The Immigration Crackdown Has Entered A New Phase

Written By Leeja Miller

Sources:

Transcript:

Hi it’s Monday, December 1st, 2025, you’re tuned in to Why, America? I’m Leeja Miller. On Wednesday last week, a man opened fire on two National Guard members in Washington DC, not far from the White House. One of them, Sarah Beckstrom, aged 20, died from the shooting, and the other victim Andrew Wolf remains in critical condition. The alleged shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is a 29 year old man from Afghanistan who was granted asylum status a few months ago by the Trump administration after entering in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, which allowed 200,000 Afghan nationals who aided the US war effort in Afghanistan to settle in the US for up to 2 years. Though I’m unclear whether this has been confirmed, the information of his entry in the US came from Kristi Noem and the state’s propaganda arm which has proven to be untrustworthy and deeply biased and we are now in a country where the information released by the state cannot be blindly trusted. But according to Kristi Noem, that is how the alleged gunman entered the United States. Operation Allies Welcome allowed Afghan nationals who had assisted the United States during our war there to flee Afghanistan and seek refuge in the US. These are people who put their lives on the line and would now be considered traitors to the Taliban and whose lives were actively at risk with the withdrawal of US troops According to FBI Director Kash Patel, that program allowed 200,000 Afghans into the country and had “absolutely zero vetting.” According to reporting from Time, that is inaccurate. The screening process for Afghan refugees was multi-layered and involved multiple federal agencies and in fact both Noem and Patel testified before congress that the 8,000 Afghan nationals who have been granted asylum status since Trump took office this year, including the alleged shooter, were all “heavily vetted.” That of course doesn’t matter when you have an agenda to deport as many immigrants as possible and a handy shooting to use as pretext. Today we’re discussing the fallout from the shooting and how this is a clear escalation in the Trump regime’s crackdown on immigrants in the United States.

This headline from the BBC caught my eye, “US halts all asylum claim decisions after National Guard shooting.” Using the Ground News browser extension, I can get helpful background information on this publication in one quick glance. To get the big picture, I can click on Full Coverage, which will show me coverage of the same story from publications across the political spectrum.

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In the wake of the shooting, Trump sent off a bunch of posts on Truth Social and also made a public address that was posted to YouTube and the White House website. And while we cannot trust the facts and figures that any arm of the US federal government publishes anymore, it is still useful to keep an eye on their announcements in order to get a grasp on what they are going to do. That is the one area where you can place your trust. They are going to try to do what they say they are going to do, no matter what the law says about it. There were a few things about the address he gave that stood out to me, the language he used, that should absolutely be analyzed as not unbiased communications but as propaganda from the state, propaganda that is highly successful on Trump’s base of supporters. Trump referred to the alleged shooter as an “animal” and his actions as “savage.” He calls Afghanistan a hell hole on earth and immigration “the single greatest threat facing our nation.” that is a “risk to our very survival.” He claims 20 million “unknown and unvetted” immigrants came in under Joe Biden, singling out Somalia as a country with no real government whose people immigrated to Minnesota and are ripping apart the once great state. Just as a side note I am coming to you live from Minneapolis where most of the Somali immigrants in this state live and I’m so sorry to report that there are no roving Somali gangs in our streets. Minneapolis is certainly not without problems, but I’m boots on the ground in the great state of Minnesota and I can confirm the immigrants are not the problem. The lack of gun control is. The lack of affordable housing is. I have lived in Minneapolis for most of the last decade and I can say I have never once had a negative experience with a Somali immigrant and guess what even if I had I have the critical thinking skills to realize it was probably that person and not THE ENTIRE SOMALI IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY who is to blame. Like let’s be so fucking for real here. But like I said facts and figures don’t matter to this regime. And Trump is now using this attack, perpetrated by a lone gunman, as pretext to expand his anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions. Because this shooting marks a noticeable shift, and I think we are entering into a new expanded era of immigration crackdown in this country. For the last 11 months, most of the focus has been on immigrants from Latin America. Tren de Aragua was named a terrorist group, Venezuelan migrants were especially targeted, anyone who looked Latino and had a tattoo could be accused of gang membership and shipped off to el salvador. I’m not saying the regime wasn’t ALSO targeting immigrants from other backgrounds, certainly they were, but the rhetoric was really focused on the millions and millions of illegal immigrants, terrorists, and cartel members the regime claimed were crossing over our southern border from the rest of Latin America. That was the focus of much of their propaganda. So much so that a June directive banning immigration from especially Muslim countries kind of flew under the radar in the onslaught of headlines. But it is that directive that the regime is now relying on to move forward with cracking down on Muslim immigrants with greater force and impunity. And again, we are going to take them at their word when it comes to what they say they are going to do, because they will certainly try, no matter what the law says. And Trump laid it out pretty clearly on Truth Social. He said quote “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries… terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions… and remove anyone is not an asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any foreign national who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.” Some of those things, like ending federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens, are things only Congress can do. But you can tell by his language that he is talking about Muslim immigrants here, not immigrants from Latin America. He wants to get rid of people “incapable of loving our country” and are “non-compatible with Western Civilization.” Those are pretty loud dog whistles. And this comes right after Trump issued a new Executive Order last Monday, just two days before the shooting of the National Guard troops, called “Designation of Certain Muslim Brotherhood Chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” It calls on Trump’s top aides to look into whether certain branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan, should be designated as terrorist organizations, produce a report within 30 days, and levy sanctions if appropriate. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Jordan and Egypt. During his first term, Trump toyed with the idea of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization but ultimately didn’t. At the time, experts advised against it. According to NBC News back in 2019, the experts warned quote “cracking down on the Brotherhood would put unfair pressure on Muslims in the U.S., the vast majority of whom are not members.” Quote “According to Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, the move would empower dangerous theories that describe Islam as antithetical to U.S. culture.

“You have this kind of conspiracy theory that different U.S. Muslim organizations have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. So I think a real concern here is this designation is also a smokescreen to essentially attack the American Muslim community through guilt by association,” he said in a video. “Then you really get into this slippery slope of the American Muslim community being guilty until proven innocent.”

The designation would also allow American authorities to “go after” Muslim organizations in the U.S., said Michele Dunne, a senior fellow and the director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

That’s because in many countries, the Muslim Brotherhood specifically has a diffuse, international network that openly runs a “huge” array of hospitals, kindergartens, schools and other charities, she said.

“It is very normal for them to be fundraising among the well-heeled Muslim immigrants abroad,” Dunne added. “Not for terrorism, for legitimate charitable work.”

And targeting Muslims in the U.S. for links to Islamic charities abroad would undermine the premise that American officials do not discriminate against Muslims, who make up less than 2 percent of the population.” That of course was back in 2019, and in 2025 I think it’s safe to say we have arrived at a place where the regime has no desire to pretend not to be Islamophobic, we’ve dropped the niceties.

That article goes on to say quote “To meet legal criteria as a foreign terrorist organization, a group must engage in terrorist activity that threatens the security of Americans or the defense, foreign relations or economic interests of the United States.

And the Muslim Brotherhood does not fit this criteria, according to Brookings’ Hamid.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is not a terrorist organization,” he said. “There is not a single American expert on the Muslim Brotherhood who supports designating them” as such.

While it doesn’t make sense from a terror-fighting perspective, the designation would see the U.S. doing the dirty work for foreign autocrats, said Ned Price, a former CIA officer and former National Security Council official.

A prime example of this would be Egypt’s Sissi, who came to power in 2014 after removing predecessor Mohammed Morsi, who himself came from the Muslim Brotherhood. Sissi has violently cracked down on the group and classified it a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood denies any involvement in attacks there.

The “vast majority” of branches of the Muslim Brotherhood — which was founded in 1928 in Egypt and now operates in many countries — do not espouse violence, said Price, a fellow at the New America Foundation and NBC News analyst.

…Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt are also fighting to counter the influence of rivals Turkey and Qatar in the region, which are financing and offering safe havens for the movement’s leaders.” While branches of the Brotherhood have been involved in terrorist attacks, many branches attempt to distance themselves from that and advocate non-violence. And the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization could backfire, according to the article quote “The designation would also most likely end up being a propaganda win for actual terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, according to Brookings’ Hamid.

These groups’ message is “basically that change is not possible within the political process, that democracy does not work because Islamists like the Brotherhood … will never be allowed to participate,” he said. “ISIS uses that to say that the only way is to use brute force and violence to get what you want.””

Okay so the benefit for Trump here is two-fold, he gets to make his friends in the middle east happy, we talked all about Saudi Arabia in a recent episode, and he gets to use the designation as a pretext to openly discriminate against Muslim immigrants in the US. And the shooting of the National Guard troops by an Afghan alleged gunman in Washington DC near the White House two days after the Muslim Brotherhood proclamation is like almost too perfect of an inciting incident to accelerate this crackdown. Like if I were more of a conspiracy theorist I would wonder whether it was staged, but I don’t have enough facts to make that claim and I’m not trying to spread hysteria, this regime is doing enough openly and brazenly that we don’t need to also go down rabbit holes to try to give them credit for something that might just be a horrible coincidence. Because it didn’t take Trump 24 hours before he used this to run full steam ahead on the regimes plans to crack down on Muslim immigrants, to use the example of this crime and the crimes of a few other Muslims in the country as proof positive that the whole group has to go, is clearly unfit for western civilization. And what do you know, not long after Trump issued his Truth Social post listing all the things he was going to do to crack down on Muslims in the country, his lemmings in the government fell in line.

“The head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Joseph Edloe said the agency will take enhanced steps to screen migrants from 19 high-risk countries. The agency pointed to a June

proclamation that list of countries from which the U.S. banned or restricted travel, including nations across Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and parts of Asia.

In his late night post, the president said an influx of refugees is a leading cause of social dysfunction in America and appeared to blame migrants for higher crime. According to an annual review of criminology report, high concentrations of immigrants are not associated with increased levels of crime and delinquency across neighborhoods in cities in the United States and the 2023 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S.”

The USCIS has also announced they will be halting ALL asylum decisions in the United States until they can quote “ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.” Like they are taking this and RUNNING with it. Asylum is a process protected by international law, and this asylum pause and any other pronouncement attempting to block all immigration from quote unquote third world countries, will likely be met with legal challenges.

There was something else in Trump’s late night Truth Social rant from the 27th that I really wanted to point out because I didn’t see it highlighted in any major news publication and I think it’s important. Because the video proclamation that Trump made was a scripted address. I’m unclear how carefully vetted his Truth Social posts are, and I’m sure someone is probably in his ear helping him write them, but I think they are a clearer window into his brain. And so it’s important that we acknowledge the incredibly hateful, violent rhetoric he is spewing on there, in its entirety, because it’s truly shocking. Like you’d think nothing would be shocking at this point and yet still I remain shocked. So let me read the rest of that “the refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America” quote. And I will not be censoring the words he used, because I refuse to sanitize the repulsive way that the President of the United States speaks about other people. And usually I’m a fast talker but I’ma slow down for this one. Quote “As an example, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great state of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for “prey” as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone. The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst “Congressman/woman” in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the USA illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its constitution, and how badly she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of government, military, police, schools, etc.”

It is VERY important that we not gloss over the word choices of the Trump regime in its official posts on social media, because that is the avenue through which all of its official and unofficial announcements are made, and we must take them at their word when they tell us what they think and what they are planning on doing. Often Trump will go farther than what his officials will say, because they are sometimes in court where they are at least in theory bound by laws and reality and have to face a judge and actually argue their case, but often Trump will normalize something enough that eventually his cronies like Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, etc, are willing to say the things that not long before were too beyond the pale even for them.

We have entered a new phase of the immigration crackdown in this country, and the shooting on Wednesday was the pretext needed to do so. To convince the people once and for all that the alleged illegal, violent, vile acts of a single person are indicative of the proclivities of the entire race from whence they came. And the people are fucking rabid for it. It is working. At least if the twitter comments sections are any indication–and yes many of them may be bots or foreign actors but I do think they echo the sentiment among Trump’s base of supporters. Fear and paranoia will make people believe anything. And if you are someone who exclusively consumes the propaganda coming from the White House, it is not hard to make connections that the fear you feel is because of immigrants. It’s like if you pay too much attention to Nextdoor, the app to connect with your neighbors, where people are constantly posting about suspicious activities or crimes happening near you, you start to believe very quickly that the place where you live is deeply unsafe. It can happen to anyone. And the Trump regime gives a convenient scapegoat and solution for that fear and paranoia–immigrants, all we have to do is remove them all and we will feel safe once again. The underlying assumption being that there is an inherent proclivity in immigrants to commit crimes, something that is not backed up by the stats, but by cherry picking a few criminals who are also immigrants the regime is able to convince a shockingly large swath of the population that the whole group is the same and bad. When it comes to cops, they’re just a few bad apples. But give me one criminal who is also an immigrant and that’s all it takes to convince people that the whole lot is bad. Because racism. The boys in blue are white guys, neighbors, friends, your buddy down the way, your white dad, when one of them kills an unarmed black guy well it was an accident, he’s under a lot of pressure because of how bad its getting out there, he’s just a bad apple. But if it’s a brown person who’s not a cop committing a crime then he becomes the poster child of all the roving mobs of faceless brown people out there who represent one large vague threat. Any discomfort you feel can be placed on their shoulders–food insecurity, housing insecurity, drug abuse, gun violence, rape, murder, you name it the regime has neatly pinned it on the immigrants–which is convenient because the solve is very straightforward and easy to sell. Instead of trying to address housing insecurity with reforms that make it easier to build affordable housing, we just blame the immigrants and the solution is all the same: just remove the immigrants and it’ll be fixed. Drugs? Remove the immigrants and it’ll be fixed. Rising crime? Remove the immigrants, problem solved. Immigrants are such a popular scapegoat whether you’re the Trump regime in 2025 or Hitler in 1935, because frankly it’s the laziest way to get the people in a tizzy. Play up their very real fears and insecurities, capitalize on their deeply ingrained racism and the human propensity to fear the unknown, point to the group who arrived here most recently and therefore are perceived as the least worthy, cherry pick and play up a few stories of scary immigrants, offer one clean, easy, prepackaged solution to all their problems: get rid of them. It’s what Trump has been promising and he is delivering, and it started with a few pro-Palestine protesters and then focused in on Venezuela, drug cartels, and Latinos, and now it is expanding to focus on Muslims. Again, that’s not to say Muslim immigrants weren’t already targets, but this shooting has marked a clear increase in intensity. They are turning up the heat on what was already there. We have reached a new level. And when you live in a country with rampant gun violence, each new shooting provides an opportunity for some pretext to ramp it up even further. Whether the victim is a far right influencer like Charlie Kirk, or the alleged shooter is claimed to be trans or associated with someone who is trans, or the alleged shooter is from a Muslim country, the violence in the United States provides perfect fodder to continue ramping up violent rhetoric against the target communities, which happen to also be incredibly vulnerable, I’m not sure I could name more vulnerable communities than immigrants or trans folks, which is all the more convenient for the regime. And we are still in year one. The nurses on my TikTok feed are convinced Trump is 3 to 6 months away from kidney failure and/or death but even once he finally succumbs to the sweet embrace of death, you better bet JD Vance is fucking chomping at the bit to continue the anti-immigrant crusade.

I had a video get a lot of views from back in April, 7 months ago, titled “Is It Time To Leave The US?” where I rated how nervous people should be about staying here. I have frequently been asked to update that ranking, which I find difficult to do because I don’t want to add to the hysteria and it’s really hard to predict the future in the current climate. In that video I said anyone who doesn’t have documentation or is an immigrant from the global south to get the fuck out. Anyone who’s trans, an immigrant from Europe, or brown to get your shit together, meaning prepare to get the fuck out if needed. And anyone who is black, disabled, muslim, or other LGBTQIA plus folks to be on high alert. I think I would raise all of those to Get Your Shit Together. But Trans folks and Muslims I would go a step further and raise to Get The Fuck Out if you can. And get the fuck out could mean just to a different state if you live in a red area. We have seen SO many examples of the lengths that people will go here in Minneapolis but also especially in Chicago, to protect their neighbors. Now is the time to surround yourself with those people if you can. And the best way to do that might be to move to a bluer state. I know that’s easier said than done and it’s so fucking shitty especially for the people who cannot do this, I know. I recognize that. I know you will be in my comments section saying it’s not possible for you. Yes. I see you. It’s fucking awful.

This is, again, why I am ending every episode lately encouraging people to find community. Even if you live in a red area, I hope the No Kings rallies gave you some hope that you have allies in your own community or in nearby areas. You have to find them. They don’t have to become your best friends, but you need to know each other and you need to be able to rely on each other. Communities are made up of many layers. They are your friends, the people you went to school with, your neighbors, members of the community organizations you are a part of, the people you see in passing at the public library, the people you meet at the gym, or the cafe, or the bookstore, they are people you can turn to for help. And there are varying types of help you might need. I wouldn’t turn to the barista at the coffee shop I go to to talk through the family trauma I am trying to manage, for example, but I would definitely turn to them for help if I’m in the area and actively in danger, you know? It is those community ties that provide the web of protection we all need right now, especially the most vulnerable among us. So please please meet your neighbors and leave the house and interact with your immediate community however you can. It doesn’t have to be that deep. Last week there was a house on fire down the block from me, everyone was fine but the fire department was there so I went outside to be a fucking nosy neighbor and gawk, and of course to make sure everyone was fine but you can do both at the same time, and my new neighbor who just moved in came by with their dog and we introduced each other and now I know my neighbor’s name and what they look like and I got to meet a dog. It was an incredibly simple, boring exchange, but it truly means a lot in These Trying Times, so I implore you to be out in your community and find the varied safety net that will keep you safe or allow you to contribute to keep others safe.

And if you’d like to support my work this holiday season, consider joining here on YouTube by clicking the big join button below, or supporting me over on Patreon, patreon dot com slash Leeja miller, where you get access to all these episodes completely ad free. Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Christopher Cowan, Amber Arwood, Evan Friedley, Marc, Sarah Shelby, Art, David, L’etranger (Lukus), Thomas Johnson, Anthony Jiles, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you!

And if you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from last week about whether the military can resist illegal orders from Trump.

Leeja Miller
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