Connecting Immigrants, Palestinians, and South Africa
Closer to home, Trump's full-throated attack on immigrants has revived the worst of colonial language. The Marshall Project has, for instance, tracked some of his major claims and how often he's repeated them: "Unauthorized immigrants are criminals [said 575+ times], snakes that bite [35+ times], eating pets, coming from jails and mental institutions [560+ times], causing crime in sanctuary cities [185+ times], and a group of isolated, tragic cases prove they are killing Americans en masse [235+ times]." Clearly, draconian laws are needed to control such monsters!
Trump has also promised to deport millions of immigrants and issued a series of executive orders meant to greatly expand the detention and deportation of those living in the United States without legal authorization -- "undocumented people." Another set of orders is meant to strip the status of millions of immigrants who are currently here with legal authorization, revoking Temporary Protected Status, work authorizations, student visas, and even green cards. One reason for this is to expand the number of people who can be deported since, despite all the rhetoric and the spectacle, the administration has struggled so far to achieve anything faintly like the rates it has promised.
This anti-immigrant drive harmonizes with Trump's affection for Jewish Israel and White South Africa in obvious ways. White South Africans are being welcomed with open arms (though few are coming), while other immigrants are targeted. Non-citizen students and others have been particularly singled out for supposedly "celebrating Hamas' mass rape, kidnapping, and murder." The cases of Mahmoud Khalil, Rasha Alawieh, Momodou Taal, Badar Khan Suri, Yunseo Chung, and Rumeysa Ozturk (and perhaps others by the time this article is published) stand out in this regard. The Trump administration repeatedly denigrates movements for Palestinian rights and immigrants as violent threats that must be contained.
There are some deeper connections as well. Immigrants from what Trump once termed "sh*t-hole countries" are, in his view, not only prone to violence and criminality themselves but also inclined to anti-American and anti-Israel views, leaving this country supposedly at risk. Included in his executive order on South Africa was the accusation that its government "has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel" of genocide in the International Court of Justice" and is "undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation" -- almost identical wording to that used to justify the revocation of visas for Khalil and others. In other words, threats are everywhere.
Trump and his associates weaponize antisemitism to attack student protesters, progressive Jewish organizations, freedom of speech, immigrants, higher education, and other threats to his colonizer's view of the world.
In reality, however, the United States, Israel, and White South Africa exist as colonial anachronisms in what President Joe Biden, echoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, described (with respect to Israel) as an "incredibly dangerous neighborhood." And Trump has only doubled down on that view.
Strange to imagine, but the planters of Barbados would undoubtedly be proud to see their ideological descendants continuing to impose violent control on our world, while invoking the racist ideas they proposed in the 1600s.
Copyright 2025 Aviva Chomsky
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