There is something altogether insidious about the way purposely-cultivated, nativist coding in American attitudes about immigration policy work to obscure the ethno-nationalist reality of Trump's mass deportation efforts and broader white nationalist agenda. No matter how many times the Trump regime lets the mask slip and either openly admits or institutes policies that make it clear they also want to harm, expel, or otherwise remove *legal* immigrants who don't fit a particular political and racial archetype, the broader US discourse translates those objectives to "Trump is deporting dangerous, violent, criminal migrants who snuck across the border illegally." It doesn't matter how often ICE arrests a beloved small business owner who has been contributing positively to his community for decades, or DHS deports children who are American citizens in their fanatical quest to expel an undocumented parent, or how often the Trump regime's policies treat refugees, green card holders, and even foreign-born US citizens as "illegal" and "criminal." The overtly racist, authoritarian reality of our immigration policies washes away in a national mantra about "keeping us safe" from "violent criminal migrants" that represent an almost microscopic fraction of the very real people, often guilty of nothing more than a civil violation, these fascist programs and policies affect.

As I've documented repeatedly however, there is a clear and unmistakable ethno-nationalist or nativist pattern to way the Trump regime's overarching "immigration reform" agenda functions. Well, you can add preventing potentially millions of legal immigrants from working in America because they can't get a social security number, to the growing pile of evidence demonstrating the Trump regime's rhetoric about "criminals" and "illegals" is obfuscating an openly nativist political program.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/03/social-security-program-quietly-frozen-musk-immigrant-claims

Millions of legal immigrants’ lives upended after social security freeze

"The Enumeration Beyond Entry program is an agreement between the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, where US Citizenship and Immigration Services would provide social security with information from applicants for work authorization or naturalization.

The program began in 2017 under the first Trump administration.

Without any public notice, on 19 March, the program was halted, affecting millions of immigrants every year and burdening Social Security Administration offices, as those applicants will now have to visit a Social Security Administration office and apply separately to receive a social security number.

Following the freeze, the Trump administration issued a memo on 15 April aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from receiving social security benefits, but provided no evidence of it being a problem."

So, stop me if you've heard this one before but a Trump regime policy they claim is necessary to stop "illegals" from stealing our social security benefits (that the ruling GOP party is trying to steal itself) actually has nothing in particular to do with preventing fraud and is just a giant "fuck you, go home" to legal immigrants in the United States. I guess they shoulda been South African nazis if they didn't want Stephen Miller and Downmarket Mussolini to harass them, am I right?

Now, you might be tempted to push back on my categorization of this as a nativist administrative maneuver if you take this malicious, but not particularly cancerous-looking policy shift at face value. After all, legal immigrants still *can* get a social security number, they just have to visit an office in person to so. Even setting aside the fact that this still gives the federal government an unwarranted degree over oversight over the lives of folks the US government has already said were fit to be admitted into the country however, this action must be placed in the context of a Trump administration and DOGE project that just slashed the SSA's staffing to the bone, closed a massive number of Social Security offices, and altered this policy without even making a formal announcement of how it would affect legal immigrants. I may not be an unfuckable billionaire ketamine addict who builds cars and rockets that burst into flames randomly, but I'm not dumb enough to believe the Trump administration doesn't *realize* what they're doing here; fucking with legal immigrants is the point, because this entire government doesn't believe anyone who isn't white, Christian, and pro-Trump actually belongs here.

Folks, the purpose of a system is what it actually does; and everything about the Trump regime's fascist immigration policies consistently does nativist bullshit. This isn't about "criminals" or keeping anyone "safe," it's bald-faced racialized nationalism and we must say so, no matter how ingrained pretending otherwise is in American culture.