NYT Discovers Harder Citizenship Under Trump, Again
According to The New York Times, under Trump, becoming a U.S. citizen is set to get harder. (Really? You don't say.) This is treated as breaking news, rather than the predictable political theater it is. The paper of record carefully omits the historical pattern: punitive immigration policies have bipartisan roots, often intensified by administrations seeking to play to specific bases, yet only
become a 'crisis' when convenient. Remember the 2008 immigration raids under Bush, or the record deportations under Obama? Apparently, those were just minor adjustments. One might wonder if the NYT's institutional memory only resets every four to eight years, or if they simply print what generates clicks. The continuous push for stricter immigration, often fueled by fear-mongering narratives,
rarely discusses the structural deficits in labor or the economic contributions of immigrants. It's almost as if the 'harder citizenship' narrative serves less as an exposé and more as a reminder to rally the base without addressing the underlying systemic issues.