The uncomfortable truth about Trump's immigration policy

The NPR Newsmakers interview with Dana White has provoked several days’ worth of social media commentary about immigration.

The commentary has come from people (or at least, from accounts) unhappy with an exchange in which I asked the UFC chief about the issue. The accounts seem uncomfortable hearing that the Trump administration has targeted people who are in the U.S. with legal status.

This doesn’t poll as well as targeting criminals who crossed the border illegally. But it’s true.

Some context: Our talk with White was fascinating. There is nobody quite like him. He has built his sport from a disreputable sideshow into a multi-billion dollar business that says a lot about America. Now, at the invitation of his friend President Trump, White’s UFC will celebrate America’s 250th birthday with fights on the White House lawn June 14.

During a good part of the interview we discussed the way that many UFC fighters come from the bottom of society, including immigrants and refugees.

INSKEEP: Is that representative of the UFC, people who maybe in some way are on the bottom in society, and they’re using sports to fight their way up?

WHITE: A hundred percent. Like most sports… people that are this tough come from some tough backgrounds.

INSKEEP: Immigrants, people who don’t speak English as their first language.

WHITE: Right.

INSKEEP: On and on.

WHITE: Well, one of the things that I, you know, believed about the UFC in the early days was no matter what country you come from, what color you are, what language you speak, we’re all human beings. Fighting is in our DNA. We get it and we like it.

There’s a dramatic story here about American opportunity—and also about the risk of head injuries, which we discussed. People on the political left may not realize how the story of the UFC speaks to certain realities of this country. Democrats also might not realize they should reflect on the likes of White, who suggests he might be a little to the left on certain issues. Maybe they won’t win over a friend of Trump, but they at least might reflect on the young men who watch UFC fights. In 2024, Trump did far better with young men than Republicans usually do with younger voters, and Democrats would like those voters back.

But this was not the part of the interview that triggered the social media response. Rather, a different exchange upset some on the political right. It’s where we discussed a fact: The Trump administration has extended its reach on immigration. It’s not merely targeting serious criminals, which most voters would approve. Nor is the administration solely targeting people without legal status who are otherwise law-abiding.

The administration is also canceling the legal status of people who believed they had come here according to the rules. Among other steps, the administration has canceled “temporary protected status” for hundreds of thousands of people from troubled countries like Venezuela. They had legal status and many now have lost it or are at risk of losing it. This is not a secret: A TPS case is currently before the Supreme Court concerning people from Syria and Haiti.

We discussed this matter in the Dana White interview. It begins at 8:43:

INSKEEP: Some people are going to be listening to this and think there may be a bit of a contradiction because we’ve been talking about how your fighters are often immigrants, even a refugee, in the case of your champion fighter who’s going to be at the White House. These are people, not universally, but in large measure, the president wants out of the country.

WHITE: And that’s not necessarily true either. What the president wants is what everybody has talked about, including the Democrats back in the day. You have to get documented the right way. I don’t think the president has ever said he doesn’t want...

INSKEEP: Well...

WHITE: ...People from other countries coming in.

INSKEEP: He has said...

WHITE: If you do it the wrong way, yes.

INSKEEP: In his first term, he did talk about legal immigration and being in favor of legal immigrants. But in the second term, they’ve actually canceled a lot of people’s legal status. They’ve taken refugees and said it’s time to go.

There’s really no doubt about this. But some Trump supporters seem to have trouble accepting it, as shown by posts such as this:

That’s a post from this holiday weekend. In case you’re interested, here is a news article that is also from this holiday weekend.

This New York Times article is not the first story to track such a trend. Again: not a secret. It’s being done in the open. The administration’s concern is not only illegal immigration or Joe Biden’s open borders. In many cases, the concern is immigration.

Some people on the political right make a case for limiting legal immigration. In its simplest form, their case is that too many people have come here with different languages, cultures and religions, which is bad for social cohesion. But many people—including, it seems, some who voted for Trump—are not comfortable going that far.

The full interview with Dana White is worth your time, and you can find it here.