By Emmanuel Nduka Obisue
President Donald Trump has unveiled plans for what he described as a permanent suspension of migration from “Third World countries,” a category that includes many African, Asian and Latin American nations.
Speaking during a Thanksgiving service on Friday, Trump said long-standing immigration policies had weakened U.S. national security and overstretched public services. He claimed the country’s foreign-born population had risen to 53 million, with inflows from “failed nations, prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” contributing to the surge.
“America has been divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at,” he said, insisting that current immigration trends were placing heavy financial and social pressures on local communities.
Trump also argued that modest-income green-card holders were accessing significant government benefits, which he said encouraged “social dysfunction”. He pointed to issues such as crime, overcrowded schools, pressure on hospitals and shortages in affordable housing.
Using Minnesota as an example, Trump alleged that refugees from Somalia had altered the state in ways he described as harmful. “Our people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone,” he said.
The former president outlined a sweeping set of actions he intends to pursue, including a total halt to migration from countries he labels as “Third World”. “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover,” he declared.
He further vowed to reverse what he called “illegal admissions” under the Biden administration, strip federal benefits from non-citizens, and remove immigrants he considers security risks or financial liabilities. The push, he noted, would involve denaturalising individuals who “undermine domestic tranquility” and deporting those deemed “non-compatible with Western civilization”.
Trump said the overall objective was a “major reduction” of illegal or disruptive populations, insisting that “reverse migration” offered the only lasting solution. He ended his remarks with a politically charged Thanksgiving message, warning critics: “You won’t be here for long”.
His announcement comes shortly after a shooting in Washington, D.C., in which two National Guard personnel were injured. Authorities later revealed that the suspect arrived in the U.S. in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, after assisting American forces in Afghanistan, and was granted asylum last year.
