The Felon's Refugee System That Would Favor White People

During the 2024 presidential campaign the Felon denied knowing anything about Project 2025, a white supremacist/white "Christian" nationalist agenda that, if one bothered to read it laid out a plan to take America backwards in time to the 1950's prior to the civil rights movement, efforts for women's equality and the gay rights movement among other things.   Like virtually everything that comes out of the Felon's mouth, such denials were an outright lie and over the last almost nine months we have witnessed the steady implementation of aspects of Project 2025's racist agenda.  The Felon has reversed executive orders in place since the 1960's dealing with discrimination and diversity, equity and inclusion have been declared to be the enemy of "real Americans" and universities and cities that have non-discrimination policies have been threated with the loss of federal funding. Throughout the Felon's regime - and running through Project 2025 - is the effort is to favor a toxic right-wing form of supposed Christianity (that largely ignores the true gospel message) and to  reenforce/reestablish white privilege reminiscent to that existing prior to the Civil Rights movement. Indeed, there is an almost palpable fear of non-whites and a belief that anything that benefits non-whites and/or non-Christians comes at the expense of whites.  Now, this agenda is aimed at transforming America's approach to refugees into one where only whites/Europeans are admitted. A piece in the New York Times looks at this effort:

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

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

The plans were presented to the White House in April and July by officials in the State and Homeland Security Departments after President Trump directed federal agencies to study whether refugee resettlement was in the interest of the United States. . . . Trump administration officials have not ruled out any of the ideas, according to people familiar with the planning, although there is no set timetable for approving or rejecting the ideas.

The proposed changes would put new emphasis on whether applicants would be able to assimilate into the United States, directing them to take classes on “American history and values” and “respect for cultural norms.”

The proposals also advise Mr. Trump to prioritize Europeans who have been “targeted for peaceful expression of views online such as opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.”

That appeared to be a reference to the European far-right political party Alternative for Germany, whose leaders have trivialized the Holocaust, revived Nazi slogans and denigrated foreigners. Vice President JD Vance has criticized Germany for trying to suppress the views of the group, which is known as the AfD.

[The Felon] Mr. Trump enacted some of the proposals in the documents even before the plans were submitted to him, including slashing refugee admissions and offering priority status to Afrikaners, the white minority who once ran South Africa’s brutal apartheid system. . . . [the Felon] Mr. Trump has claimed that Afrikaners face racial persecution in their home country, a claim vigorously disputed by government officials there. Police statistics do not show that white people are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people in South Africa.

Taken together, the proposals provide a window into Mr. Trump’s intentions for a program that has come to symbolize America’s role as a sanctuary.

Mr. Trump and many American voters have rejected that role after years of record illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. . . . . Mr. Trump has made clear he wants to crack down on immigration in general — both legal and illegal.

According to the rationale laid out in the documents submitted to [the Felon] Mr. Trump, America’s acceptance of refugees has made the country too diverse. “The sharp increase in diversity has reduced the level of social trust essential for the functioning of a democratic polity,” according to one of the documents.

To that end, the documents say, [the Felon] Mr. Trump should cancel the applications of hundreds of thousands of people who are already in the pipeline to come to the United States as refugees, many of whom have gone through extensive security checks and referrals.

And Mr. Trump’s federal agencies proposed imposing limits on the number of refugees who can resettle in communities that already have a high population of immigrants, on the basis that the United States should avoid “the concentration of non-native citizens” in order to promote assimilation.

Critics say the plans exposes the president’s vision for what America should look like. “It reflects a preexisting notion among some in the Trump administration as to who are the true Americans,” said Barbara L. Strack, a former chief of the refugee affairs division at Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Bush and Obama administrations. “And they think it’s white people and they think it’s Christians.”

Other changes include more intensive security vetting for refugees, including DNA tests for children to ensure they are related to the adults they are traveling with.

[The Felon] Mr. Trump also is planning to slash the number of refugees allowed into the United States to 7,500 in the upcoming year, a drastic decrease from the limit of 125,000 set by the Biden administration last year.

Migrants at the border, however, seek protection through a separate program than refugees, who often wait years overseas before they are vetted to travel to the United States. The refugee program has historically received bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats.

[The Felon] Mr. Trump and the architect of his immigration restrictions, Stephen Miller, have for years sought to limit the number of refugees entering the United States, particularly from Africa or Muslim-majority nations. During his first term, Mr. Trump demanded to know at a White House meeting why he would accept immigrants from Haiti and African nations, which he described as “shithole countries,” rather than Europe. . . . His administration now appears prepared to turn those sentiments into policy.

But many local leaders and refugee advocates argue that not only can refugees adjust to life in America effectively, they also benefit local economies.

Marian Abernathy, a lay leader at the Judea Reform Congregation synagogue in Durham, N.C., has helped refugees who had settled in her community since 2016, including a dozen families in the last four years from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Haiti, Venezuela and Syria.

The refugees have worked as nursing aides, engineers, Uber drivers, medical technicians and lunch coordinators at local schools, she said. . . . “I’ve rarely seen a group of people,” she said, “who work harder and who want fewer handouts.”

If he could, I suspect the Felon would bring back segregation and the Jim Crow laws.