Thursday, June 29, 2023

Donald Trump says he wants to keep ‘communists’ and ‘Marxists’ out of the US

In a new anti-communist rant, Donald Trump, the white supremacist, far-right billionaire former US President who is making a new bid in 2024, announced a new campaign proposal on United States immigration — barring “communists” and “Marxists” from entering the country.

More specifically, Trump said he would use “Section 212 (f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act” to “order my government to deny entry to all communists and all Marxists.”

“Those who come to enjoy our country must love our country,” Trump said during a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s conference in Washington, adding, “We’re going to keep foreign, Christian-hating communists, Marxists and socialists out of America.”

He also said there needs to be a “new law” to address communists and Marxists who grew up in America, but didn’t elaborate on what it would include.

Trump’s proposal also raised questions about whether a decades-old law could actually be used to ban all communist and Marxist immigrants to the U.S., how it would work, and why Trump is so focused on these political theories in a country where few residents support them.

U.S. immigration law already bars people who are members of a Communist Party from becoming naturalized citizens or green card holders. More specifically the law says that “... who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible.”

The origins of that rule date back to 1918 when the U.S. government became concerned about “external threats of anarchism and communism,” according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy manual. At that time, it was also the end of World War I, communism was taking root in the Soviet Union, and the country would soon impose strict immigration quotas in the U.S.

With his anti-communist rant, Trump tries to create more fake dividing lines between the Republican and the Democratic Party, while it is known that anti-communism is in the core of both parties' ideology.