President Donald Trump holds a photo as he speaks to reporters after speaking to troops via video from his Mar-a-Lago property on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Alex Brandon/AP
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Alex Brandon/AP
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Donald Trump promised on Thanksgiving Day to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations in a blistering anti-immigrant speech posted late at night on social media.
The extended rant came in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting of two National Guard members who were deployed to patrol Washington, D.C. under Trump, one of whom died shortly before the president spoke by video with US troops Thursday night.
A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war faces charges in the shooting. The suspect emigrated as part of a program to relocate those who helped US troops after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can completely cure this situation,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE, except those who hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything America stands for. They won’t be here for long!”
Trump’s threat to halt immigration would be a blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming to immigrants.
Elected on a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, Trump’s raids and deportations have disrupted communities across the United States as construction sites and schools have been targeted. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous as foreign-born American workers account for nearly 31 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The president said on Truth Social that “the majority” of foreign-born American residents “are on welfare, come from failed nations or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs or drug cartels,” and blamed them for crimes across the country that are predominantly committed by American citizens.
The perception that immigration breeds crime “continues to falter under the weight of evidence,” according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology.
“With few exceptions, studies conducted at both the aggregate and individual levels demonstrate that high concentrations of immigrants are not associated with higher levels of crime and delinquency in U.S. neighborhoods and cities,” he said.
A study by economists initially published in 2023 found that immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S. Immigrants have been incarcerated at lower rates for 150 years, the study found, adding to previous research undermining Trump’s claims.
But Trump seemed to have little interest in a political debate in his unusually long social media post, which the White House, on its own rapid response social media account, called “one of the most important messages ever posted by President Trump.”
Trump claimed that immigrants from Somalia are “completely taking over the once-great state of Minnesota” and used an outdated slur for people with intellectual disabilities to demean that state’s governor, Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last year, calling him “seriously retarded.”
Trump has stepped up his rhetoric since the shooting. On Wednesday night, Trump called for a new investigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration.
On Thursday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow said the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum extent possible.”
Edlow did not name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the United States for citizens of 12 countries and restricted access to seven others, citing national security concerns.