Privileging refugee status for Afrikaners and Neo-Nazis, Trump administration flaunts its white supremacist core
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This piece was previously published at The Hot Screen.
A desire to entrench white supremacism as a guiding principle of American government and society lies at the heart of the Trump II regime and the MAGA movement that powers it. Brown-skinned immigrants currently bear the harshest expression of this hatred, as ICE agents unleash terror and brutality against unarmed men, women, and children for the crime of being undocumented. But it’s no accident that Americans have increasingly been caught up on the sharp end of this cleansing sword, detained and held incommunicado in contravention of their basic rights. After all, the supposed war on immigrants has always been the entry point for a far more sinister jihad: to repudiate the growing racial diversity of the U.S. citizenry, and to find some way to disempower those not considered to be true Americans. If non-white Americans get caught up in the sweeps — racially profiled, blindsided by demands to show proof of citizenship —then why on earth would MAGA see this as a bad thing? It’s an easy way to amplify their central message, not just to those victimized, but to millions of other citizens as well: “Because of the color of your skin, you cannot possibly be a real American. This is not your country.”
Apart from the ICE violence and harassment that seeks to thwart non-white immigration and terrorize non-white citizens, the Trump administration is working to assert white dominance against the citizenry via dozens of other methods, from the cultural (sanitizing U.S. history by downplaying slavery and Jim Crow) to the politically pragmatic (destroying the remaining protections of the Voting Rights Act). Adam Serwer refers to this Trump era project as the “Great Resegregation,” and asserts that it aims to:
restore an America past where racial and ethnic minorities were the occasional token presence in an otherwise white-dominated landscape. It would repeal the gains of the civil-rights era in their entirety. What its advocates want is not a restoration of explicit Jim Crow segregation—that would shatter the illusion that their own achievements are based in a color-blind meritocracy. They want an arrangement that perpetuates racial inequality indefinitely while retaining some plausible deniability, a rigged system that maintains a mirage of equal opportunity while maintaining an unofficial racial hierarchy.
But as overt as this effort has been to many observers, most Americans have yet to grasp the sheer audacity and grotesquerie of what at times feels indistinguishable from having a Confederate president in the White House. Yet the truth is not so much staring us in the face as cackling uncontrollably and smacking us about the head. This is a white supremacist regime ascendant; this is a movement poisoned by a literal belief that skin color confers actual superiority and belonging.
Yet I can’t help wondering if Serwer’s assessment isn’t dark enough, as the Trump administration revs up a literal war against non-whites that seems at times to contemplate the possibility of substantially slowing, or even reversing, the growth of a racially diversifying America. I think we got a glimpse of this sinister possibility — but also of its fragile overreach — in news this week that the Trump administration is not only intent on severely restricting the settlement of refugees in the U.S., but on making sure that those few who do come are white. Here’s how the New York Times summarized these developments:
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 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.
It’s impossible to overstate how explicitly white supremacist this change would be. It essentially claims that whiteness subjects certain people in the world to such abuse that they should gain first admittance to the U.S.; it claims that whiteness makes you into a better potential citizen via vague “culture” handwaving; and generally sends a message that white people are the real Americans through mysterious genetic qualities. A card-carrying member of the KKK could not have propagated a more insidious and anti-American refugee policy.
The specific foreign populations identified by the proposals only amplify the sense that a resurrected Jefferson Davis currently strides the halls of the White House. White South Africans are identified as worthier than nearly every other refugee population in the world, and are included at least in part because of false allegations by Trump and others that they are unfairly persecuted by the South African government. Indeed, the president has already expedited refugee status for this population. Yet, in the annals of recent world history, it is hard to think of a less sympathetic group of applicants. Long benefitting from a degenerate Apartheid regime, denying the political aspirations of their fellow South Africans because they happened to be black — and then whining about not being in control anymore because their racist abomination was finally overthrown? This is a populace that Trump seems to favor precisely because they come straight off the lot fully-equipped with white supremacist features, and with unearned grievance to spare. As an added bonus, they send a baleful segregationist message, drawing our attention to a nation that maintained racial apartheid into living memory.
Then there is the prioritization of certain specified European refugees. At first, the intent to privilege Europeans who oppose migration just sounds silly. If they oppose migration, then why would then want to immigrate? Perhaps they’re just confused! Unfortunately, though, the Trump administration goal here appears to be to lend a hand to the far-right Alternative for Germany (Afd), by reinforcing that political party’s contention that it’s been unfairly harassed by the German authorities. Given that the AfD is known for its embrace of Nazi rhetoric, hatred of non-whites, and general ambivalence towards democracy, this Trump administration selection seems aimed at encouraging a top-tier cadre of master race Teutons to join the American reich, I mean homeland.
And as for the preference extended to those who already speak English — I think we can assume that this doesn’t exactly mean the administration will carefully examine the requests of refugees from places where they speak the wrongly accented type of English.
The blatant racial preferences are purportedly supported by a blurry “cultural” vision of America, where white people are likelier to follow unspecified “cultural norms.” But given that preference is being offered to groups likelier than most other possible candidates to actively oppose democracy and freedom, and to frown on inclusion or equal rights for non-whites, we are forced to conclude that the cultural norms in question are, above all else, those that encourage believing that white people are a superior race. Again, the Trump administration seems to be actively recruiting known racists to fit its profile of what real Americans are supposed to be like.
The documents themselves go so far as to openly admit this farcical vision of
United States
