Perspective 210. Entry into the U.S.: Racist?

The current presidential administration has enacted broad restrictions on travel to the United States and on applications to immigrate here. Do these restrictions add up to systematic racism?

Yes. The restrictions apply almost exclusively to majority non-white nations. The United States arguably has the most racist entry policies of any “advanced” country.

In 2025 the U.S. government closed off all entry from 20 nations, Muslim or African plus Haiti, Laos, and Myanmar. Partial exclusion, closing most visa categories, was applied to another 20 Arican or majority black Caribbean states.

In January of this year the U.S. announced an indefinite suspension of immigration applications from 75 nations, including most of the 40 above and another 51 African and Asian lands. These nations – almost half the world -- in 2024 accounted for 46% of immigrant visas issued that year.

These policies take us back almost exactly a century, to the 1924 Immigration Act that set national quotas for immigration expressly designed to “Keep American White.” That also describes current policy; our president says these people have “bad genes.”

In addition, current policy tries to block the path to citizenship for newcomers already here legally. The strategy is to make them leave and apply for naturalization from outside the U.S. – if they are then allowed to apply.

Even those already naturalized are not safe. Some 80 officials have been assigned to investigations aimed at stripping them of their citizenship.

In the meantime, some 1.3 million refugees here under Temporary Protected Status are – with the connivance of the Supreme Court – now subject to forced return to countries from which they legitimately needed protection.

At least the Supreme Court did invalidate the administration’s effort to cancel birthright citizenship despite the plain wording (“all persons born or naturalized in the United States”) of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution?

But wait: four justices agreed to ignore the Constitution’s clear words -- so with one more vote racism could rule supreme.