A programing note to start off: I tried just offering audio files to accompany these weekly articles and after retrospect, I decided to go back to videos again. You have the choice, once again, of watching me or just reading the article. If you truly just want to listen to an audio post, you can find the audio podcast on most major podcast platforms and also on my website at www.crann-na-beatha.com. Thank you for indulging me once again.
Fáilte
Welcome to The Village Oak Tree
I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.
Thank you for joining me.
I have so much going on this month, I’m having trouble keeping up, so I’m going to make this a short one this week, sort of.
Lately, I’ve been picking up more and more IT gig work from this company I’ve been working for, for the last five years. They want me to take care of corporate computer refreshes and network printer installs out the wazoo lately and I can’t seem to get ahead on my own work. The worst part is, like all gig work, the pay sucks and there’s no benefits. How many of you can relate?
This week, I want to touch on a point again about something near and dear to my heart. I know I’ve said this a few times before that I’m married to a foreign born wife, who has a daughter living in another state, also foreign born and these days, I’m constantly worried for their safety.
So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit and let’s talk about what Trump’s latest anti-immigrant foreign policies might mean for people like us.
I watched a MS Now news story last Sunday about a Chinese asylum seeker that hit home for me and it got me thinking about all of this again. I’m also including this story from Zeteo that they published last Sunday to add to this.
Trump and Stephen Miller want to come after everyone they don’t like, period, full stop. They’ve never tried to hide this but in the last week, they’ve decided to ramp things up even more.
In the wake of the killing and wounding of those two national guard soldiers a couple of weeks ago, Trump and company have decided that immigration services will now be tasked with “reviewing” all green card holders and naturalized citizenship grantees from nineteen countries that Trump and Miller have decided that are national security risks or high risk.
They even pulled out a couple of people from the que at a naturalization ceremony in Boston last week because they were originally from one of the countries on Trump’s new list. They were told to just go home. Their swearing in ceremony canceled indefinitely as they do a deeper dive on their records. Now, they’re worried about being deported.
In accordance with The Office of Homeland Security Statistics, there are approximately 12.8 million legal Permanent residents with valid green cards living in the U.S. Many of whom have been living here for decades. According to the Migrant Policy Institute, there are nearly 25 million naturalized citizens living in the U.S. Both classes of immigrants constituting nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population now in 2025. Do the Project 2025 founders truly think they will remain in power long enough to deport 10 percent of the American population at some point in the future? Anyone with half a brain knows they can’t possibly do this by the end of 2028, so what’s their plan?
Back in 2011, I was single and dating a French Canadian widow for a time, who has been living in the U.S. under a green card for decades. Her kids, adults, were born in the U.S. We were both living in a border town in north eastern Maine and she has extensive family living across the border in New Brunswick, Canada. I would take her to visit her family members now and again during the year we dated and I never had any issues crossing back and forth across the border at either the Limestone, Maine crossing or at the Madawaska, Maine crossing. The point I’m making here, is that there are a lot of Canadians living in the U.S. with just green cards from Maine to Washington State. What if Trump decides on a whim that he doesn’t like Canadians and wants them all deported, regardless of immigration status? This is what he’s saying he wants to do to the Somalians, Haitians, Afghans and all of these people from the 19 countries he’s just decided he doesn’t like.
Think about that for a minute. This means that valid Permanent Resident Aliens with green cards are no longer safe, especially if they’re from one of these nineteen countries. As we all know, this list will expand at the whim of Der Führer. Rubio has been revoking green cards since last January, so this is nothing real new, but it is an expansion, something those of us who’ve been paying attention, have said would be coming.
We’re there now.
On top of all of that, there is the story I mentioned at the beginning of today’s show. That story about the Chinese immigrant who came to the U.S. to apply for sanctuary, or asylum as they call it. CBP arrested him at his last immigration check in meeting a couple of months ago and they also took his six year old son into custody as well. Who has now been disappeared into the U.S. foster care system somewhere.
Then there is this story from Al Jazeera I found yesterday, about how all of these minor children are being treated in these makeshift child detention centers as they wait for something to happen regarding their immigration cases.
US authorities acknowledge immigrant children held beyond court-set limit
Court filings indicate that several kids were held for up to 168 days, far surpassing the 20-day limit on custody in facilities not licensed for childcare.
From Al Jazeera
Can you imagine knowing that there are children getting sick with food born illnesses and poisonings from rotten food in these places? How many have died? We may never know.
Remember the outrage Americans had when Trump was cruelly separating minor children from their parents at the southern border during Trump’s first term? Where is that outrage now? It’s still happening, despite new laws stating that ICE and CBP can’t do that anymore.
It’s no longer happening just to immigrants from Latin American countries any more. It’s happening to anyone who is in the U.S. without a valid green card or is not a naturalized citizen. The news media for the most part, is now ignoring this obvious humanitarian crime, likely because they’re afraid of Trump.
For me personally, this is another wakeup call. I’ve already had several conversations with my Chinese born wife in the last few months, and I had another one last Sunday. She tells me not to scare her or her daughter, whom I consider to be my step-daughter, but they need to know they’re not safe anymore.
I’ll wait a little to see what the six justices on the corrupt supreme court are going to do about Trump’s executive order gutting the 14th amendment before I talk to my step daughter and son in-law. He’s a first generation native born American of Chinese descent but, if the six justices rule in Trump’s favor, he will no longer be safe anymore either.
If Trump decides that he doesn’t like China enough to get froggy and decide to deport all of the Chinese immigrants and first generation citizens just because, no one is safe anymore, unless you look like Trump and Miller.
Of course, the supreme court could rule in favor of the 14th amendment and it will become a moot point. Trump will be handed another judicial defeat and he’ll find something else to use to go after immigrants and asylum seekers with.
My wife and I have a dear friend who left the United States a couple of years ago to go back and live in her home country of Mauritius. She’s young and idealistic and we love her for that but. She recently posted on her a Facebook page that she was feeling a little melancholy about not living in the U.S. anymore. She had a valid green card when she left but I don’t know if it’s still valid anymore. I warned her about coming back now and I strongly advised her against it. She has a darker complexion than I do and now that she’s reestablished residency in her home country, CBP may not even let her back into the U.S. anymore. The last thing she needs right now is to be detained by customs at an airport and sent to a nasty detention center to await deportation back to Mauritius.
I hope she listens. I told her that the United States she remembers from a couple of years ago is gone now. It’s not safe for anyone. Much less anyone trying to come live here from another country, even if they have valid permanent residency or even have attained naturalized citizenship. For resident aliens, they’re not allowed to live outside of the country for more than a year at a time, so that would be her first problem. If she did manage to get her naturalized citizenship before she left, which I don’t remember if she did or not, they could just revoke it while she’s being held at a concentration camp and still be deported. Trumps state department has been doing this a lot lately. Notably, it’s been for immigration violations or criminal activity for the most part, but they’ve also been doing it to student activists and so on as well since last January.
Immigration Agents Have Often Grabbed and Mistreated Citizens, Congressional Investigators Find
Prompted by ProPublica’s reporting, an investigation by Senate Democrats documented the experiences of nearly two dozen citizens wrongly detained by immigration agents, contradicting the Trump administration’s claims that it only detains immigrants.
From ProPublica.org
So, bottom line, if you’re living outside of the U.S. and are not a native born citizen, your citizenship status is not a guarantee of reentry anymore.
As for those folks living in the U.S. who are not native born, Trump and Miller may be coming for you eventually, unless the courts find a way to stop them. We all know how feckless the congress has been so they won’t do anything to stop them unless the democrats retake the congress at the end of 2026.
They’re targeting the Latin Americans first and foremost because there are so many of them and they’re relatively easy targets. ICE and CBP have also been going after Africans from central and South Africa just because Trump doesn’t like them as well. He’s also going after Haitians, Afghans and Somalis now too. Basically, anyone he says comes from one of his “Shithole” countries.
Do you hear what I’m saying? They’re looking for any excuse, even going so far as to make up excuses, in order to deport anyone they don’t like the looks of.
Issuance of H1 B and other work visas are at an all-time low right now, and the ability of people from elsewhere to apply for asylum has effectively been shut off now. All applications have been paused in the wake of the shooting of the two national guard soldiers in Washington D.C. a couple of weeks ago. Which means that any asylum applicants residing in the U.S. are now fair game for ICE and CBP.
On top of all of that, Trump is also trying to export all of this white supremacy to western Europe with his new NSS foreign policy paper. He recently excoriated the Anglo Europeans for letting in so many immigrants from countries whose people aren’t like them. He blames all of the economic woes of the EU on past excessive immigration policies and he strongly suggested they follow his example in the U.S. to get rid of their immigrants and undesirables.
Which has riled up the Europeans. They’re openly criticizing Trump for trying to tell them how to run their countries. This is from the people, not the governments or EU council, although I’m sure they’re having some more quiet back room talks about the Americans regarding all of this.
Although allowing too many immigrants into western Europe in the past has caused some economic woes, it can’t be solely blamed for Europe’s current economic problems. But that’s another story for another day.
If anyone has been reading my articles or listening to this podcast, and remembers what I asked everyone last week, I want you to ask yourself that question again this week. What are you truly scared of right now if you’re not a native born citizen of more than one generation?
If you’re not a native born American, you probably should be on alert these days, no matter what your citizenship status is. Last week, I talked about the fear of food and shelter insecurity for the poorest amongst us. This week I can add to that, the fear of a revocation of citizenship and deportation for all non-native born people of any immigration status residing in the United States and the very real scenario of being separated from your children when they get around to coming after you.
Keep an eye on this birth right citizenship case being looked at by the supreme court now. No one knows how they may rule but once they really start looking at it and things get leaked out, and they will, stand by.
I’m watching all of this very carefully as it’s personal for me. What about you? How personal could all of this be for some of you?
I will leave you with that question this week as I take my break. When I return, I’ll read another chapter from The Priest by Michael Campi once again.
Speaking of my advertisement, I’ve been actively reworking my website over the course of the last couple of weeks, and now we’re into December and I’m still not finished yet. I’m creating massive expansions of the content inside, along with a complete cosmetic makeover. I still have another week or two before I’ll be ready to launch it so stay tuned. Meanwhile, the old one is still up, in case anyone’s interested. I’m doing all of the work myself so it’s taking a while to complete as I have a few other things drawing my attention away. So, with that said, go to my website and donate or buy a book. All proceeds go directly to my efforts to bring all of this to you once a week.
Go raibh maith agat, thank you for watching or listening to the show today. I hope you enjoyed it and that you’ll return again to listen to me offer a voice to what a lot of people are thinking these days.
As I say good bye this week, I want you to think about what the U.S may look like if Trump is allowed to keep doing as he’s doing? Is it still a place you feel comfortable living in anymore? Slán go fóill.
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