President Donald Trump has issued the most extreme immigration threat of his presidency, vowing to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and announcing plans to strip legal status from millions of immigrants already living in the country. It’s a sweeping promise that would upend lives, fracture communities, and tear at the foundation of a country that has long defined itself by who it welcomes.
The fresh wave of rhetoric came in the wake of a deadly shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. A 29-year-old Afghan national — who had worked with the CIA during the war and came to the U.S. through a resettlement program for Afghan allies — has been charged. One Guardsman was killed; the other is in critical condition.
Trump didn’t reference the shooting directly in his post, but the timing didn’t feel accidental. Instead, he aimed his anger at immigrants as a whole, blaming them for everything from crime to housing shortages and calling them the source of America’s “social dysfunction.” His conclusion: “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” he wrote on Truth Social before closing with a holiday message that doubled as a threat: “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!”
The White House’s rapid-response account boosted the message, calling it “one of the most important messages ever released by President Trump.” If that’s true, the country is headed for a seismic shift.
Since the shooting, senior officials say they are planning a large-scale review of millions of legal immigrants — an expansion of the administration’s months-long effort to cut the immigrant population. What Trump is proposing now goes far beyond stepping up deportations of undocumented people. He’s signaling that even those who have lived legally in the U.S. for years may no longer be safe.
That would hit the economy hard. Nearly 31 million jobs are held by foreign-born workers, touching nearly every industry. Previous deportation sweeps under Trump rattled entire communities; construction sites and schools became routine targets. Now he’s turning that playbook on people who followed the rules and built their lives here.
Still, on Truth Social, he dismissed both economic and factual concerns with a blanket accusation that “most” foreign-born residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels.” That claim runs directly against decades of research. Crime in the U.S. is overwhelmingly committed by U.S.-born citizens, not immigrants.
The data is blunt. A recent review in the Annual Review of Criminology found the idea that immigrants drive crime “continues to falter under the weight of the evidence,” noting, “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.”
Another major study found immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens — a trend that’s held for a century and a half.
Going After Refugees, Immigrant Communities, Even Naturalized Citizens
Trump’s post veered beyond national security into cultural attacks. He claimed Somali immigrants were “completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota,” throwing a derogatory slur at Gov. Tim Walz, who served as the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee. It was a throwback to the ugliest parts of his earlier campaigns — only now he’s doing it from the Oval Office.
He also vowed to cut federal benefits for non-citizens, denaturalize people who “undermine domestic tranquility,” and deport those he calls “non-compatible with Western Civilization.” That kind of language — vague, sweeping, and wide open to abuse — would give the government extraordinary power over who gets to stay in the country.
His administration is already moving. USCIS Director Joseph Edlow announced that the agency will ramp up screening for immigrants from 19 “high-risk” countries, though he didn’t say which ones. This follows a June order that banned travel from 12 nations and restricted access from seven others under a national security justification.
On Wednesday night, Trump went further, calling for reinvestigating every Afghan refugee who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration. And when a reporter asked whether he blamed all Afghans for the D.C. shooting, he replied: “No, but we’ve had a lot of problems with Afghans.”
A Tragedy Triggering a Dangerous Shift
The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is accused of driving across the country before shooting Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Beckstrom died Thursday. Wolfe remains in critical condition. Lakanwal was also shot and is expected to survive.
The attack is horrifying. But Trump’s response — a sweeping plan to revoke legal status from millions — stretches far beyond any reasonable connection to the crime. It’s a policy response shaped less by evidence than by rage, fear, and politics.
And it marks a turning point.
Trump isn’t just talking about closing borders or removing undocumented immigrants. He’s talking about dismantling the legal status of people who’ve put down roots, started families, built careers, and lived in America for years with the government’s permission.
He’s making it clear: under his vision, not even legal status guarantees security.
The warning has been issued. And if Trump follows through, the country could witness one of the largest forced upheavals of legal residents in modern U.S. history.
