Tim Miller Pitches Wild Idea for Denaturalization Process: ‘Send a Signal That the White House Will Not Play Favorites’
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller responded to President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would seek to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility” by encouraging the White House to start by denaturalizing First Lady Melania Trump.
Trump said on Thursday evening that he would “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” in the response to the shooting of two National Guardsmen by a suspected Afghan national.
In a lengthy Truth Social post, the president announced his immigration pause, claiming he would also denaturalize immigrants who do not benefit the United States.
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization,” he wrote.
Responding to the post, Miller hit back at Trump, calling out the president’s personal connection to those who have immigrated to the United States.
“If we are going to denaturalize migrants who ‘undermine domestic tranquility’ any fair system would start with Melania to send a signal that the White House will not play favorites,” Miller wrote on Friday.
Melania Trump immigrated to the United States in 1996, first on a tourist visa and later on work visas related to her modeling career. She became a citizen in 2006.
The First Lady spoke about her experience with the immigration process at an event at the National Archives in 2023, telling a group of 25 immigrants being sworn in as U.S. citizens that “my personal experience of traversing the challenges of the immigration process opened my eyes to the harsh realities people face.”
Despite his wife’s personal history, Trump has continued to push policies that further restrict immigration. In his Thursday post, the president broadened his strategy to crack down on the immigrant population, claiming that “[o]nly REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation.”
The Bulwark writer responded to this claim as well, posting a list of statistics related to Trump’s reverse migration proposal.
“Here are the counties that lead the way in reverse migration,” wrote Miller. “This is what Trump wants for America.”
The statistics posted by Miller mirror UN data published in the 2024 Revision of World Population Prospects on countries with the highest rates of reverse migration– meaning they had significantly more emigrants than immigrants.
