
The End of Airport Shoe-Screening
The TSA's mandate to go shoeless, like the volume limit on toiletry items (to thwart the assembly of explosives from liquids) and the need to remove laptops from carry-on bags (to better examine them for hidden threats), came to give the mere appearance of vigilance: not security but security theater. From the start, it provided newly federalized and uniformed TSA agents with stuff to do at every moment, and government officials with the chance to embrace 'an abundance of caution,' a stock idea that can transform almost any inconvenience into leadership. Now, by closing the curtain on the shoe requirements, Noem has indulged in a rival form of spectacle: populism theater. Her new policy gives citizens something they actually want, and something that has until this point been reserved for upscale travelers who pay for premium airport-security-hopping services. But with this week's change, the system hasn't really been democratized so much as made indifferent. In this case, the fact of the TSA's doing less—and caring less—just happens to be helpful.
In its earliest phase, the shoe-removal policy was applied haphazardly, showing up from time to time and terminal to terminal in response to ever-shifting, secret intelligence on terrorist threats tracked by the Department of Homeland Security. Where the new form of screening was in place, it served not only to avert future shoe bombs but also to speed up the queue. Metal detectors had been tuned to be more sensitive, and the metal shank inside the soles of many shoes, installed to provide support, often set them off. (In response, some major footwear brands, including Rockport and Timberland, rushed out lines of shoes with plastic shanks that were marketed as being ' security friendly.')
By the summer of 2003, the policy had become more formalized; the TSA started 'strongly' recommending that all passengers everywhere remove their shoes, or else risk being subject to a secondary screening. Speaking to The New York Times, a TSA representative said this new approach would 'ensure that the experience you have in one airport is similar to the experience you have in another airport coast to coast.' Three years later, the policy of universal urging was made into a hard rule: Now your shoes had to come off, no matter what.
Although footwear checks applied to all in principle, some individuals—especially those deemed suspicious on the basis of their looks, or who evinced anxiety —were getting more aggressive treatment from the screeners. The system seemed unfair for some, and also far too burdensome for everyone. Why couldn't some new and better form of scanner be invented, one that could spot a shoe explosive even as the wearer stood there? Would Americans be padding across the gross airport floors forever, just because of Richard Reid?
Better technology should have been the answer. In the decade after 9/11, tech firms completely reinvented everyday life: Web search, broadband, mobile telephony, e-commerce, smartphones, social networking, and real-time document collaboration all became routine. Back in 2002, many travelers would not have had so much as a flip phone in their carry-ons; 10 years later, most were toting handheld supercomputers. Yet when it came to building new devices for screening shoes, very little was accomplished. DHS spent millions of dollars in an effort to buy or subcontract the development of next-generation scanners that could avert sole-borne risks in airports, to no avail. (During this time, airport screening's most significant innovation was the gray plastic bin into which you might hurl your pumps, boots, or loafers.) Shoe removal would 'be a part of air travel for the foreseeable future,' a TSA spokesperson somberly announced in 2012, after another four experimental scanners had failed in real-world testing.
But a different way to solve the problem also started to emerge that summer: It turned out just to be money. The privately operated Clear service was launched in airports, giving travelers willing to pay a couple of hundred dollars a year and hand over their biometrics the ability to shortcut the screening line. And when the government's own pay-for-comfort airport-security service, TSA PreCheck, rolled out widely in 2013, enrollees could finally forgo the lingering inconvenience of taking off their shoes. PreCheck also let them keep their laptops packed and their toiletries inside their bags. For a time, airline flyers with elite status got special access to both PreCheck and Clear.
This would be right in line with other trends of the early 2010s, when the VIP experience was being sold in a thousand different ways. Pay-to-play became a way of life. It's hard to remember anymore, but before ride-hailing apps were available for nearly everyone, private cars were associated with late-night talk-show guests and people being shuttled to airports directly after giving conference keynotes. The precursors to the modern smartphone, such as the BlackBerry, were originally made for important executives before everyone adopted the air of importance. Since then, the whole economy has shifted upmarket. Those with money can now buy online memberships that get them tables at restaurants or tickets to shows whenever they want. Even Disneyland lets you pay to skip ahead in line.
Trading cash for the right to get through airport security with your shoes on prefigured all this and made it visible for everyone to see. Being in the TSA PreCheck queue not only gave you quick, shod access to the terminal; it also offered a perch from which to look down on the rabble nearby, stripped down to their socks and belt loops, presenting their shampoos and ointments, and unsheathing their electronics. What a bunch of losers, frequent fliers might think, before ascending to the airline club in their Lobbs or Louboutins.
It's surely long past time to broaden out this special privilege and to stop demanding that every other person among the 1 billion annual air passengers in the United States take off their shoes because one guy tried to hide a bomb in his sneakers a quarter century ago. But the termination of the policy does not feel justified by any new development in science, technology, intelligence, or geopolitics. In announcing the change, Noem gave no satisfying explanation. She said only that it was enabled by the presence of 'multi-layers of screening,' new scanners, more personnel, and Real ID —a nationwide identification system that was ginned up by Congress 20 years ago and somehow still has not been fully implemented.
By all appearances, the rule on shoes was not rescinded just because rescinding it happens to make sense. Rather, the change was made because the terror-hardened discipline of the millennium's beginning has finally, fully been replaced by nihilism. These days, you board a plane that might or might not be flight-worthy, regulated by a shrunken-down Federal Aviation Administration, routed by an air-traffic-control system undermined by neglect and disdain. The president blamed a fatal plane collision on diversity programs, while selling access to the White House in plain view. No one seems to care. But at least you'll be able to keep your shoes on before lifting off into America's sunset.
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CNN
6 hours ago
- CNN
Exclusive: ‘A more vulnerable nation': FEMA memos lay out risks of plan to cut $1B in disaster and security grants
Federal agenciesFacebookTweetLink Follow The Federal Emergency Management Agency has proposed cutting nearly $1 billion in grant funding that communities and first responders nationwide use to better prepare for disasters and to bolster security for possible terror or cyberattacks. The proposed cuts, which still require approval from the White House budget office and Congress, would zero out funding for more than half of FEMA's emergency management and homeland security grant programs, according to internal memos and two FEMA officials familiar with the plans. This comes amid an overhaul of the disaster relief agency at the hands of the Trump administration, which seeks to drastically shrink FEMA's footprint and shift more responsibility for disaster preparedness, response and recovery onto states. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, has looked at slashing grant funding as part of that effort. In one memo signed by acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson, the cuts are described as a way to 'focus on appropriate spending for the Agency's core mission in emergency management.' But the memos – signed by Richardson and approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem – also acknowledge in stark terms the potential risks of eliminating the programs. The loss of one program that helps communities plan and train for disasters would 'leave state and local governments more vulnerable to catastrophic incidents,' one memo states. Ending another that bolsters transportation infrastructure and terrorism protections would 'contradict the administration's commitment to a safer and more secure country,' the memo says. Terminating the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) – the largest FEMA program on the chopping block, providing more than $500 million to prepare major cities for catastrophic emergencies – would create 'a less secure nation, especially at the border and in some of the nation's most targeted cities, including Miami, Washington DC, and Dallas,' the memo states. The agency also plans to eliminate funding for the Next Generation Warning System initiative, which is designed to modernize and improve the nation's public alert and warning capabilities for severe storms and other emergencies, after pausing the program earlier this year. According to the memo, FEMA staff had suggested that instead of terminating the program, the money could be allocated 'to high-risk flooding areas including Texas and New Mexico.' But Richardson signed off on eliminating it earlier this month. Among the other impacts from the potential cuts, as outlined by FEMA, would be 'undertrained firefighters,' 'poor wildfire readiness,' more risk at '120 critical United States ports' and less homeland security training for cities hosting World Cup games. Axing another program 'could increase the risk of terror attacks on passenger rail,' the memo says, and cutting off a violence and terrorism prevention program 'results in a more vulnerable nation.' DHS said the memos referenced in this story are 'cherry-picked,' but acknowledged the department is looking to cut 'unaccountable programs.' 'Secretary Noem and this Administration are focused on ending waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government - and FEMA is no exception,' a DHS spokesman said in a statement to CNN. 'For years, taxpayer dollars have flowed to bloated grants, political pet projects, and groups with questionable ties. That ends now.' This comes after FEMA shut down the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, halting more than $600 million intended to help communities prepare for natural disasters, prompting 20 states to sue the agency. Due to the ongoing litigation, the memos state, FEMA will address the future of the BRIC program at a later date. The cuts to disaster and security grants could have wide-ranging consequences for communities that depend on these funds. The National League of Cities, an advocacy group representing cities, towns and villages across the US, 'strongly opposes' the proposed cuts, according to a statement provided to CNN by a spokesperson. 'Reducing or eliminating these programs would severely undermine the preparedness of our first responders and compromise the ability of local governments to effectively ensure the core capabilities necessary for prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery efforts,' the NLC spokesperson wrote. Congress allocated a total of more than $4 billion this fiscal year for FEMA to support these national preparedness programs, which state and local governments, emergency management agencies, and fire and police departments depend on for essential staffing, equipment, and training. But in recent months, the disaster relief agency, at the direction of DHS, has largely halted the selection of new grant recipients so it could review the programs. That has left emergency managers across the country waiting for FEMA to issue Notices of Funding Opportunities, or NOFOs, which allow local jurisdictions and organizations to apply for grants and are now more than two months behind schedule. 'We've been ghosted by FEMA,' a North Carolina official recently told CNN, expressing frustration over the lack of guidance on whether states can expect funding in the coming months. Now federal and state emergency managers are increasingly concerned that large portions of this year's funds will go unspent, as the funding streams expire unless allocated by the end of September. At a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Richardson told concerned lawmakers, 'We're getting the NOFOs out the door as we speak.' The acting FEMA chief did not mention the looming cuts he had authorized in the memo he signed days before the hearing, though he criticized the agency's grant programs. 'A lot of the grants sound good, and then you dig into them, and they're not so good,' Richardson said, citing resilience projects 'used for things like bike paths and shade at bus stops.' During Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat, pressed Richardson about the status of UASI funding, emphasizing its importance for protecting Las Vegas from potential terror threats. Richardson responded: 'What I can commit to is that we've been doing due diligence on all of the grants.' He did not mention the program's potential termination. Responding to CNN's new reporting Thursday, Titus said the plan to cut UASI is 'deeply irresponsible and endangers our public safety.' 'These grants played a significant role in the response to the Harvest Festival shootings and are critical to protecting the public in all major cities and at big events such as the Super Bowl, Formula One races, and golf tournaments,' Titus said in a statement to CNN. 'I implore Secretary Noem to administer these public safety grants as Congress directed and ensure that our first responders and emergency personnel have the tools they need to address future threats in our communities.'

Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Trump says he's deporting the ‘worst of the worst.' What is really happening?
They called them the 'worst of the worst.' For more than a month and a half, the Trump administration has posted a barrage of mugshots of L.A. undocumented immigrants with long rap sheets. Officials have spotlighted Cuong Chanh Phan, a 49-year-old Vietnamese man convicted in 1997 of second-degree murder for his role in slaying two teens at a high school graduation party. They have shared blurry photos on Instagram of a slew of convicted criminals such as Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez, a 55-year-old Filipino man convicted in 1996 of sexual penetration with a foreign object with force and assault with intent to commit a felony. And Eswin Uriel Castro, a Mexican convicted in 2002 of child molestation and in 2021 of assault with a deadly weapon. But the immigrants that the Department of Homeland Security showcase in X posts and news releases do not represent the majority of immigrants swept up across Los Angeles. As the number of immigration arrests in the L.A. region quadrupled from 540 in April to 2,185 in June, seven out of 10 immigrants arrested in June had no criminal conviction — a trend that immigrant advocates say belies administration claims that they are targeting 'heinous illegal alien criminals' who represent a threat to public safety. According to a Los Angeles Times analysis of ICE data from the Deportation Data Project, the proportion of immigrants without criminal convictions arrested in seven counties in and around L.A. has skyrocketed from 35% in April, to 46% in May, and to 69% from June 1 to June 26. Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University who specializes in immigration enforcement, said the Trump administration was not being entirely honest about the criminal status of those they were arresting. Officials, he said, followed a strategy of focusing on the minority of violent convicted criminals so they could justify enforcement policies that are proving to be less popular. 'I think they know that if they were honest with the American public that they're arresting people who cook our food, wash dishes in the kitchen, take care of people in nursing homes, people who are just living in part of the community … there's a large segment of the public, including a large segment of Trump's own supporters, who would be uncomfortable and might even oppose those kinds of immigration practices.' In Los Angeles, the raids swept up garment worker Jose Ortiz, who worked 18 years at the Ambiance Apparel clothing warehouse in downtown L.A., before being nabbed in a June 6 raid; car wash worker Jesus Cruz, a 52-year-old father who was snatched on June 8 — just before his daughter's graduation — from Westchester Hand Wash; and Emma De Paz, a recent widow and tamale vendor from Guatemala who was arrested June 19 outside a Hollywood Home Depot. Such arrests may be influencing the public's perception of the raids. Multiple polls show support for Trump's immigration agenda slipping as masked federal agents increasingly swoop up undocumented immigrants from workplaces and streets. ICE data shows that about 31% of the immigrants arrested across the L.A. region from June 1 to June 26 had criminal convictions, 11% had pending criminal charges and 58% were classified as 'other immigration violator,' which ICE defines as 'individuals without any known criminal convictions or pending charges in ICE's system of record at the time of the enforcement action.' The L.A. region's surge in arrests of noncriminals has been more dramatic than the U.S. as a whole: Arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions climbed nationally from 57% in April to 69% in June. Federal raids here have also been more fiercely contested in Southern California — particularly in L.A. County, where more than 2 million residents are undocumented or living with undocumented family members. 'A core component of their messaging is that this is about public safety, that the people that they are arresting are threats to their communities,' said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. 'But it's hard to maintain that this is all about public safety when you're going out and arresting people who are just going about their lives and working.' Trump never said he would arrest only criminals. Almost as soon as he retook office on Jan. 20, Trump signed a stack of executive orders aimed at drastically curbing immigration. The administration then moved to expand arrests from immigrants who posed a security threat to anyone who entered the country illegally. Yet while officials kept insisting they were focused on violent criminals, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a warning: 'That doesn't mean that the other illegal criminals who entered our nation's borders are off the table.' As White House chief advisor on border policy Tom Homan put it: 'If you're in the country illegally, you got a problem.' Still, things did not really pick up until May, when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered ICE's top field officials to shift to more aggressive tactics: arresting undocumented immigrants, whether or not they had a criminal record. Miller set a new goal: arresting 3,000 undocumented people a day, a quota that immigration experts say is impossible to reach by focusing only on criminals. 'There aren't enough criminal immigrants in the United States to fill their arrest quotas and to get millions and millions of deportations, which is what the president has explicitly promised,' Bier said. 'Immigration and Customs Enforcement says there's half a million removable noncitizens who have criminal convictions in the United States. Most of those are nonviolent: traffic, immigration offenses. It's not millions and millions.' By the time Trump celebrated six months in office, DHS boasted that the Trump administration had already arrested more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants. '70% of ICE arrests,' the agency said in a news release, 'are individuals with criminal convictions or charges.' But that claim no longer appeared to be true. While 78% of undocumented immigrants arrested across the U.S. in April had a criminal conviction or faced a pending charge, that number had plummeted to 57% in June. In L.A., the difference between what Trump officials said and the reality on the ground was more stark: Only 43% of those arrested across the L.A. region had criminal convictions or faced a pending charge. Still, ICE kept insisting it was 'putting the worst first.' As stories circulate across communities about the arrests of law-abiding immigrants, there are signs that support for Trump's deportation agenda is falling. A CBS/YouGov poll published July 20 shows about 56% of those surveyed approved of Trump's handling of immigration in March, but that dropped to 50% in June and 46% in July. About 52% of poll respondents said the Trump administration is trying to deport more people than expected. When asked who the Trump administration is prioritizing for deporting, only 44% said 'dangerous criminals.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have repeatedly accused Trump of conducting a national experiment in Los Angeles. 'The federal government is using California as a playground to test their indiscriminate actions that fulfill unsafe arrest quotas and mass detention goals,' Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom told The Times. 'They are going after every single immigrant, regardless of whether they have a criminal background and without care that they are American citizens, legal status holders and foreign-born, and even targeting native-born U.S. citizens.' When pressed on why ICE is arresting immigrants who have not been convicted or are not facing pending criminal charges, Trump administration officials tend to argue that many of those people have violated immigration law. 'ICE agents are going to arrest people for being in the country illegally,' Homan told CBS News earlier this month. 'We still focus on public safety threats and national security threats, but if we find an illegal alien in the process of doing that, they're going to be arrested too.' Immigration experts say that undermines their message that they are ridding communities of people who threaten public safety. 'It's a big backtracking from 'These people are out killing people, raping people, harming them in demonstrable ways,' to 'This person broke immigration law in this way or that way,'' Bier said. The Trump administration is also trying to find new ways to target criminals in California. It has threatened to withhold federal funds to California due to its 'sanctuary state' law, which limits county jails from coordinating with ICE except in cases involving immigrants convicted of a serious crime or felonies such as murder, rape, robbery or arson. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department requested California counties, including L.A., provide data on all jail inmates who are not U.S. citizens in an effort to help federal immigration agents prioritize those who have committed crimes. 'Although every illegal alien by definition violates federal law,' the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release, 'those who go on to commit crimes after doing so show that they pose a heightened risk to our Nation's safety and security.' As Americans are bombarded with dueling narratives of good vs. bad immigrants, Kocher believes the question we have to grapple with is not 'What does the data say?' Instead, we should ask: 'How do we meaningfully distinguish between immigrants with serious criminal convictions and immigrants who are peacefully living their lives?' 'I don't think it's reasonable, or helpful, to represent everyone as criminals — or everyone as saints,' Kocher said. 'Probably the fundamental question, which is also a question that plagues our criminal justice system, is whether our legal system is capable of distinguishing between people who are genuine public safety threats and people who are simply caught up in the bureaucracy.' The data, Kocher said, show that ICE is currently unable or unwilling to make that distinction. 'If we don't like the way that the system is working, we might want to rethink whether we want a system where people who are simply living in the country following laws, working in their economy, should actually have a pathway to stay,' Kocher said. 'And the only way to do that is actually to change the laws.' In the rush to blast out mugshots of some of the most criminal L.A. immigrants, the Trump administration left out a key part of the story. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, its staff notified ICE on May 5 of Veneracion's pending release after he had served nearly 30 years in prison for the crimes of assault with intent to commit rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object with force. But ICE failed to pick up Veneracion and canceled its hold on him May 19, a day before he was released on parole. A few weeks later, as ICE amped up its raids, federal agents arrested Veneracion on June 7 at the ICE office in L.A. The very next day, DHS shared his mugshot in a news release titled 'President Trump is Stepping Up Where Democrats Won't.' The same document celebrated the capture of Phan, who served nearly 25 years in prison after he was convicted of second-degree murder. CDCR said the Board of Parole Hearings coordinated with ICE after Phan was granted parole in 2022. Phan was released that year to ICE custody. But those details did not stop Trump officials from taking credit for his arrest and blaming California leaders for letting Phan loose. 'It is sickening that Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass continue to protect violent criminal illegal aliens at the expense of the safety of American citizens and communities,' DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.


Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
With Manifest Destiny art, DHS goes hard on ‘white makes right'
Since the start of President Trump's second term, the Department of Homeland Security's social media team has published a stream of content worthy of a meme-slinging basement dweller on 4chan. Grainy, distorted mug shots of immigrants. Links to butt-kissing Fox News stories about MAGA anything. Whiny slams against politicians who call out la migra for treating the Constitution like a pee pad. Paeans to 'heritage' and 'homeland' worthy of Goebbels. A Thomas Kinkade painting of 1950s-era white picket fence suburbia straight out of 'Leave It to Beaver,' with the caption 'Protect the Homeland.' All of this is gag-inducing, but it has a purpose — it's revealing the racist id of this administration in real time, in case anyone was still doubtful. In June, DHS shared a poster, originally created by the white-power scene, of a grim-faced Uncle Sam urging Americans to 'report all foreign invaders' by calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On July 14, the DHS X account featured a painting of a young white couple cradling a baby in a covered wagon on the Great Plains with the caption, 'Remember your Homeland's Heritage.' When my colleague Hailey Branson-Potts asked about the pioneer painting and the Trump administration's trollish social media strategy, a White House spokesperson asked her to 'explain how deporting illegal aliens is racist,' adding that haters should 'stay mad.' Now, behold the latest DHS salvo: a July 23 X post of a 19th century painting by John Gast titled 'American Progress.' A blond white woman robed in — yep — white, with a gold star just above her forehead, floats in the center. She holds a book in her right hand and a loop of telegraph wire that her left hand trails across poles. Below her on the right side are miners, hunters, farmers, loggers, a stagecoach and trains. They rush westward, illuminated by puffy clouds and the soft glow of dawn. The angelic woman is Columbia, the historic female personification of the United States. She seems to be guiding everyone forward, toward Native Americans — bare breasted women, headdress-bedecked warriors — who are fleeing in terror along with a herd of bison and a bear with its mouth agape. It's too late, though: Covered wagon trains and a teamster wielding a whip have already encroached on their land. The white settlers are literally in the light-bathed side of the painting, while the Native Americans are shrouded in the dusky, murky side. It ain't subtle, folks! 'A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending,' DHS wrote as a caption for 'American Progress' — a mantra you may soon find printed on the $20 bill, the way this administration is going. Gast finished his painting in 1872, when the U.S. was in the last stages of conquest. The Civil War was done. White Americans were moving into the Southwest in large numbers, dispossessing the Mexican Americans who had been there for generations through the courts, squatting or outright murder. The Army was ramping up to defeat Native Americans once and for all. In the eyes of politicians, a new menace was emerging from the Pacific: mass Asian migration, especially Chinese. Scholars have long interpreted Gast's infamous work as an allegory about Manifest Destiny — that the U.S. had a God-given right to seize as much of the American continent as it could. John L. O'Sullivan, the newspaperman who coined the term in 1845, openly tied this country's expansion to white supremacy, expressing the hope that pushing Black people into Latin America, a region 'already of mixed and confused blood,' would lead to 'the ultimate disappearance of the negro race from our borders.' O'Sullivan also salivated at the idea of California leaving 'imbecile and distracted' Mexico and joining the U.S., adding, 'The Anglo-Saxon foot is already on its borders. Already the advance guard of the irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it, armed with the plough and the rifle.' This is the heritage the Trump administration thinks is worth promoting. Administration officials act shocked and offended when critics accuse them of racism, but the Trump base knows exactly what's going on. 'This is our country, and we can't let the radical left make us ashamed of our heritage,' one X user commented on the 'American Progress' post. 'Manifest Destiny was an amazing thing!' 'It's time to re-conquer the land,' another wrote. DHS seems to be vibing with the Heritage American movement, now bleeding into the conservative mainstream from its far-right beginnings. Its adherents maintain that Americans whose ancestors have been here for generations are more deserving of this nation's riches than those whose families came over within living memory. Our values, proponents say, shouldn't be based on antiquated concepts like liberty and equality but rather, the customs and traditions established by Anglo Protestants before mass immigration forever changed this country's demographics. In other words, if you're white, you're all right. If you're brown or anything else, you're probably not down. Our own vice president, JD Vance, is espousing this pendejada. In a speech to the Claremont Institute earlier this month, Vance outlined his vision of what an American is. 'America is not just an idea,' Vance told the crowd. 'We're a particular place, with a particular people, and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.' Weird — I learned in high school that people come here not because of how Americans live, but because they have the freedom to live however they want. 'If you stop importing millions of foreigners,' the vice president continued, 'you allow social cohesion to form naturally.' All those Southern and Eastern Europeans who came at the turn of the 20th century seem to have assimilated just fine, even as Appalachia's Scots-Irish — Vance's claimed ethnic affiliation — are, by his own admission, still a tribe apart after centuries of living here. Trump, Vance added, is 'ensur[ing] that the people we serve have a better life in the country their grandparents built.' I guess that excludes me, since my Mexican grandparents settled here in the autumn of their lives. The irony of elevating so-called Heritage Americans is that many in Trumpworld would seem to be excluded. First Lady Melania Trump was born in what's now Slovenia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the child of Cuban immigrants. Vance's wife's parents came here from India. The Jewish immigrant ancestor of Trump's deportation mastermind, Stephen Miller, wouldn't be allowed in these days, after arriving at Ellis Island from czarist Russia with $8 to his name. Even Gast and O'Sullivan wouldn't count as Heritage Americans by the strictest definition, since the former was Prussian and the latter was the son of Irish and English immigrants. But that's the evil genius of MAGA. Trump has proclaimed that he welcomes anyone, regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation (except for trans people), into his movement, as long as they're committed to owning the libs. Americans are so myopic about their own history, if not downright ignorant, that some minorities think they're being welcomed into the Heritage Americans fold by Vance and his ilk. No wonder a record number of voters of color, especially Latinos, jumped on the Trump train in 2024. 'American Progress' might as well replace red hats as the ultimate MAGA symbol. To them, it's not a shameful artifact; it's a road map for Americans hell-bent on turning back the clock to the era of eradication. Like I said, not a subtle message at all — if your eyes aren't shut.