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As Donald Trump's influence wanes and his behavior grows increasingly volatile, he has intensified vitriolic attacks aimed at female journalists and ethnic communities, including Somali immigrants as a recent focal point. These disparaging remarks gain traction stems from the animosity behind them and his position, not any basis in truth. In a parallel manner, the government's actions against immigrants are haphazard and founded on falsehoods. It is abundantly clear that the goal extends beyond targeting individuals with criminal histories. The assault is directed at people of color.

From Native Americans carrying tribal IDs to American citizens by choice, from essential workers in building sites and hospitals to military veterans, university attendees, residents asleep in their beds, and very young children: a broad cross-section of the country's population is under siege.

"Immigration enforcement raids are brutal, inhumane and do nothing for community security," asserts a prominent New York City official. The spectacle of masked agents shattering windows and dragging parents away from infants, instilling fear and disrupting schools and businesses, undermines safety entirely.

These waves of calculated hatred—focusing on people from Haiti in the 2024 campaign, Venezuelans this year, and most recently Somali Americans—lean heavily on libelous lies and slurs. The reason is simple: the actual facts about these groups of people cannot support the animosity.

The Mythical White Nation and Historical Reality

This campaign of terror and demonization purports to aim at recreating a uniformly white United States that is a fantasy. Although America had a larger white population in the mid-20th century, it never constituted a purely white nation. At the nation's founding, the thirteen founding colonies included a significant percentage of African and Native American individuals—certain states in the South were over one-third Black.

Following American expansion, annexing Texas in 1844 and acquiring northern Mexico in 1848, it incorporated a large community of Hispanic settlers long established in the modern Southwest and California. Historical records show the initial Muslim of African descent in territory that became the U.S. came as part of a Spanish exploration party almost one hundred years before the Mayflower English Puritans reached the shores of New England in 1620.

Population Truths Versus Coercive Fantasies

The systematic targeting of huge populations of people of color and even mass deportations cannot fabricate the ethnically pure country of far-right dreams. Los Angeles, for instance, is close to 50% Hispanic, and regardless of aggressive enforcement, arrests, and deportations, its character persists. The city's very name is Spanish, an ongoing testament of who was there first.

All this hatred and persecution resembles the panic of bigots attempting to believe they can stop the coming changes of a country that is ceasing to be predominantly white by using pure cruelty.

It is coupled with an attack on abortion access that is, at times, openly intended to prompt Caucasian women to bear more babies. The argument points to a below-replacement birthrate in the US, a trend less severe than in other countries because of a young, industrious immigrant workforce which keeps the economy functioning. Yet, instead of offering the social support that could ease the burdens of parenthood, the approach is punitive and coercive.

A prominent journalist observes that the policies on childbirth of certain political figures—coupled with derogatory comments toward childless women—constitute a form of pronatalism. This ideology "usually combines worries about declining birth rates with anti-immigration and anti-women's rights ideas."

Similarly, analyses show that "attempts to raise the fertility rate do not compensate for wider administrative priorities aimed at slashing federal support programs like healthcare for the poor and insurance for kids. This focus on families is not just for encouraging procreation. Instead, it is being weaponized to push a right-wing political program that threatens the health of women, reproductive rights, and labor force involvement."

Contradictory Strategies and Public Rejection

The combination of anti-immigration and pronatalist policies represent an attempt to forcibly alter the nation's demographic trajectory. Ultimately, both amount to senseless intimidation by individuals filled with hatred who unintentionally demonstrate that their assertions of being better must be based on skin color and sex; without these constructs, their positions devolve into incoherent nonsense.

A lot of the reasoning put forward by the administration fails to align with tangible facts and actual outcomes. For example, naval operations in the Caribbean Sea often target tiny boats not confirmed to be transporting drugs and incapable of reaching US shores. Likewise, Venezuela's involvement in fentanyl trafficking is minimal, and its role in cocaine trafficking is much smaller than that of neighboring countries on the continent.

The administration's stance extends to environmental policy, with a dismissal of "climate change ideology" and "carbon neutrality targets." There is a sentimental commitment to fossil fuels, particularly coal, resulting in measures that force communities to spend money on outdated and polluting energy sources while undermining cheaper, cleaner renewables. At the same time, health officials have promoted unscientific nutritional plans while weakening general public health safeguards.

The foundational assumption of the anti-immigrant offensive is that non-white individuals born abroad are threatening outsiders. Yet, from coast to coast—from Los Angeles to Charlotte, Chicago to Portland—the government's own forces, the ICE and Border Patrol officers, whom many residents perceive as the unwelcome, violent invaders.

No symbol is more powerful of the widespread rejection of this approach than the thousands of people organizing, protesting, risking safety and arrest to protect their communities. City after city has risen up in defense of its residents. All the insults and threats can alter this fundamental truth.