All posts tagged "immigration"

This vile Trump threat would redefine who gets to be American

You might think that when you are a US citizen, you cannot have that status taken away. You would be wrong, it turns out. And behind that fact is a long and often ugly history.

Last Sunday, President Donald Trump said that he would “absolutely” denaturalize American citizens if he could. It comes after a wave of harsh rhetoric directed toward immigrants after the tragic shooting of two National Guard members last week.

Yes, the words that the president says have been discounted. But there’s policy behind the rhetorical provocation.

Denaturalization is the process of stripping citizenship from someone who obtained it illegally, such as by not meeting the requirements or by committing fraud or lying during the application process. At first, government interpreted that standard loosely, leading to years of abuse.

As my colleagues Faiza Patel, Margy O’Herron, and Kendall Verhovek explain:

More than 22,000 Americans lost their citizenship between 1907 and 1967 based on political affiliations, race, and gender, according to denaturalization scholar Patrick Weil. President Woodrow Wilson’s administration began denaturalizing German- and Asian-born citizens during World War I, along with anarchists and people who spoke out against the war. During World War II, a push for denaturalization of naturalized citizens from Germany, Italy, and Japan intensified. A primary target included members of the pro-Nazi German-American Bund for disloyalty and insufficient attachment to the principles of the Constitution.

After the war, the Second Red Scare took hold of a country fearful of domestic communism amid its emergence abroad. Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin led witch hunts, with denaturalization often used as a tool against accused communists or sympathizers. Among those targets was Harry Bridges, an Australian-born, nationally known labor leader accused of being a communist, who faced an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to revoke his citizenship. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor, not once, but twice.

As Weil puts it, a process that was intended to redress fraud and illegality in the naturalization process became used to “expel from the body politic ‘un-American’ citizens.” But even during wartime, the Supreme Court responded, limiting its use.

Throughout the 20th century, the court issued several rulings setting a high bar for denaturalization. In 1943, the court struck down a move to denaturalize Russian-born William Schneiderman over ties to the Communist Party, requiring a “heavy burden” for rescinding citizenship. And in 1946, the court warned against the use of denaturalization as a “ready instrument for political persecutions.” It’s why in recent decades, denaturalization attempts have been appropriately rare... until now.

Over the summer, Trump directed Justice Department lawyers to “maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings.” At the time, a spokesperson said that “denaturalization proceedings will only be pursued as permitted by law and supported by evidence against individuals who illegally procured or misrepresented facts in the naturalization process.” Trump’s parameters seem to be much broader. In his Thanksgiving Truth Social post, he said he would “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility.”

Among his targets? Trump has repeatedly suggested that he is open to denaturalizing New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). When asked about Elon Musk, he told the press, “We’ll have to take a look.” It appears that crime isn’t so much a motivation as disloyalty; the law isn’t so much a motivation as impulse.

But we shouldn’t mistake impulse for foolishness.

It’s all part of a broader effort to target the rights of immigrants and redefine who is an American. That started on Inauguration Day with the effort to eliminate birthright citizenship, a right that is explicitly in the Constitution. And it’s part of efforts to reverse what top administration officials have called a conspiracy to alter the makeup of the electorate. In an interview, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, accused previous administrations of admitting immigrants to “make them all citizens and then spread them out to try to change demographics elsewhere in the country.” And on the campaign trail last year, Trump adviser Stephen Miller declared, “America is for Americans and Americans only.”

Stripping citizens of their citizenship in the name of making the electorate more “American” is arguably one of the most un-American acts imaginable. More than a century ago, the Supreme Court held that naturalized citizens are on the same footing as those born in the country, and for decades, the Supreme Court has made clear that stripping citizens of their citizenship due to their views or expressions “would run counter to our traditions.”

We are a nation of immigrants and also a nation of laws. The courts must continue to ensure that those laws protect naturalized citizens from being punished for speaking out.

Michael Waldman is President of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute that focuses on improving the systems of democracy and justice.

Stephen Miller bashed for pushing restrictions that 'are no longer on the books'

A law professor bashed Stephen Miller for pushing discriminatory immigration restrictions in America that have long been gone.

Miller, the Trump administration's immigrant policy architect and Homeland Security Advisor, has tried to revive "nationality-based discrimination" policies that formally embarrassed the United States, Amanda Frost, a University of Virginia law professor who specializes in immigration law, wrote in an opinion piece for The New York Times published Friday.

The Trump administration announced that it has "indefinitely" stopped immigration policies for all Afghan nationals after a Nov. 26 National Guard shooting involving an Afghan suspect who shot two troops — one fatally — in Washington, D.C.

Frost slammed Miller's harsh immigration policy and described how it harkened to the "nativist fervor culminated in 1924 with the Immigration Act," which aimed to try and slow down immigration from countries that were deemed "undesirable." It capped immigration to make it 2% of the nationality's population in the U.S. in 1890.

"It proved impossible to unwind Americans’ tangled ancestry, but no matter. The law was used to justify giving the majority of visas to Northern and Western Europeans, while strictly limiting immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe — a change celebrated by the Ku Klux Klan for keeping out Catholics and Jews. The door remained almost entirely closed to people from Asia and Africa," Frost wrote.

Miller has appeared to make a similar move in his response to immigration.

"Mr. Miller and others in the Trump administration do not appear to know that those 1924 immigration restrictions are no longer on the books. Abolishing national origin discrimination was a sea change in law that stands alongside the Voting Rights Act as one of our most important pieces of civil rights legislation," Frost explained. "That 1965 law allocated visas based primarily on family reunification and an applicant’s ability to contribute to the labor market. Every immigrant is individually vetted, and immigration is capped worldwide, but no longer are any nationalities automatically restricted."

The writer argued that the suspect should be investigated and punished if he is found guilty of the attack.

"But collective punishment is just the sort of bigotry that the nation rejected decades ago," Frost added.

"It’s also likely to be illegal. As the Supreme Court explained when upholding Mr. Trump’s first travel ban back in 2018, the president has statutory authority to suspend entry into the United States based on national origin, at least for some period of time. But that does not permit him to deny visas, cancel green cards or denaturalize immigrants based on nothing more than their country of origin," Frost wrote.

‘Expensive illusion’: Writer warns MAGA policies are ‘crippling local economies’

A former Biden administration official and human rights expert warned Wednesday that harmful MAGA immigration policies have crippled struggling local economies — further damaging Americans.

Michelle Brané, a non-resident fellow at the Cornell Law Migration and Human Rights Program and the executive director of Together and Free, wrote in a Newsweek opinion piece that immigrants working legally have been pulled off job sites, costing them and their employers thousands of dollars fighting legal battles they shouldn't have to.

Brané, who served as the immigration detention ombudsman for the Biden administration and the executive director of the Family Reunification Task Force, shared a story of Jaime in New York, who was detained for almost two months despite showing his work permit. Jaime was pulled from a job during an ICE raid where dozens were arrested.

"Jaime’s detention also harmed his employer, a family-owned business," Brané wrote. "After the raid, the company was forced to reduce output to 25 percent of capacity and could not fulfill orders. In communities already struggling with labor shortages, raids cripple local economies."

Jaime was flown to Texas, where it cost him thousands to fight the legal battle — all because bond wasn't an option for him.

"The almost two months he spent in detention took an enormous emotional toll on him, his family and his community. It also imposed a steep financial burden to taxpayers, local governments and private businesses," she said.

Jaime also had to deal with a "clogged immigration system." Before the detention, he had earned $22.50 an hour and contributed to the American tax system.

"Immigrants contribute $580 billion in taxes per year. Mass detention and deportations shrink that base, harming programs like Social Security and Medicare," Brané argued.

Removing Jaime and other people in the U.S. who work legally creates more damage in communities, she added.

"Mass detention is an expensive illusion of enforcement. It doesn’t make us safer or stronger. It just ensures that everyone—taxpayers, workers and families alike—pays the price," Brané wrote.

'Terrible experience’: Iraq vet U.S. citizen nabbed by ICE shares ordeal in stark new ad

George Retes, a 26-year-old U.S. citizen and Army veteran, isn’t staying quiet — five months after he says he was assaulted and detained by immigration agents on his commute to work as a security contractor outside Los Angeles.

“Your voice matters,” Retes told Raw Story. “Calling your representatives, calling your people in charge, letting your voice be heard: it matters.”

Retes is the face of a new $250,000 ad campaign from Home of the Brave, a nonprofit focused on portraying what it calls the “catastrophic harm” of President Donald Trump’s second administration.

In the one-minute ad, “The Veteran Who ICE Abducted — and Is Fighting Back,” Retes recounts how he was stopped by a line of “hostile” ICE agents who shattered his car window, pepper sprayed him in the face and threw him to the ground before detaining him over a weekend.

Meant as a direct response to recruitment and self-deportation ads from the Department of Homeland Security, the Home of the Brave ads will air on streaming services where DHS ads have appeared.

“It's important to tell my story now because of everything that's still going on,” Retes said.

“Even though everyone doesn't see it every day, doesn't mean it's not happening.”

Close to 200 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE since Trump returned to power in January, ProPublica reported.

Retes, who served a tour in Iraq, said DHS has continually called him a “liar.”

In response to an op-ed he wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, DHS accused Retes via an X post of being violent and refusing to comply with law enforcement, leading to arrest for assault.

As CBP and ICE agents were executing criminal search warrants on July 10 at the marijuana sites in Camarillo, CA, George Retes—a U.S. citizen—became violent and refused to comply with law enforcement. He challenged agents and blocked their route by refusing to move his vehicle… pic.twitter.com/aKS2voKU3j
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 17, 2025

Two weeks later, a DHS press release again claimed Retes was arrested for assault.

Retes said he “100 percent” rejects claims that he was violent and he was never charged with any such crimes during the interaction with immigration agents.

“Something that the current administration is refusing to do is just take accountability,” Retes said

“Lying on my name, lying on people. It's terrible.”

The new ad proves it, he said — by showing footage of his vehicle being swarmed by a line of immigration agents and then him being pinned to the ground.

“I take it with a grain of salt when they come out with these Tweets,” Retes said. “The proof is all there. If now you want to make stories, the court’s right there.”

‘F-----g do your job’

In an extended three-minute version of the video, Retes further explains how he was tear-gassed and how immigration agents zip-tied him and knelt on his back and neck while he was on his way to work security at a state-legal cannabis farm that ICE raided.

Retes is also working with a nonprofit public interest law firm, Institute for Justice, to sue the Trump administration under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the treatment he endured at the hands of federal immigration officers.

“It's all out there, the footage, and they're just imposing their version of reality,” Anya Bidwell, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, told Raw Story.

While in detention, Retes was put on suicide watch.

But “the most upsetting” part of the ordeal, he said, was that he missed his daughter’s third birthday celebration.

He told Raw Story he slept on a concrete bed in a room with a “tiny window” and lights switched on “24/7.”

He wasn’t allowed a shower, despite his “body essentially being on fire,” Bidwell said.

George Retes, a U.S. citizen, says he was detained by ICE on his way to work (Photo provided by Institute for Justice)

Retes said he was naked but for a hospital gown and “wasn't able to flush the toilet on my own.”

“It was just an overall terrible experience, and it was something I would never want to relive, and I hope no one ever goes through,” Retes said.

Retes said he was suspended from his job with Securitas, a national security guard contractor, for three weeks following his detention.

“They basically said I had to prove I was innocent before I could go back to work,” Retes said.

The experience left “a bad taste in my mouth,” Retes said, so he quit the Securitas job and is looking for new employment while sharing his story.

Retes said his message to Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other government leaders was simple: “F—–g do your job.”

“Make this country better … right now,” Retes said, lamenting “prices going crazy. People are divided. Agents just doing whatever they want, violating rights.”

Holding out hope for Trump to stop “constantly trying to divide the country” is “scary,” Retes said.

But he is still hopeful for “for better days.”

This Trump-voting state is now grappling with his terror

Tuesday, Nov. 18, started out the way most other days had of late in the relatively brief life of Triangle-area resident Fernando Vazquez. Like so many children of immigrants who, despite being native-born American citizens, find themselves working alongside their parents at difficult, low-paying jobs that most of their fellow Americans are unwilling to take on — office cleaners, farmworkers, construction site helpers — 18-year-old Fernando showed up for work at a Cary construction site.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end in normal fashion.

As NC Newsline’s Brandon Kingdollar reported, while Fernando was walking back to work after buying a drink at a nearby store, he saw a group of masked men wearing dark glasses emerge suddenly from a group of unmarked SUVs that had pulled up to the job site. Within a few moments, they had cornered Fernando behind a fenced-off HVAC area in which he had been trying to evade their attention.

“Where are you from?” one of the masked men demanded of Fernando as they handcuffed him and tossed him into one of the SUVs alongside another sobbing young worker.

Eventually, the masked men dumped Fernando — who was born in Raleigh and was carrying and displaying his North Carolina Real ID — in a parking lot a half mile or so from where they had grabbed him. They threw his wallet and ID cards out the window of the SUV as they sped off.

“I have no idea why they just dropped me off,” Fernando said later. “I kind of felt like I was being kidnapped.”

The men who carried out this terrifying assault like modern-day Klansmen or KGB thugs were, of course, by all indications, U.S. Border Patrol agents. Federal government employees. Your tax dollars at work.

This is the abysmally low place to which things have sunk in 2025 America during the second term of the nation’s autocrat-in-chief, President Donald Trump.

Across the nation — especially in jurisdictions in which politicians disfavored by Trump and his toadies have been elected to office — employees of the American government are riding into town unannounced and vigilante-like to round up people of varying immigration statuses and terrorize their communities. Almost invariably, the people in question are brown skinned.

And it’s just plain and irredeemably wrong.

Yes, it’s true that millions of people in this country are present without full legal authorization. And yes, it’s also true that a very tiny percentage of the people in this group are criminals who are preying upon others — mostly fellow immigrants.

But it’s also indisputably true that the overwhelming majority of the immigrants whose communities are subject to Trump’s terror tactics are, like the tens of millions of immigrants who preceded them (a group that included Trump’s own family), simple, salt-of-the-earth people looking for a better life.

They’ve come here to escape war, persecution and grinding poverty in their homelands and, quite often, to take on incredibly difficult and dirty jobs under conditions that few if any other Americans would find remotely acceptable.

Is the current immigration system broken? Of course it is. The need for reform that would provide millions of people with a realistic path out of the shadows and into full legal status has been overwhelming for decades. Right now, for most aspiring immigrants who lack wealth or light skin, such a path (or, at least, one that takes anything less than decades and vast sums of money) literally does not exist.

Indeed, the understanding and acceptance of this truth was so widespread as recently as early last year that Congress was on the verge of passing genuine bipartisan immigration reform/border control legislation. North Carolina’s senior Republican senator, Thom Tillis, was leader in the effort.

Tragically, however, that plan didn’t jibe with then-candidate Trump’s two-part scheme to make the demonization of immigrants the centerpiece of his campaign and to deny any kind of policy victory — even ones that were indisputably good for the nation — to the Biden-Harris administration. As a result, the plan was deep-sixed at Trump’s direction.

And so, here we are now, living in an unprecedented moment in the history of the nation that has long held itself out as the leader of the “free world.” It’s a moment in which masked employees of our government — many of them well-meaning individuals cynically misled into believing they are somehow helping to combat a “foreign invasion” — are employing terror tactics long reserved for the world’s totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

Meanwhile, millions of good and honest people — many of them American citizens like Fernando Vazquez — must now go about their daily lives in constant fear that they too will be snatched off the street and secreted off to some domestic or foreign gulag.

Nearly a quarter century ago, a previous U.S. president undertook a global campaign that he called a “war on terror.” Today, it’s a shocking and sobering fact that the millions of caring and thinking Americans pushing back against Trump’s police state actions — people peacefully witnessing, documenting, protesting and organizing and lending moral support to their immigrant neighbors — now find themselves on the front lines in just such an effort.

Senior contributor and award-winning journalist Rob Schofield authors regular commentaries and hosts the 'News & Views' weekly radio show/podcast. A part of NC Newsline since 2006, he served as editor from 2017 to 2025 and, prior to that, worked for many years as an attorney championing the rights of low-income people and civil liberties.

'Stupid or slow?' White House launches ugly war on pop star Sabrina Carpenter

The White House had a sharp response Tuesday after pop star Sabrina Carpenter aimed a scathing at the Trump administration for using her song in an ICE arrest video.

"Here’s a Short n’ Sweet message for Sabrina Carpenter: We won’t apologize for deporting dangerous criminal illegal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from our country. Anyone who would defend these sick monsters must be stupid, or is it slow?” White House Spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement, making a reference to the artist's "Short n' Sweet" album and popular hit "Manchild," Politico reported.

The White House shared a video of aggressive ICE arrests on X paired to her song and viral lyrics from the song "Juno," with the text: "Have you ever tried this one? Bye-bye."

Carpenter slammed the administration in her response on X, saying "this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda."

The Trump administration has used multiple artists' and creators' work without their permission, including Kenny Loggins, The White Stripes and Taylor Swift. In September, DHS shared the meme-style video likening ICE raids and capturing undocumented immigrants to Pokémon and using arrested immigrants as "cards" mocking the suspects in the same style as the popular Japanese animé, which is partly owned by Nintendo.

White House officials told Zeteo that the Trump administration uses popular music in its videos, including "vocally anti-Trump performing artists, in order to trigger a negative response from a famous liberal and provide further amplification of their pervasive culture war."

“We do it on purpose,” one White House official told the outlet.

'Evil and disgusting': Pop megastar attacks Trump after song used in ICE video

Pop megastar Sabrina Carpenter on Tuesday slammed the Trump administration and told them not to use her music.

The White House shared a video of aggressive ICE arrests on X paired to her song and viral lyrics from the song "Juno," with the text: "Have you ever tried this one? Bye-bye."

Carpenter wrote a scathing response on X, saying "this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda."

The Trump administration has used multiple artists' songs without their permission, including Kenny Loggins, The White Stripes and Taylor Swift.

this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.
— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) December 2, 2025

This grift was exploited for years by Republicans — until Trump came along

Donald Trump and his allies are using the long-employed tactic of demonizing a targeted population to turn public opinion against them. In carrying out ICE deportation raids on undocumented immigrants, they are using dehumanizing rhetoric to portray their targets as undesirables whose deportation cleanses the country.

Trump began by smearing undocumented immigrants as “murderers and rapists,” inspiring fear among Americans and creating a fictitious bogeyman. Nearly two centuries ago, Southerners used similar rhetoric, characterizing Black men as biologically inferior brutes, a nightmarish threat to every white woman.

Rather than using neutral terms such as “undocumented” or “unauthorized” in referring to immigrants, Republican politicians and conservative commentators use the dehumanizing pejorative “illegal alien” or just ”alien.” Trump has called them “animals” and “invaders” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” The vile intent is to inspire fear, create negative public opinion, and justify mass deportations.

Along similar lines, during World War II, racial epithets were used to instill fear and hatred of Japanese-Americans and justify their incarceration in relocation camps. Hitler and the Nazis referred to Jews as “vermin,” “rats” “parasites,” and untermenschen (sub-human) to foster hatred among Germans as a prelude to unspeakable atrocities.

Hitler also attempted to erase from German minds the contributions of Jews to culture, science, business, law, and medicine. Similarly, Trump and his allies are trying to erase from American minds the contributions undocumented immigrants have made.

There are approximately 14 million undocumented immigrants in the US; 94 percent of undocumented immigrant households have at least one working adult, compared to only 73 percent of U.S.-born households; over half of undocumented immigrants have lived and worked in the US for a decade or more.

If there were a supply of Americans willing to labor in the fields, work in slaughterhouses and on poultry farms, clean America’s 1.8 million hotel rooms, and buss tables and clean kitchens in America’s half-million restaurants, employers would hire them. Undocumented immigrants have provided the essential low-wage workforce which major industries depend on.

In 2023, undocumented immigrants paid $89.8 billion in taxes and contributed $299 billion to the economy as consumers. The amount spent on undocumented immigrants for medical, educational, and police services is significantly less than their contribution.

That undocumented immigrants come to the US for the free services is a favored falsehood of the right. Mexican immigrants have been coming to the US since the 1940s to escape poverty and find work. When there is a significant drop in job opportunities in the US, such as in the recession of 2008 or during the COVID-19 pandemic, undocumented immigration drops. When job opportunities rise, immigration rises too.

American employers have not only welcomed undocumented immigrants, they have recruited them. For decades, farmers have used farm labor contractors to recruit workers from other countries, predominantly Mexico. American employers have been complicit in keeping the border crossings of undocumented immigrants flowing.

It is unlawful for any US employer to recruit or hire undocumented immigrants, yet thousands have done it with relative impunity for decades. While undocumented immigrants are being deported in record numbers, employers suffer no consequences aside from a growing shortage of workers.

Many of these employers are Republicans, including the vast majority of farmers who have been among Trump’s most faithful supporters. For years, Trump has employed undocumented immigrants. The man who calls undocumented immigrants “murderers and rapists” has gladly employed them unlawfully for his personal gain.

The Trump administration’s claim that deportation of undocumented immigrants focuses on those with criminal records is a lie. Less than 10 percent of deported undocumented immigrants have criminal records beyond traffic tickets and non-violent misdemeanors. If undocumented, Trump would be among the criminal deportees based on his record as a convicted felon and a convicted sexual abuser.

Over 90 percent of undocumented deportees have no criminal record, and the vast majority have been employed in the US, abiding by the law and filling the employment needs of American businesses.

Deportations are tearing apart families, separating mothers and fathers from their American-born children. The children have the option of leaving with their parents, remaining in the US under guardianship, or being put in foster care. Not surprisingly, many end up leaving with their parents, torn from their country of birth, facing poverty in a foreign country.

Rather than being dehumanized and deported by the heartless, hypocritical Trump administration, undocumented immigrants should be recognized by all Americans for their decades-long contributions to the country. They boost the US economy, provide essential workers for major US industries, enrich the culture, exemplify strong family values, and have helped put food on the tables of the American people for over half a century.

For Americans who condemn undocumented immigrants for the “crime” of entering the US illegally, they must equally condemn the thousands of employers who hire them and a government that has turned a blind eye for over 70 years.

All undocumented immigrants who have lived and worked in the US for years, abided by the law, and paid their taxes have earned a pathway to citizenship, a belief shared by Republican president Ronald Reagan. As a nation, we owe them no less. Today, however, they must live in the shadows, under constant threat.

The way undocumented immigrants are being treated by the Trump administration is a disgrace, bringing shame that history will record. Men and women who for decades have provided their labor to help enrich the country and make a better life for themselves don’t deserve to be vilified and thrown out.

As Hitler rounded up the Jews, most Germans remained silent. As the US government forced Japanese-Americans into camps, most Americans remained silent. As Trump-instructed ICE agents round up undocumented immigrants for deportation, will we remain silent too?

If unjust treatment of a people by a government is met with silence, that treatment will grow and flourish. As John Stuart Mill said in 1867, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Time and again, history has proven him right.

Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

‘Damaging precedent’: Trump slammed over move to exclude country from G-20 summit

A world leader Friday slammed President Donald Trump's move to exclude one country from the global summit G-20, explaining how it could have harmful repercussions in the future.

South Africa’s central bank governor, Lesetja Kganyago, criticized Trump's decision to make the international event invite-only next year in Miami and exclude South Africa, saying that "would set a damaging precedent," Bloomberg reported.

“The G-20 does not work like that. It’s a consensus forum,” Kganyago said.

South Africa is the G-20 president for this year. The U.S. is slated to take over next as the group's presidency beginning Dec. 1.

Trump has accused South Africa — despite any evidence — of a genocide against South Africans and has offered them asylum in the United States. His move is reportedly based on a far-right conspiracy theory and part of the Trump administration's strategy to show immigration preference to white people.

Other members of the global bloc have expressed concern over leaving South Africa out of the 2026 meeting.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the summit has been “one of the most important multilateral forums we still have.”

Last weekend, the U.S. boycotted the G-20 summit in Johannesburg, attacking the country for its handling of the event.

“There are so many moving parts,” Kganyago said, explaining that the situation could change — just like the U.S. trade and tariff policies.

“You are going to see a lot of political posturing and there will surely be a climb-down,” he added.

‘Not an accident’: Stephen Miller uses Guard shooting for grim immigration regime shift

President Donald Trump has announced a dramatic shift in his immigration policy — something White House adviser Stephen Miller has reportedly been pushing for behind the scenes.

The move follows the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington D.C. Wednesday and is part of a long-term strategy for Miller, who has long voiced he wanted a more aggressive approach to immigration and increased deportations, Tamara Keith, NPR White House Correspondent, said on CNN Friday.

"This is very much in line with the way that the president and people in his administration, people like Stephen Miller, have been talking about immigration. President Trump in his remarks on Wednesday night brought up Somalia. That is not an accident. That is something that the president has been focused on recently and that he is emphasizing," Keith said.

"You look at refugee policies where the White House wants to bring in white people from South Africa, who they say are being persecuted. They don't want to bring in other refugees. The refugee program has been severely restricted under the Trump administration already," Keith added.

As Trump's approval rating has sunk, his administration has shifted their attention to immigration.

"In a lot of ways, this is a terrible event that has given them a sort of a peg, to do the things they were already doing or wanted to do," Keith said. "And it does come at a time when the president's approval rating is in a really bad place, including on immigration, but this is a realm of immigration that he has had more traction than some of the other areas."

Trump on Thursday made the announcement that he had ordered U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement to review every Green Card holder “from every country of concern,” a list of 19 countries his administration named in June.

Those 19 countries include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.