WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump says he wants to \u201cpermanently pause migration\u201d from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status. <\/p>\n
Trump is blaming immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages as part of what he calls \u201csocial dysfunction\u201d in America and demanding \u201cREVERSE MIGRATION.\u201d<\/p>\n
His most severe social media post against immigration since returning to the Oval Office in January came after the shooting Wednesday of two National Guard members who were patrolling the streets of the nation\u2019s capital under his orders. One died and the other is in critical condition.<\/p>\n
A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war is facing charges. The suspect came to the U.S. as part of a program after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to resettle those who had helped American troops. <\/p>\n
The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration, according to #AfghanEvac, a nonprofit that works with the U.S. government to resettle Afghans here. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s threat to stop immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming immigrants.<\/p>\n
Since Wednesday\u2019s shooting near the White House, administration officials have pledged to reexamine millions of legal immigrants, building on a 10-month campaign to reduce the immigrant population. In a lengthy social media post late Thursday, the Republican president asserted that millions of people born outside the U.S. and now living in the country bore a large share of the blame for America\u2019s societal ills.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,\u201d Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. \u201cOther than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for \u2014 You won\u2019t be here for long!\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump was elected on a promise to crack down on illegal migration, and raids and deportations undertaken by his administration have disrupted communities across the country. Construction sites and schools have been frequent targets. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous, as America\u2019s foreign-born workers account for nearly 31 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n
The president said on Truth Social that \u201cmost\u201d foreign-born U.S. residents \u201care on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels\u201d as he blamed them for crime across the country that is predominantly committed by U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n
There are roughly 50 million foreign-born residents in the U.S., and multiple studies have found that immigrants are generally less likely to commit crimes than are people who were born in the country.<\/p>\n
The perception that immigration breeds crime \u201ccontinues to falter under the weight of the evidence,\u201d according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cWith 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,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n