President Donald Trump vowed on Thanksgiving to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations in a blistering late-night, anti-immigrant screed posted to social media.
The extended rant came in the wake of the Wednesday shooting of two National Guard members who were deployed to patrol Washington, D.C. under Trump’s orders, one of whom died shortly before the president spoke to U.S. troops by video on Thursday evening.
A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan War is facing charges for the shooting. The suspect emigrated as part of a program to resettle those who has helped American troops after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”
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Trump’s threat to stop immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming immigrants.
Elected on a promise to crack down on illegal migration, Trump’s raids and deportations have disrupted communities across the U.S. as construction sites and schools have been targets. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous as America’s foreign-born workers account for nearly 31 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The president said on Truth Social that “most” foreign-born U.S. residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” as he blamed them for crime across the country that is predominantly committed by U.S. citizens.
The perception that immigration breeds crime “continues to falter under the weight of the evidence,” according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology.
“With few exceptions, studies conducted at both the aggregate and individual levels demonstrate that high concentrations of immigrants are not associated with increased levels of crime and delinquency across neighborhoods and cities in the United States," it said.
A study by economists initially released in 2023 found immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S. Immigrants have been imprisoned at lower rates for 150 years, the study found, adding to past research undermining Trump’s claims.
But Trump seemed to have little interest in a policy debate in his unusually lengthy social media post, which the White House, on its own rapid response social media account, called “one of the most important messages ever released by President Trump.”
Trump pledged to “terminate” millions of admissions to the country made during the term of his predecessor, Joe Biden. He also wants to end federal benefits and subsidies for noncitizens, denaturalize people “who undermine domestic tranquility” and deport foreign nationals deemed “non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
Trump claimed immigrants from Somalia are “completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota” as he used a dated slur for intellectually disabled people to demean that state’s governor, Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last year, calling him “seriously retarded.”
Trump has ramped up his rhetoric since the shooting. On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration.
On Thursday, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”
Edlow didn’t name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.
The shooting of the two National Guard members appeared to trigger Trump's anger over immigrants, yet he did not specifically refer to the event in his social media posting.
The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is accused of driving across the country to Washington and shooting two West Virginia National Guard members, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Beckstrom died on Thursday from the shooting, while Wolfe remains in critical condition.
The suspect, currently in custody, was also shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening.
Asked by a reporter on Thursday if he blamed the shootings on all Afghans who came to the U.S., Trump said: “No, but we’ve had a lot of problems with Afghans.”
