No One Is Safe: Trump’s War on Immigrants, Refugees, and American Citizens

An information packet and an American flag on a chair ahead of a naturalization ceremony at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Miami Field Office on August 17, 2018. Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo

Since returning to power, Donald Trump has not merely revived his war on immigrants—he has escalated it into a sweeping assault on the very foundation of citizenship itself. What began as a campaign promise to deport so-called “criminal aliens” has mutated into a dystopian crackdown that now targets undocumented day laborers, long-term residents with green cards and visas, individuals with Temporary Protected Status, naturalized citizens, and, most alarmingly, native-born Americans like Rosie O’Donnell—whom Trump recently threatened to strip of her citizenship for criticizing him. While no such action has been taken, the threat itself marks a dangerous escalation in the use of state power to punish dissent.

“Trump isn’t just criminalizing immigration—he’s redefining who counts as American.”

In a revealing glimpse into the true intent of Trump’s immigration policy, he recently threatened to revoke O’Donnell’s citizenship, citing her vocal opposition and relocation to Ireland. The threat is legally baseless—O’Donnell is a natural-born U.S. citizen, and the Constitution, reinforced by the Supreme Court’s 1967 Afroyim v. Rusk decision, makes clear that the government cannot arbitrarily strip citizenship. But Trump’s statement should not be dismissed as trolling or bluster. It is part of a larger authoritarian playbook in which citizenship is no longer treated as a legal right, but a privilege granted to the loyal, sold through Trump’s “Gold Card,” and threatened with revocation for those who dissent.

What we are witnessing is not random chaos, but the methodical construction of an exclusionary state. Immigration enforcement has become the tip of the spear—undocumented immigrants serving as the test case for how far Trump can push executive power. ICE raids now routinely target undocumented workers with deep roots in U.S. communities, green card holders have been detained over minor offenses, and student visa holders have their social media monitored for their political beliefs. Even those on the path to citizenship—following every legal procedure—are no longer safe.

And now the next target: naturalized citizens. Last month, NPR and CNN reported that the Department of Justice has made denaturalization one of its top 5 civil enforcement priorities. A memo from Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate instructs federal attorneys to aggressively pursue revocation of citizenship “in all cases permitted by law,” empowering U.S. Attorneys nationwide to flag individuals—often without due process.

While denaturalization was once rare and reserved for extreme cases, Trump’s DOJ is now expanding it into a tool of intimidation. The vague directive targets naturalized citizens accused of crimes ranging from national security violations to fraud involving Medicare, Medicaid, or COVID relief. Crucially, these cases are pursued through civil litigation, where due process protections are weaker, the burden of proof is lower, and there is no right to a government-appointed attorney. Citizenship can now be revoked quietly, swiftly, and without the full protections of the legal system.

With nearly 25 million naturalized citizens in the U.S., experts warn that the policy creates a second-tier citizenship."To see that this administration is plotting out how they're going to expand its use in ways that we have not seen before is very shocking and very concerning," Sameera Hafiz of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center told NPR. "It is kind of, in a way, trying to create a second class of U.S. citizens" — where one set of Americans is safe and those not born in the country are still at risk of losing their hard-fought citizenship,” she said.

Citizenship is no longer a guarantee—it’s a loyalty test.

This extremist vision is not limited to Trump. Senator J.D. Vance recently told the far-right Claremont Institute that Americans with “deep ancestral roots” have a stronger claim to the country than those who believe in American ideals. He explicitly rejected the founding principle of civic equality and embraced a bloodline-based identity model. This is not just xenophobia—it is white nationalist ideology, and it lays the intellectual groundwork for mass denaturalization, two-tier citizenship, and ideological purges. For a deeper examination of this, read Julie Roginsky’s analysis.

This extremist vision is also taking bureaucratic shape inside the U.S. State Department. In a sweeping reorganization, the Trump regime is repurposing the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM)—long tasked with refugee resettlement—into a new Office of Remigration. The Guardian and Axios reveal that the new office will work with DHS and law enforcement to conduct “repatriation tracking” and oversee the removal of migrants—effectively transforming a humanitarian bureau into a deportation force.

The assault on migration is being led by Stephen Miller, Trump’s hardline adviser, who has spent decades attacking programs that admit refugees and immigrants into the U.S.

“Remigration” is a far-right code word for mass deportation and ethnic cleansing—now being repackaged as U.S. policy. Its adoption marks a dark ideological shift: immigration is no longer about security or law, but about purging the unwanted. In Europe, the term has been used by neo-fascist parties like Austria’s FPÖ and Germany’s AfD to promote the forced removal of immigrants and their descendants—often under the guise of “voluntary return.”

This is a fascist reimagining of national identity. Citizenship—once the bedrock of democratic equality—is now being weaponized into a loyalty test. As in any authoritarian regime, the message is clear: only those who serve the state—or stay silent—are safe. Immigrants, critics, journalists, and dissenters are no longer protected; they are targets. The institutions once designed to protect immigrants and refugees are being hijacked to enforce the regime’s agenda. Legal safeguards are disappearing, and a police state is taking shape in plain sight, while surveillance powers continue to expand rapidly.

We are no longer navigating questions of immigration policy—we are facing a deliberate, authoritarian campaign to redefine who qualifies as American, and who is allowed to remain one.

Rosie O’Donnell’s case is not a political sideshow—it’s the latest in a long line of threats Trump has made against his critics and opposition. When a native-born citizen can be publicly targeted with the threat of denaturalization simply for speaking out, it sends a chilling message: in Trump’s America, dissent itself is grounds for punishment and removal.

If citizenship can be revoked based on ideology or disloyalty, then the very concept of belonging becomes precarious. And once that line is crossed, no one’s freedom is secure.