pro-Hamas beliefs or are taking part in campus protests where Jewish students are blocked from entering buildings.

The Trump administration has made cracking down on student protests a high priority. The government has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the U.S. for expressing views the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. 

In one of the most high-profile examples, federal immigration authorities in March arrested Palestinian activist and green card holder, Mahmoud Khalil, who as a student played a prominent role in Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests. 

USCIS agents now carry weapons and could make arrests

USCIS recently announced that it could now hire law enforcement agents who could make arrests, execute search warrants and carry weapons. That’s a change for the agency that historically investigates immigration fraud but hands cases over to other agencies to prosecute.

Edlow said their focus would be on “large scale criminal activity” such as large-scale asylum fraud or marriage fraud.

“They’re not a police force. This is going to be a highly trained and very small section of this agency dealing specifically with rooting out immigration fraud,” said Edlow. He said previously the agency was stymied by how far it could take cases because they eventually had to turn them over to another agency for prosecution. 

Edlow said there would be a “couple hundred” of the officers to start, but put it in the context of the “thousands upon thousands” of other staff that the agency has to adjudicate benefits.

The agency’s role in verifying voter rolls

The Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements program was created in 1987 as a way for various government agencies to check whether someone is eligible for public benefits.

Edlow said his agency has been working with the Social Security Administration to make it easier for states and local governments to access. They can now access the system using a Social Security number or the last four digits of one, instead of needing a specific Homeland Security identifying number that most of them didn’t have. And they can submit a number of requests at the same time as opposed to one at a time.

Edlow also said USCIS is also entering into agreements with secretaries of state so they can use the system to verify their voter rolls in what he said was a bid to counter voter fraud.

Critics have questioned the reliability of the data and whether people will be erroneously dropped from voter rolls as well as whether their privacy is being protected.

Edlow says the agency has a “huge team” to verify the information is accurate….

Source: Top US immigration official defends rule targeting ‘anti-American’ views in green card, visa process

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33 million voters have been run through a Trump administration citizenship check

2025/09/11 Leave a comment

Valid concerns:

Tens of millions of voters have had their citizenship status and other information checked using a revamped tool offered by the Trump administration, even as many states — led by both Democrats and Republicans — are refusing or hesitating to use it because of outstanding questions about the system.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) says election officials have used the tool to check the information of more than 33 million voters — a striking portion of the American public, considering little information has been made public about the tool’s accuracy or data security.

The latest update to the system, known as SAVE, took effect Aug. 15 and allows election officials to use just the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers — along with names and dates of birth — to check if the voters are U.S. citizens, or if they have died.

Source: 33 million voters have been run through a Trump administration citizenship check

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Immigration Raid on Hyundai-LG Plant in Georgia Rattles South Korea

2025/09/08 Leave a comment

Korea negotiated release of the workers but short and long-term damage to USA as safe country for investment will increase:

The United States has for years pressured South Korea to invest billions of dollars in American industry, a push that has only increased over the last few months.

That made it all the more shocking for South Koreans when they learned that U.S. immigration officials had raided the construction site of a major Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia on Thursday, arresting hundreds of South Korean citizens.

U.S. officials said they had arrested 475 people during the raid, in Ellabell, Ga., because they were in the country illegally or working unlawfully. Most of them were South Korean nationals who had been sent to help finish building an electric-car battery factory, according to industry officials familiar with the project. Most, they said, were subcontractors working for the carmaker Hyundai and the battery maker LG Energy Solution, South Korean companies that share ownership of the plant.

The raid came at a sensitive time ​in trade relations​, unsettling South Korean businesses investing in the United States. Those companies face a unique problem under President Trump. While encouraging them to invest ​in the United States​, his administration has also imposed heavy tariffs and drastically tightened visa allocations, making it more difficult and costly for them to ship components and find technicians to build their factories.

The arrests left officials in Seoul reeling. Just last month, President Lee Jae-myung of South Korea met with Mr. Trump, and the two men reaffirmed their countries’ seven-decade-old alliance. They also agreed to a new broad-stroke trade deal. But officials from both sides remain engaged in tense negotiations over details of the deal, which was first announced in late July.

That uncertainty was reflected in South Korea’s shocked but subdued reaction to the raid.

The country was closely monitoring the case for clues on how the Trump administration’s immigration policy would affect the operations of South Korean industrial giants like Hyundai and LG​. Those companies have been pouring billions ​of dollars into building new factories in the United States​ under the encouragement of both governments, which seek to expand their alliance beyond military cooperation into global supply chains.

​Both Hyundai and LG said little about the raid, except that they had started their own investigations, including into the practices of their subcontractors. But the unease was highlighted when ​South Korea’s Foreign Ministry issued an unusual statement ​on Friday, conveying its “concern and regrets” to Washington.

The ministry did not elaborate, but its language appeared to reflect South Korea’s frustration with the U.S. government’s treatment of South Korean investors.

“The economic activities of our investment companies and the rights and interests of our citizens must not be unjustly violated during U.S. law enforcement proceedings,” it said….

Source: Immigration Raid on Hyundai-LG Plant in Georgia Rattles South Korea

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Boisvert: La moronisation des États-Unis

2025/09/03 Leave a comment

Sadly accurate:

« Nous aurons une annonce en septembre tel que promis, a-t-il dit dans une séance publique du cabinet Trump. Nous avons découvert que des interventions, certaines interventions causent clairement presque certainement l’autisme. »

Ce n’est pas une mince déclaration. L’autisme fait l’objet de recherches depuis des dizaines d’années. Les causes, disent les chercheurs, sont multiples. Génétiques, environnementales…

Et voilà qu’en cinq mois, des « recherches » commandées par Kennedy seraient parvenues à une percée spectaculaire.

On sait que Kennedy a déjà comparé la vaccination des enfants aux expériences menées par les nazis. On l’a vu souvent prétendre faussement que l’autisme est causé par les vaccins. On peut donc parier que les « interventions » dont il parle, et qui causent « clairement presque certainement » l’autisme, seront… les vaccins.

Le « chercheur » à l’origine de la théorie des vaccins causant l’autisme, le médecin britannique Andrew Wakefield, a été radié de son ordre professionnel. Hélas, son « étude » frauduleuse a été publiée dans The Lancet, et continue à circuler chez les antivax.

La preuve a depuis été faite et refaite qu’il n’y a aucun lien entre la vaccination et l’autisme.

Quand RFK était une simple célébrité, il causait déjà beaucoup de tort en répandant des faussetés scientifiques, de la pseudoscience et des théories du complot.

Mais maintenant, le président a nommé ce « sceptique » des vaccins, pour ne pas dire cet antivax, à la tête de la Santé. Le Sénat a confirmé sa nomination. Ce ne sont plus des opinions, qu’il émet. Ce sont des décisions.

Et parmi celles-ci, il y a le congédiement mercredi de la Dre Susan Monarez, qui venait tout juste d’être confirmée dans ses fonctions de directrice de la Santé publique, à la tête des Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Le motif ? « Insubordination ». La Dre Monarez avait simplement rappelé à RFK que les nouvelles directives sur la vaccination ne correspondaient pas aux données scientifiques. Le secrétaire a en effet décidé qu’il n’y aurait de vaccination contre la COVID-19 que pour les personnes âgées. Basé sur quoi ? Ses propres avis. Car en juin, Kennedy a foutu à la porte tous les membres du comité de consultation sur la vaccination.

De fait, les CDC ont perdu « des milliers » d’employés et la moitié de leur budget. Certains de leurs meilleurs experts en matière de maladies contagieuses sont partis.

Les États-Unis ont aussi coupé les ponts avec l’Organisation mondiale de la santé. Annulé des contrats de recherche à hauteur de 500 millions sur la technologie de l’ARN messager. En plus de comprimer massivement les budgets de recherche et les fonds universitaires. Ce n’est pas pour rien que 75 % des chercheurs américains (sondage de Nature) disent vouloir trouver du boulot à l’étranger.

Ça ne change rien pour l’instant. Mais la capacité du pays à faire face à une épidémie, une pandémie, une crise sanitaire est sérieusement affectée. Comme les États-Unis ont été un leader mondial en la matière, cela touche le monde entier. Sans parler des risques de contagion idéologique et de contagion tout court.

Ça ne change rien pour l’instant, mais il y aura des morts.

Le démantèlement de la Santé publique américaine s’ajoute à toutes les attaques frontales contre la science. Et jusqu’à la collecte de données.

La destruction volontaire de deux satellites parfaitement fonctionnels qui mesurent le taux de CO2 dans l’atmosphère s’inscrit dans le même superbe projet de rendre aux États-Unis sa grandeur par l’accroissement de l’ignorance.

Quand il a écrit The Assault on Reason (La raison assiégée), en 2007, Al Gore se plaignait de la dégradation du débat public, dominé par des émotions aux dépens des faits. Il n’avait pas imaginé qu’un jour, un président congédierait la patronne du bureau des statistiques du travail parce qu’il n’aimait pas ses données.

Même les plus grands pourfendeurs républicains du « gros gouvernement » n’ont pas voulu éradiquer les données ou nommer volontairement des super-incompétents dans des postes clés.

Le plus consternant est évidemment l’aplaventrisme du Congrès. Le sénateur républicain Bill Cassidy a déclaré jeudi qu’il veut maintenant « superviser » les CDC, vu le bordel actuel.

Ce même sénateur, un médecin, avait fait semblant d’hésiter à confirmer la nomination de RFK à la santé, vu ses déclarations sur les vaccins. Il a longuement expliqué à quel point les vaccins sauvent des vies. Mais à la fin, bien entendu, il a voté pour sa confirmation. Si une personne aurait dû savoir ce qui se tramait, c’est bien lui. Et pourtant, il a ouvert toutes grandes les portes du labo aux idéologues de RFK pour qu’ils le saccagent.

Ce n’est même plus au nom d’une volonté de « réforme » des institutions scientifiques que tout cela est entrepris. Les CDC comme les universités comme tout le gouvernement méritent des réformes et des ménages périodiques, bien entendu.

Ce à quoi on assiste, c’est carrément la destruction de ces institutions qui ont été des références d’excellence en sciences de la santé, en sciences naturelles, en économie, etc.

On a déjà prétendu que John F. Kennedy s’était entouré des meilleurs. « The Best and the Brightest. »

Aujourd’hui, c’est à la moronisation de ce grand pays qu’on assiste.

Source: La moronisation des États-Unis

“We will have an announcement in September as promised,” he said in a public session of the Trump cabinet. We have discovered that interventions, certain interventions clearly almost certainly cause autism. ”

This is not a small statement. Autism has been the subject of research for decades. The causes, the researchers say, are multiple. Genetic, environmental…

And now in five months, “research” commissioned by Kennedy would have reached a spectacular breakthrough.

It is known that Kennedy has already compared the vaccination of children to the experiments conducted by the Nazis. We have often seen him falsely claim that autism is caused by vaccines. We can therefore bet that the “interventions” he is talking about, and which “clearly almost certainly” cause autism, will be… vaccines.

The “researcher” behind the theory of autism-causing vaccines, British physician Andrew Wakefield, has been removed from his professional order. Alas, his fraudulent “study” was published in The Lancet, and continues to circulate among anti-vax.

Proof has since been made and redone that there is no link between vaccination and autism.

When RFK was a simple celebrity, he was already causing a lot of harm by spreading scientific falsehoods, pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

But now, the president has named this “skeptic” of vaccines, not to say this anti-vax, at the head of Health. The Senate confirmed his appointment. These are no longer opinions, which he expresses. These are decisions.

And among these is the dismissal on Wednesday of Dr. Susan Monarez, who had just been confirmed as Director of Public Health, at the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The reason? “Insubordination”. Dr. Monarez had simply reminded RFK that the new vaccination guidelines did not correspond to the scientific data. The secretary has indeed decided that there would only be vaccination against COVID-19 for the elderly. Based on what? His own opinions. Because in June, Kennedy kicked out all the members of the vaccination consultation committee.

In fact, the CDC has lost “thousands” of employees and half of their budget. Some of their best infectious disease experts are gone.

The United States has also cut ties with the World Health Organization. Cancelled 500 million research contracts on messenger RNA technology. In addition to massively compressing research budgets and university funds. It is not for nothing that 75% of American researchers (Nature survey) say they want to find a job abroad.

It doesn’t change anything for now. But the country’s ability to deal with an epidemic, a pandemic, a health crisis is seriously affected. As the United States has been a world leader in this area, it affects the whole world. Not to mention the risks of ideological contagion and contagion altogether.

It doesn’t change anything for now, but there will be deaths.

The dismantling of American Public Health is in addition to all the frontal attacks against science. And up to data collection.

The voluntary destruction of two perfectly functional satellites that measure the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is part of the same superb project to restore the greatness to the United States by increasing ignorance.

When he wrote The Assault on Reason, in 2007, Al Gore complained of the degradation of public debate, dominated by emotions at the expense of facts. He had not imagined that one day a president would fire the boss of the labor statistics office because he did not like her data.

Even the biggest Republican slitters of the “big government” did not want to eradicate the data or voluntarily appoint super-incompetents in key positions.

The most appalling thing is obviously the aplaventrism of the Congress. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy said Thursday that he now wants to “supervise” the CDC, given the current mess.

This same senator, a doctor, had pretended to be hesitant to confirm the appointment of RFK to health, given his statements on vaccines. He explained at length how vaccines save lives. But in the end, of course, he voted for his confirmation. If a person should have known what was brewing, it was him. And yet, he opened the doors of the laboratory wide to RFK ideologists so that they could vandalish him.

It is no longer even in the name of a desire to “reform” scientific institutions that all this is undertaken. The CDC as well as the universities as the whole government deserve reforms and periodic households, of course.

What we are witnessing is the destruction of these institutions that have been references of excellence in health sciences, natural sciences, economics, etc.

It has already been claimed that John F. Kennedy had surrounded himself with the best. “The Best and the Brightest. ”

Today, we are witnessing the moronization of this great country.

Filed under Government, Trump administration Tagged with ,

French:The Corporate Logo That Broke the Internet

2025/09/02 Leave a comment

The usual distraction and “flood the zone” tactics by the Trump administration and its enablers:

…The process of stoking outrage has another effect: It crowds out the news cycle. Most Democrats I know would be shocked at how little the average Republican knows about Trump’s actual conduct and his actual wrongdoing. Republicans can, however, cite chapter and verse about left-wing outrages and left-wing overreactions to Trump.

That creates a reality where they simply can’t conceive of how any reasonable, rational person would vote Democratic or oppose the president and his policies.

The Sweeney and Cracker Barrel stories highlight the new right’s theory of change. It sees the social liberalization of America as primarily an elite-driven phenomenon. According to this narrative, the left seized the most powerful institutions of American life and then imposed its delusional and unnatural ideas from the top down, in part through shaming, fear and bullying.

The solution, then, is obvious. Either seize or destroy left-dominated institutions, replace them with right-dominated institutions and elites and then impose conservative values on society, if necessary, through the same intolerant means.

This is why you see some figures on the right turning even to Marxists, such as Antonio Gramsci, to inspire them to “cultural hegemony.”

In this version of the right, cancel culture is only a problem if you’re not the one doing the canceling. The conservative argument for liberty for all is replaced by a populist will to power, one so all-consuming that it exercises veto power over corporate logo redesigns it does not like.

At the moment, MAGA’s cultural power is on the rise, but it’s ultimately on a fool’s errand. Can anyone look at the history of the last 10 years and say that bullying or intolerance helped the left? Or is it more accurate to say that the worst excesses of left-wing cancel culture helped trigger the public reaction that ushered MAGA back into power?

MAGA’s intolerance won’t fare any better. Constant outrage is energizing, at least for a while, for partisans and activists. It’s exhausting for everyone else. The more that MAGA tries to bully America, the more resentment it will build. Bullies only win for a while, and when the backlash to the backlash comes, MAGA will have only itself to blame.

Source: The Corporate Logo That Broke the Internet

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Davis: When citizenship becomes a test and the tester is morally bankrupt

2025/08/29 Leave a comment

Strong and largely valid critique:

In August, journalist Mirandaa Jeyaretnam of TIME reported the Trump administration had expanded its definition of “good moral character” for citizenship applicants. The new policy directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to apply a “holistic” standard that screens not just for criminal history, but for subjective notions of “anti-Americanism,” including applicants’ social media posts, political opinions and community affiliations.

USCIS even stated that “America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies.” It is an extraordinary claim — not because citizenship should be cheapened, but because the arbiter is a president whose own moral record is anything but exemplary.

How can a leader with such a fractured moral compass sit in judgment of immigrants’ character? Worse, how can we allow the immigration system — long a pillar of America’s identity — to be transformed into an ideological loyalty test?

The return of the ‘Test’

This is not the first time America has demanded citizens prove their worthiness through arbitrary exams. History offers chilling parallels:

  1. Literacy tests — Introduced across the Jim Crow South, these tests were ostensibly neutral but were weaponized against Black Americans. Registrars could pass or fail applicants at will, asking absurd questions such as “How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?” The intent was clear: Disenfranchisement.
  2. Poll taxes — The requirement to pay a tax before voting disproportionately excluded Black citizens and poor whites. The 24th Amendment (1964) finally outlawed poll taxes in federal elections, and the U.S. Supreme Court extended the ban nationwide.
  3. The Boswell Amendment (1946, Alabama) — This law required prospective voters to “understand and explain” any section of the U.S. Constitution. Of course, registrars decided whether explanations were “good enough.” In Schnell v. Davis (1949), the Supreme Court struck it down, citing its discriminatory intent.

Each of these so-called “tests” was justified in the language of fairness, education or public order. In practice, they served to exclude people deemed undesirable by those in power. Today’s expanded “good moral character” standard belongs to this lineage of exclusionary devices. It is not about uplifting the nation; it is about narrowing it.

What ‘good moral character’ really means

For decades, USCIS has required naturalization applicants to show “good moral character.” Traditionally, this meant avoiding disqualifying offenses such as murder, aggravated felonies or repeated convictions. It was clear, factual and rooted in law.

“Under the Trump administration’s new directive, morality itself is being redefined.”

But under the Trump administration’s new directive, morality itself is being redefined. Applicants must not only avoid crime but also prove they possess “positive attributes,” such as stable employment, civic engagement and tax compliance. Officers are now instructed to weighconduct that may be “technically lawful” but still contrary to “average citizens’ behavior” in a given community.

That’s not a test of law — it’s a test of conformity.

And then comes the most troubling expansion: Screening for “anti-Americanism.” USCIS says it will investigate applicants’ support for “anti-American ideologies,” including antisemitism or pro-terrorist views. On paper, such goals sound defensible. But in practice, the term “anti-American” is undefined. Already, critics have documented how it has been applied to pro-Palestinian student activists, journalists and even lawful visa holders.

According to TIME, the Stanford Daily student newspaper has sued the administration, arguing the policy constitutes “thoughtcrime” and stifles free speech. As one immigration attorney put it: “Anyone who has any position that is against what the American government says they should think, they’re immediately labeled ‘anti-American.’”

The irony of the judge

This would be troubling under any administration. But under President Donald Trump, it is laced with bitter irony.

Here is a president who:

  • Attempted to overturn an election result through false claims of fraud
  • Was twice impeached — once for abuse of power and once for inciting an insurrection
  • Faces multiple indictments for fraud, obstruction and conspiracy over 30,000 lies during his first presidency alone
  • Publicly mocked military veterans, immigrants and even his own cabinet
  • Has more than 30 felonies on his criminal record

And yet, he presumes to sit in judgment of others’ “moral character”? The absurdity cannot be overstated. Yet it’s only a glorious supernatural happening when many don’t see or fail to observe righteously these ungodly offenses.

A president who courts authoritarian leaders abroad, flouts norms at home and has a decades-long record of dishonesty is now dictating the morality of immigrants whose greatest offense may be criticizing American foreign policy online.

This is not moral leadership. It is moral theater — a dangerous masquerade.

Citizenship as ‘privilege’ vs. citizenship as right

USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser declared: “Immigration benefits — including to live and work in the United States — remain a privilege, not a right.”

“Citizenship is not meant to be a privilege reserved for the elite or the ideologically pure.”

But history tells us otherwise. Birthright citizenship, enshrined in the 14th Amendment, was born out of the ashes of slavery. It was designed to guarantee full belonging to those once denied it. Citizenship is not meant to be a privilege reserved for the elite or the ideologically pure. It is a right grounded in America’s founding principle: equality before the law.

Trump already has tried to end birthright citizenship, raising alarms about dismantling constitutional guarantees. He has suggested denaturalizing U.S. citizens — even floating the idea of stripping Elon Musk of citizenship. A Justice Department memo in June directed officials to “maximize denaturalization proceedings.”

Imagine the precedent: Citizenship not as permanent, but as conditional — contingent on loyalty to a president’s worldview. What about Trump’s wife? Melania Trump’s immigration status (born Melanija Knavs of Slovenia) is that she came here on a work visa (an H-1B type and a green card) becoming a citizen in 2006. This is how the Einstein visa applies to a model?

That is not democracy. That is authoritarianism.

The slippery slope of ‘anti-Americanism’

The new directive makes “anti-Americanism” an “overwhelmingly negative factor.” Yet who defines “anti-American”?

Is criticizing U.S. foreign policy anti-American? What about supporting racial justice protests or writing a critical op-ed? Is being pro-Palestinian anti-American? The administration already has pledged to deport pro-Hamas students, conflating political dissent with terrorism.

By this logic, dissent itself becomes disloyalty. But dissent always has been America’s heartbeat — from abolitionists to suffragists to civil rights leaders.

If this policy had been in place in the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. — once accused of being a communist sympathizer — might have failed the test.

Lessons from history

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 abolished literacy tests, poll taxes and “understanding clauses” because they were subjective and discriminatory. They handed local officials the power to deny rights arbitrarily.

Today, USCIS officers hold similar discretion over immigrants’ futures. They can now decide not just whether an applicant obeys the law, but whether they “fit in.” That is not the rule of law — it is the rule of bias.

The same danger applies: selective enforcement, prejudice cloaked in procedure and systemic exclusion.

The real moral test

The true test of America’s character is not whether immigrants love us enough. It is whether we, as a nation, love our ideals enough to uphold them consistently.

If we allow subjective morality tests to dictate citizenship, we betray the very principles we claim to defend. We risk turning citizenship from a shield of equality into a weapon of conformity.

In the end, the question is not whether immigrants meet Trump’s definition of “good moral character.” The question is whether America can survive leaders who confuse moral judgment with political control.

Because when citizenship becomes a test — and the tester is morally bankrupt — it’s not immigrants who fail. It’s us.

Edmond W. Davis is a social historian, speaker, collegiate professor, international journalist and former director of the Derek Olivier Research Institute. He is an expert on various historical and emotional intelligence topics. He’s globally known for his work as a researcher regarding the history of the Tuskegee Airmen and Airwomen. He’s the founder of America’s first and only National HBCU Black Wall Street Career Fest.                                                  

Source: When citizenship becomes a test and the tester is morally bankrupt

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USCIS Resumes Neighborhood Checks for Citizenship Applicants

2025/08/29 Leave a comment

Further erosion and reversals. Likely those targeted will reflect minorities also targeted by ICE:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will once again conduct in-person “neighborhood checks” as part of the citizenship process, ending a decades-old waiver of the practice.

In a policy memo dated August 22 and released publicly on Tuesday, the agency said officers may now interview neighbors, coworkers, or employers of naturalization applicants to confirm eligibility for U.S. citizenship. The move restores a practice last used under the George H.W. Bush administration, more than 30 years ago.

What Naturalization Applicants Need to Know

Under the updated policy, USCIS officers will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to conduct a neighborhood investigation. These investigations could include reviewing testimonial letters or, in some cases, speaking directly with people who know the applicant.

This change ends the 34-year blanket waiver that applied to all cases. Instead, officers will now make decisions on a case-by-case basis. If an applicant provides strong supporting evidence up front, officers may still choose to waive the neighborhood investigation.

“The challenge is that officers now have wide discretion but little guidance,” said Erik Finch, a former USCIS officer and Boundless director of global operations. “Without clear standards, two applicants with nearly identical cases could face very different levels of scrutiny.”

In the memo, USCIS encourages applicants to submit testimonial letters from neighbors, employers, or community members. If the agency requests additional evidence and the applicant doesn’t provide it, officers may move forward with a neighborhood check, which could cause delays.

Historical Context

Neighborhood investigations aren’t new. For much of U.S. history, applicants had to bring witnesses who could testify about their character. Later, officers sometimes carried out neighborhood checks themselves. The practice was discontinued entirely in 1991, when the agency’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), stopped using them.

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said in a statement the move protects the integrity of the naturalization process.

“Americans should be comforted knowing that USCIS is taking seriously its responsibility to ensure aliens are being properly vetted and are of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well-disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States,” Edlow said.

Neighborhood Checks: What to Expect Now

  • When USCIS May Apply It: Officers will make decisions individually. If your application clearly shows continuous residence and good moral character, USCIS may waive the check. If questions arise, a neighborhood investigation is more likely.
  • How to Prepare: Submitting testimonial letters with your application may help USCIS determine an investigation isn’t needed. Preparing this evidence early can reduce delays.
  • Possible Delays:USCIS staff reductions and new vetting requirements may slow down the naturalization process.

What Employers Should Know

USCIS has said neighborhood investigations may include contacting an applicant’s workplace. That could mean interviewing employers, managers, or coworkers to confirm details about the applicant’s character and eligibility.

Employers don’t need to prepare special documents in advance, but it’s helpful to be aware of this possibility. If contacted by USCIS, you should be ready to confirm basic information such as dates of employment and the applicant’s role.

Bottom Line

For most applicants, the naturalization process will look the same, but USCIS now has the option to conduct neighborhood investigations. Preparing strong evidence up front may help avoid extra steps and delays.

Source: USCIS Resumes Neighborhood Checks for Citizenship Applicants

Filed under Citizenship, Trump administration Tagged with

Thompson: Trump’s attempt to control the Smithsonian is an attempt to control the narrative of America

2025/08/23 Leave a comment

Another sign of division, ignorance and decline…

…Mr. Trump accused the nation’s museums of becoming too “woke,” presumably under the Obama and Biden administrations. But the “New Museology” tradition has a longer trajectory and was rarely led by political elites. Beginning in the 1960s, cultural institutions were pushed by social movements to confront whose histories they highlight and whose they erase. What followed was not a top-down, coordinated political agenda, but rather a slow, uneven shift in the professional practice of curators, as civil society demanded a rethinking of what is considered part of the canon and a reckoning with what it means for cultural institutions to truly represent the nation and its complicated, often violent history. 

It is often said that history is written by the victors. In his 1995 book Silencing the Past, Michel-Rolph Trouillot argues that collective memory is not fixed; it is forged. National narratives are curated through a malleable process shaped as much by remembrance and reverence as erasure and forgetting. Over the past few decades, progressives have found ways to revise national stories to include those who were once marginalized and excluded. Conservatives now seek to do the same, but with the added force of the presidency, able to swiftly, decisively, unilaterally dismantle changes that were never truly hegemonic to begin with. 

Yet national museums, libraries, archives, and performing arts centres remain the capillaries of state power. They are neither the beginning nor the end of the cultural sphere, which has long been animated most auspiciously by those on the margins. As Richard Iton wrote in his 2008 book, In Search of the Black Fantastic, when the excluded were locked out of legislatures, banks and bureaucracies, they instead infiltrated and redefined the realm of popular culture, creating vibrant counter-publics that operate alongside, against, and often in subterfuge of the formal political sphere. 

There will always be efforts to control the narrative of the American nation – through curricula, history books, university campuses, museums, monuments, and even the names of mountains. Sometimes they will succeed, but never fully. When folks on the margins were written out of the official histories of the nation, we told our own stories in our own ways, and those stories survived to bear witness to a resurgence. Art lives in the realm of ideas, discourse, culture and identity: powerful, collective forces that cannot be eliminated by presidential decree. 

Source: Trump’s attempt to control the Smithsonian is an attempt to control the narrative of America

Filed under Historical Recognition, Multiculturalism, Trump administration Tagged with ,

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