Donald Trump’s executive order, “Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” is nothing more than a polished rehash of his old xenophobic rhetoric, wrapped in fearmongering and paranoia to justify further crackdowns on immigrants. It’s not about security—it’s about exclusion, division, and the demonization of people based on where they come from.

This order doesn’t just impose extreme vetting—it manufactures a system designed to reject and exclude. It expands broad and vague powers to blacklist entire nations, ramp up deportations, and impose arbitrary ideological tests on immigrants, as if America’s greatest threat is the people seeking a better life within its borders. It revives the cruel, discriminatory policies that led to the Muslim Ban, a shameful chapter in U.S. history that saw families separated, refugees stranded, and a complete betrayal of American values.

This order is legally dubious and practically absurd. Who decides what it means for an immigrant to have “hostile attitudes toward American culture”? Who gets to define what constitutes a “unified American identity”? This is coded language for political litmus tests, for punishing those who dare to disagree with the government, for creating second-class immigrants who must prove their loyalty in ways no natural-born citizen ever has to. It’s the weaponization of patriotism to justify bigotry.

And let’s not ignore the blatant hypocrisy. The United States has long been a global leader in immigration—built by the very people Trump wants to demonize. But this order attempts to equate immigration with terrorism, ignoring the reality that domestic extremism, particularly white nationalist terrorism, has been one of the most lethal threats to American security in recent years. Yet, this executive order says nothing about vetting white supremacists, domestic militias, or political extremists who incite violence on American soil. Instead, it continues the tired scapegoating of foreign-born individuals, targeting the very people fleeing violence and oppression.

Trump’s order also speaks of “assimilation” and “a unified American identity”—as if the greatness of America has ever depended on cultural conformity. America’s strength has always been its diversity. Its resilience comes not from exclusion but from integration, not from ideological purity tests but from the freedom to think, speak, and believe differently. The only thing this executive order protects is a dying brand of nationalist paranoia that sees every foreigner as a threat and every immigrant as an enemy.

This is not about protecting Americans—it’s about appeasing a base that thrives on fear. It is a distraction, a cheap attempt to rally support through xenophobia rather than through actual governance. If Trump really cared about national security, he would be investing in intelligence, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism strategies that focus on real threats rather than banning innocent people based on where they were born.

This order is a disgrace, a betrayal of the American promise, and a stain on our history. It is yet another attempt to pit Americans against one another, to vilify the vulnerable, and to rewrite the nation's values to fit Trump’s narrow, exclusionary vision. It must be rejected, challenged, and dismantled—not just in policy but in principle.