Trump has said he wants to ‘permanently halt’ immigration to the US from poor countries

West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP) – President Donald Trump is vowing to “permanently halt immigration” from poor nations and deport millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status. He has blamed immigrants for problems ranging from crime to housing shortages as part of “social dysfunction” in America and is calling for “reverse migration.”

His most strident anti-immigration social media post since returning to the Oval Office in January came after the Wednesday shooting of two National Guard members patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital on his orders. One person has died and the condition of the other is critical.

A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war has been charged. The suspect came to the U.S. as part of a program to resettle those who aided U.S. forces following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Trump’s threat to curb immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming to immigrants.

Since the shooting, not far from the White House, administration officials have vowed to re-examine millions of legal immigrants, building on a 10-month campaign to reduce the immigrant population. In a lengthy social media post late Thursday, the Republican president emphasized that millions of people born outside the U.S. and now living in the country bear a large share of America’s social ills.

“Only reverse migration can completely cure this situation,” Trump posted on his Truth social platform. “Other than that, thank you all, except those who hate, steal, murder and destroy everything America stands for – you won’t be here long!”

Trump was elected on a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, and his administration’s raids and deportations have disrupted communities across the country. Construction sites and schools are frequent targets. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous because foreign-born workers in the U.S. hold about 31 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The president said on Truth Social that “most” foreign-born U.S. residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” as he blamed them for crimes across the country that were primarily committed by U.S. citizens.

The U.S. has about 50 million foreign-born residents, and several studies have found that immigrants are generally less likely to commit crimes than people born in the country.

The notion that immigration breeds crime “weakens under the weight of evidence,” according to a review of the academic literature in the Annual Review of Criminology last year.

“With few exceptions, studies at both the aggregate and individual levels show that higher concentrations of immigrants are not associated with increased levels of crime and delinquency in U.S. neighborhoods and cities,” it said.

A study by economists released in early 2023 found that immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born immigrants have been incarcerated for 150 years, adding to previous research that undermines Trump’s claims.

Trump appeared to show little interest in the policy debate in his post, which the White House called “one of the most important messages ever issued by President Trump” on its own rapid-response social media account.

He vowed to “end” the millions of admissions to the country that were made during the tenure of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. He wants to end federal benefits and subsidies for non-U.S. citizens, denaturalize people who “undermine domestic peace,” and deport foreign nationals deemed “unfit for Western civilization.”

Trump claimed Somali immigrants were “totally taking over the once great state of Minnesota” as he used a dated slur for the intellectually disabled to disparage Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz last year.

On Wednesday night, Trump called for a reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees admitted under the Biden administration. On Thursday, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Adlow, said the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”

Adlow did not name the countries. But in June, the administration banned citizens from 12 countries from traveling to the U.S. and restricted access to seven others because of national security concerns.

The shooting of two National Guard members appears to have triggered Trump’s anger toward immigrants, though he did not specifically mention the incident in his social media posts.

The suspect, Rahmanullah Luckenwal, is accused of driving across the country to the District of Columbia and shooting two members of the West Virginia National Guard, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Beckstrom died Thursday; Wolf is in critical condition.

The suspect, who is currently in custody, was also shot and had injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.

Trump was asked by a reporter Thursday if he blamed the shooting on all Afghans who came to America

“No, but we’ve had a lot of problems with the Afghans,” the president said.