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Gulf Today
a day ago
- Politics
- Gulf Today
America's anti-immigrant fever is starting to break
Patricia Lopez, Tribune News Service Despite President Donald Trump's decade-long demonization of immigrants, an overwhelming majority of Americans are rejecting his message. A new Gallup poll shows that 79% of those polled — a record high — say immigration is good for the country, with only 17% saying it is bad. And the number of Americans who want less immigration is dropping fast. Only 30% now support more restrictions, compared to 55% in 2024. These findings come against the backdrop of the cruelest crackdown on immigration in modern history and may indicate that America's anti-immigrant fever is breaking. Trump, however, just keeps doubling down. He now is on the cusp of building ICE into a domestic army with massive detention capabilities. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said this week that the public should expect more raids in more states. 'We're going to come harder and faster, and we're going to take these criminals down with even more strength than we ever have before,' she said, even though ICE's own data shows the vast majority of those arrested — 72% — have no criminal records. Perhaps that's why Americans are turning away from the notion that immigrants constitute an invading force to be repelled and removed. That shift extends to Independents and Republicans. One of the most startling findings in the Gallup poll shows that 64% of Republicans say immigration is a net benefit to the country. Just a year ago that figure stood at 39%. Only 4% of Republicans a year ago believed immigration should remain at current levels. That has now leapt to 36%. It seems unlikely that a shift of this magnitude is attributable only to GOP voters' faith in Trump; otherwise, we would probably not see a small but growing share of Republican voters saying immigration levels should be increased. Moreover, support for other Trump immigration measures is eroding, whether hiring more Border Patrol agents or building a bigger border wall. Notably, support for deportations, one of his signature campaign promises, has fallen more than 10 percentage points since 2024. Other polls have detected a similar shift. A Pew poll in June found flagging support for key Trump restrictions, suspending refugee programs, and greater approval of citizenship for those who earned it. That is affecting Trump's approval ratings on his defining issue. Gallup found that 62% of the public (and 69% of independents) disapprove of his handling of immigration, with 45% disapproving strongly. Worse still, his draconian approach is costing him his newfound support among Hispanics, who proved critical to his narrow win over Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024. Only 21% approve of his immigration policies. Hispanics make up nearly 20% of the US population, and even if Trump does not run again, members of his party will carry that burden of disapproval into the next election. Unlike crackdowns from earlier eras, social media is playing a pivotal role in this one. Trump can't control the narrative here against an endless stream of TikTok videos and Instagram Reels that show the brutal reality of roundups and raids, family separations, arrests and lockups. What is the average American to make, for instance, of videos showing agents mounted on horseback and soldiers in full tactical gear sweeping across Los Angeles' MacArthur Park on an otherwise peaceful Saturday, with a summer day camp in full swing? Or of a 57-year-old California farm worker chased by ICE agents only to fall off a greenhouse roof to his death? Or of surgical staff in Oxnard, California, seen struggling to block ICE agents' entry into their center in pursuit of the center's Honduran landscaper? Americans don't want this, even if former President Joe Biden did make his share of mistakes on immigration. Among his biggest were allowing criminals to remain at large and neglecting the crisis at the border until it reached powder keg proportions. And Trump's swift action at the border paid off — and allayed the concerns of a majority of Americans. By June, illegal border crossings had plummeted to their lowest levels since the 1960s. With the border crisis quelled, Americans are reverting to their longstanding views on immigration: They don't want to see it escalate out of control, but they do see a place for it. Polls have shown support for the basic elements of comprehensive reform: tighter borders and ports of entry, coupled with a humane approach to those who come to the US to work. Instead of taking the win, Trump's pendulum keeps swinging further to the right. Despite reports of horrific conditions at 'Alligator Alcatraz,' the tented detention camp deep in the Florida Everglades, the White House is urging states to build their own versions. Red states have responded with gusto. 'We don't have alligators, but we have lots of bears,' an official for Alaska told Fox News' Laura Ingraham. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina posted on X that her state has 'a swamp and a dream. South Carolina's gators are ready.' Such comments reflect a disturbing, ride-'em-cowboy attitude that may play to MAGA fanboys online, but is deeply out of sync with the public at large. The result is a widening gap between the indiscriminate brutality of the Trump administration's methods and what Americans are willing to tolerate. That gap will only grow larger, as will the inevitable backlash.
Gulf Today
08-07-2025
- Business
- Gulf Today
Supplemental funds: ICE doesn't need another $100 billion
Patricia Lopez, Tribune News Service One of the biggest spending items in the Republican budget bill has hardly gotten any attention: $170 billion for an unprecedented crackdown on immigration. By some calculations, it would make the annual budget of Immigration and Customs Enforcement larger than Israel's entire defense budget. The supplemental funds — to be spent over the next four years — would leave vital aspects of immigration reform unaddressed. But the funding is essential to President Donald Trump's mass deportation plans. Vice President JD Vance left little doubt of that when he posted on social media, 'Everything else — the (Congressional Budget Office) score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy — is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.' Yet according to Priorities USA, a progressive group that conducted polling on the bill in June, less than 2% of voters had heard of the tax bill's immigration provisions. The reality is that most Americans reject the harshness of mass deportations and support green cards and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who can meet the requirements. Trump has already succeeded in essentially sealing the border, with the lowest crossing levels in years. Nevertheless, this new round of funding would see the total budget for ICE skyrocket. Its current budget is about $10 billion a year; the tax bill would give it another $100 billion to spend by 2029. For comparison, the current annual budget for the entire Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is just one part, is about $108 billion a year. David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the conservative Cato Institute, told me, 'It's hard to overstate the magnitude of spending this bill would yield.' DHS, he said, would become the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country, with a budget and staffing that would dwarf those of the FBI and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. ICE's force of 6,000 agents would mushroom to 16,000. The amounts, Bier said, 'are so astronomical that they are going to be shoveling money out the door with very little oversight or checks on how it is to be spent. It's as good as a blank check.' ICE, with a previous budget of $3.43 billion for detention operations in 2024, would get $45 billion to create a 100,000-bed daily capacity. One potential model was just unveiled in Florida: the instantly notorious 'Alligator Alcatraz.' The 5,000-bed tent camp, deep in the Everglades, was slapped together in just eight days. Extra beds are a must if the administration is to hit its goals of 1 million deportations a year and 3,000 arrests per day. But when Trump says, as he did during his visit to the tent prison, that those beds would be filled with the 'worst of the worst,' the reality is that many will be farm hands, day laborers, construction workers, hotel maids and others who take the lowest-paying jobs in this economy. ICE agents have already become less particular about targets and rougher in their tactics. In June, most arrestees had no criminal records, their chief offense being crossing illegally. Then consider who will be at least nominally in charge of this potentially gargantuan scale-up: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose previous job as South Dakota governor had her administering a budget of about $7 billion. Her track record does not inspire confidence. In June, ProPublica reported that as governor in 2023, Noem secretly accepted an $80,000 cut of the money she raised for a dark money group that promoted her political career and later failed to disclose it in federal filings. Every sign here points to disaster — and the makings of a police state. Whenever this country has done large-scale roundups of immigrants for removal, those here legally, including US citizens, can find themselves ensnared and must rely on due process to extricate themselves. Earlier this month Heidi Plummer, an attorney in Orange County, California, was strolling through a park when she happened upon a raid in progress. ICE agents arrested her along with others and she was briefly detained until she could prove her identity. 'I've been going to Centennial Park my entire life,' she said at the time. 'I was in utter shock and disbelief that this could happen to any US citizen.' Job Garcia, a US citizen and delivery driver, was tackled and thrown to the ground this month during a raid at a Home Depot in Los Angeles by ICE agents and held for 24 hours, sustaining some injuries. Agents later claimed he attempted to interfere with their operations, which he denies. A Government Accountability Office report found that between 2015 and 2020, ICE arrested 674 US citizens and detained 121. Now imagine an ICE force on steroids with quotas to meet. Meanwhile, the real work of comprehensive immigration reform, so desperately needed, will once again go undone despite this historic level of funding. The asylum system needs overhauling, along with the immigration court system. So do the quotas that cap the number of immigrants that can come from each country. The reality is that the US has both a labor shortage and an aging workforce. We must also shorten the amount of time it takes to become a citizen; perhaps if it didn't take a decade, immigrants would be less tempted to cross illegally.
Deccan Herald
12-06-2025
- Business
- Deccan Herald
Trump travel ban is as pointless as his 'Muslim ban'
By Patricia Lopez President Donald Trump has resurrected the travel ban from his first term. This time, it's more expansive and better designed to withstand a judicial challenge. But it's still a solution in search of a problem — and likely to cause massive disruption for US residents with friends and family ban went into effect at the nation's airports on Monday, affecting 19 countries. Aside from a few narrow exceptions, travel from a dozen nations will be blocked: Afghanistan, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Another seven face partial restrictions: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and says Musk was 'very nice' to express regret on his posts . Although the first travel ban in 2017, aimed at Muslim-majority countries, sparked massive protests around the country, this broader ban has met with a far more muted response. That may indicate that Americans are becoming inured to Trump's xenophobic policies. Or they may be overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity on display as Trump takes the unprecedented step of sending the Marines in to quell protests unfolding in Los not clear what the administration hopes to achieve by banning visits from the poorest countries in the world. The executive order purports to 'protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats,' noting that travelers in a number of the countries overstay their visas and have governments incapable of adequate is blocking what are mostly business and tourist visas really the best solution to address such concerns? Only three countries on the list — Cuba, Iran and Syria — are considered by the US to be state sponsors of terrorism. And most terrorists in the US are home-grown. The biggest terrorist threat in the country, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is domestic. That's true even if you look only at Islamic extremist attacks.. Trump specifically cited the recent Boulder, Colorado bombing by an Egyptian national here on an expired visa as an example of why the travel ban was needed. But Egypt isn't on the list. The administration also ignores the fact that the US conducts its own extensive vetting before admitting travelers on foreign visas. That includes thorough security screenings and the collection of biometric data that can be run through national databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Vetting Center, among to the people who overstay their visas, that is a legitimate and serious problem that also has troubled previous administrations. The Center for Migration Studies estimates that 40% of unauthorized immigrants arrived not by illegally crossing borders, but on visas that have since expired. Blocking new travel from these countries, however, is an ineffective original 'Muslim ban' was halted by lower court injunctions that rightfully ruled a ban targeting a particular religion was unacceptable. Trump fought back with two more versions, until a version focusing on nations was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. He continued to broaden that list until the last year of his presidency. When President Joe Biden took office, he revoked the | Trump's new travel ban: Who is exempt. The new ban has been neatly constructed to avoid lawsuits — a triumph for an administration that has faced blue state challenges on nearly every major makes exceptions for existing visa holders and some special cases. But the special cases don't seem to have been thought through. For example, that category includes Afghan translators who worked with US troops, but not their families. It also includes the athletes, coaches and support staff for two global events scheduled to take place in Los Angeles: the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. But it makes no such exception for the thousands of fans who might be expected to pour in from those ban will be disruptive and cruel for many immigrant families nationwide. For example, Minnesota has the largest Somali refugee population in the US, along with significant refugee resettlements from Sudan and Myanmar. Habon Abdulle, the head of a Ayada Leads, a Minneapolis nonprofit serving women of the African diaspora, told the Sahan Journal, a local immigrant news outlet, that the impact would be immediate and dramatic. 'The previous travel bans left behind heartbreak — weddings missed, funerals unattended, futures put on hold,' Abdulle said. 'These are not political abstractions. These are human stories, interrupted.'Nations often must make tough decisions knowing the outcome will inflict pain. If the need is demonstrable and the strategy sound, that is the price of leadership. But this travel ban does not meet those tests.
Gulf Today
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Afghan refugees should be treated as well as S.African ones
Patricia Lopez, Tribune News Service As one of the first acts of his second term, President Donald Trump suspended the US refugee programme, not to be restarted 'until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.' Almost four months later, it is now clear which refugees align with those interests, and which do not: Prosperous, White South African farmers are allowed in, while Afghans fleeing the Taliban are not. After taking a government-chartered flight to Washington, some 60 South Africans were greeted by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and other top Trump officials. They will immediately be eligible for many resettlement benefits, including housing, food assistance and other transition aid. Trump has also promised them an expedited path to citizenship, a process that typically takes years. In February, Trump claimed that the South Africans, or Afrikaners, were fleeing 'government-sponsored, race-based discrimination' in their native country. This week, when asked at a news conference why the Afrikaners merited an exception to a programme that's been closed since Jan. 20, Trump said: 'Because they're being killed. ... It's a genocide that's taking place that you people don't want to write about.' It's ironic that Trump finds it so easy to acknowledge systemic racism in South Africa while denying its effects in the US Even worse is the administration's admission of White Afrikaners to the US, while it works to deport refugees and asylum-seekers — many of whom are not White — already in the country. As for genocide, little evidence has surfaced; according to news reports, an estimated 50 farmers, mostly Afrikaners, were killed in South Africa between January and September of 2024. It is true that a South African law, which came into effect in January, gives the government the power to confiscate property without compensation. For a real estate developer like Trump, that had to cut deeply. And surely it didn't hurt that Trump's biggest donor, South-African-born Elon Musk, made the case on the Afrikaners' behalf. Ordinarily a concern for the life, safety and property of a minority group, accompanied by a determination to cut through red tape to get them out of danger, would be cause for praise. For more than seven decades, the US has been offering people from other countries refuge from storms of chaos and violence. The problem is that Trump has 'paused' the entire US refugee admissions programme — while an estimated 130,000 conditionally approved refugees, mostly Black and brown-skinned, remain in limbo. This inequality in treatment is too obvious to ignore. So it's not surprising that the US Episcopalian Church, which has provided resettlement services for decades, said it would end its partnership with the federal government to help refugees. The church had been expected to help resettle the South Africans refugees as part of its federal grant, but the government's latest US move crossed a moral line. 'In light of our church's steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,' said the church's presiding bishop in an open letter. Perhaps no group feels the cruelty of this waiver more sharply than Afghans, many of whom worked side-by-side with US troops in America's 20-year war against the Taliban. On the day the Afrikaners were being received by a deputy secretary of state, the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Afghan refugees already in the US, and dashed the hopes of thousands more waiting to come. TPS provides protection against deportation and offers work permits to those who have it. Without it, an estimated 9,000 Afghans — some of whom have been in the US for more than three years — must leave the country within 60 days or face deportation to Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban awaits. This prospect deeply offends US service members who know what a crucial role these Afghans played. Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran, is the president of #AfghanEvac, a nonprofit group that has long worked to bring Afghans to the U.S. Van Diver did not serve in Afghanistan, but knows many who did. 'They are furious,' he said. 'Our veterans that worked with these guys are so angry right now. This country made a promise to these people. They don't understand what's going on.'
Gulf Today
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
American citizenship could soon look very different
Patricia Lopez, Tribune News Service Nearly four months into his second term, it's becoming clear that President Donald Trump's xenophobic views on immigration are reshaping what it means to become a US citizen. His vision tilts heavily toward the wealthy and well-to-do, with special shortcuts for them and barriers to entry for the rest — particularly the world's refugees and asylum seekers. There's Trump's proposal for $5 million 'gold visa' cards, the prototype of which is literally Trump's visage and Lady Liberty emblazoned on a golden rectangle. The cards would allow, in Trump's words, 'very high-level people' a 'route to citizenship.' One goal of the gold card is to cut years off the typical vetting process, producing residency in as little as two weeks. Then there are the hefty deterrents for everyone else. New and escalating fees, proposed in the GOP's House budget bill, would quickly diminish the chances of entry for lower-income immigrants or refugees. A $3,500 fee would be slapped on unaccompanied minors. Anyone seeking a work permit would have to pay $550. And asylum applications, previously free, would cost $1,000 each. Most refugees and asylum seekers arrive in the US with few possessions and even less cash. Until now, those with valid claims have depended heavily on modest federal resettlement stipends to ease their transition. And while it remains a long shot, Trump's challenge to the Constitution's promise of birthright citizenship is an important declaration by this administration that it wants to determine who can become a citizen. Trump would deny citizenship to children born to parents who are undocumented or who are here lawfully but on a temporary student or work visa. Some 2 million foreign nationals are here on such visas. Trump's case goes to the Supreme Court later this month, and depending on the outcome, a new subclass of Americans could be created — born here, but never fully belonging. Finally, there was this little-noticed move amid a flurry of other executive orders: Trump in February had the Justice Department create a Denaturalisation Section dedicated to stripping immigrants of their US citizenship. Such cases, the department has said, would have no statute of limitations. There are more than 24 million naturalized citizens in the U.S., all of whom have traveled a long path through the immigration bureaucracy to get where they are. This project follows up on some of Trump's first-term efforts, when his Justice Department ordered investigations of 700,000 naturalised citizens for possible infractions (few of which were ever completed). Later in his term, Trump created an Office of Denaturalisation. In 2023, Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff to the president, said that under a second term, denaturalization efforts would be 'turbocharged.' Taken together, these new polices would create a more mutable type of citizenship, no longer rooted in birthplace, or in the arduous and lengthy task of proving one's worth. It is a dramatic turn for a nation that, nearly since its inception, has welcomed immigrants and is now home to one-fifth of the world's international migrants. Such a shift would hurt this country. Running immigrants through a wealth filter would cost us the drive, persistence and ingenuity that newcomers have brought to this country throughout its history. There is no filter for such intangibles. Offering the super-rich a fast-track to citizenship would also shorten the vetting process which is, after all, an important security measure. When Trump was asked about whether Russian oligarchs or other unsavory types might take advantage of his gold card, Trump replied, 'Possibly,' adding, 'Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are nice people.' And it would diminish the US itself. For nearly 250 years this country has stood as a beacon of freedom and hope — and has reaped the rewards. The stories of impoverished refugees and immigrants who go on to contribute to the nation's well-being are legion. Trump's vision of US citizenship seems to grow out of his views on immigration more broadly. But it should alarm all Americans, even the many who support his more popular efforts, such as securing a border that had become too porous under President Joe Biden; arresting and deporting criminals; and focusing on the human and drug trafficking that makes insecure borders so dangerous. Anti-immigrant sentiment has run like a bright thread through Trump's public life since he started his first campaign for president. In his first term, he cracked down on legal immigration far more than illegal, sending the number of green cards and temporary visas (known formally as non-immigrant visas) plummeting. In a meeting midway through his first term, Trump famously inquired why the country should admit immigrants from 'all these (expletive) countries,' such as Haiti, El Salvador and African nations. He suggested more immigrants from countries such as Norway, or Asian countries that he believed helped the US economically. There have long been signs that Trump's goal is to rid this country of those he considers undesirable. For now, that would seem to turn on one's wealth — or lack of it. Soon it could be whatever else Trump finds objectionable. Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, has been imprisoned for five weeks since masked ICE agents arrested her in Somerville, Massachusetts. Her only infraction was co-writing a student op-ed for the school newspaper that was at odds with the Trump administration's support of Israel's war in Gaza. Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent resident, attended what he thought was a naturalisation interview in April and was promptly arrested for his political views on the Israel-Hamas war. A judge freed him from federal custody last week, but he still faces possible deportation. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Mahdawi said that 'When they look at my case, all Americans should ask themselves: what is left of our democracy and who will be targeted next?'
