Trump & Cronies Top 10 Worst…Presidential Profiteering Scandals

 (By Norman Eisen and Gabriel Lezra, The Contrarian, 13 Dec 2025)

 No president in American history has profited off the presidency the way Donald Trump has—and it’s not close. In his first term, he benefited to the tune of millions of dollars in shady schemes, such as foreign governments using his properties for their events. But his second term has been orders of magnitude worse, as we document in this second installment of our series on Trump’s Top 10 Worst. From the Qatari plane scandal to selling access to purchasers of his meme coin to his family members raking in riches, Trump and co. are openly dangling special treatment for those who are willing to pay. The White House denies any wrongdoing, stating “the American public believe it’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.” Meanwhile, the president has reportedly increased his net worth by over $3 billion so far during the first year of his second term.

That’s why we’ve had a hard time picking the worst instances of his corrupt self-enrichment, not to mention that of his cronies and family. So if you don’t see your favorite scheme on this list, don’t worry—there are too many! Here’s our latest Top 10 Worst list, followed, as usual, by this week’s brilliant Contrarian coverage.

1: Trump’s Qatari Boeing

In May, Qatar presented Trump and his administration with a $400 million Boeing 747, ostensibly to use as Air Force One—a present reportedly worth more than all foreign gifts bestowed on all former American presidents combined. As my colleagues and I noted in a legal complaint, the Trump administration is apparently illegally transferring the nearly $1 billion from a nuclear weapons program at the Defense Department to retrofit the jet, a gross mismanagement of key federal funds. And it will barely have time in the air before Trump’s term ends and it gets “donated” to Trump’s presidential library for his continued use. Meanwhile, after the transfer, Qatar got a guarantee that the United States will defend Qatar through “diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military” measures and a new “military facility” for Qatar’s Air Force at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. Trump has defended the transfer of the plane as a legitimate “gift” and the White House said that “any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. President Trump’s administration is committed to full transparency.”

Current Status: We’re waiting for the Government Accountability Office to act on our complaint—but it’s hard to imagine a clearer conflict of interest.

2: World Liberty Financial

After the Trump family helped promote cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial (WLFI), it began encouraging foreign investors to buy into the venture. The conflicts of interest have since gotten only worse, as we discuss in our report on Trump’s crypto conflicts. This includes the involvement of alleged fraudster Justin Sun (see No. 6 below). Then there is “shadowy” United Arab Emirates-based Aqua1 Foundation, which invested $100 million in WLFI in June. WLFI also sold its tokens to at least 62 users that also used TornadoCash, an Office of Foreign Asset Control-sanctioned crypto mixing service that the Justice Department alleged helped criminals and hackers “launder more than $1 billion of illicit assets.” The Biden administration sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022, but the Trump administration lifted the sanctions in March 2025. Donald Trump Jr. has said that the idea that WLFI investors may be seeking favor with the Trump administration is “complete nonsense.”

Current Status: Not only is WLFI—and Trump’s crypto empire—flourishing, but Congress is rushing to pass legislation creating a market structure for cryptocurrency without any checks on Trump’s ability to influence the market to his benefit. Our legal team is working night and day to stop that from happening.

3: The Meme Coin Grift

Trump’s meme coin represents perhaps his most brash self-enrichment scheme, one unlike anything we have ever seen from an American president. According to the website, the token is “intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol “$TRUMP“—and not as an investment or security. But of course, this slice of code was listed on various crypto exchanges and immediately surged in price. Since its launch, the coin’s value closely followed Trump’s announcements, with wild fluctuations. The president even hosted an exclusive dinner for meme coin “investors” who spent tens of thousands to buy the digital token. This access auction was a scheme so brazen—even for Trump—that it left ethics experts like us stunned. The White House denies any conflicts of interest.

Current Status: The Trump-dominated Securities and Exchange Commission has shown zero interest in examining Trump’s meme coin activities. This makes defeating the new crypto market bill even more important. Our fight continues.

4: Trump’s Foreign Real Estate Boom

Trump is set to more than triple his foreign properties during this term, as real estate developers are working on at least 23 Trump-branded projects. These projects are a global feeding frenzy for foreign governments looking to curry favor with the president. To take only a few examples, Trump is building a hotel, golf course, and residences in Oman on property owned by the government. A Saudi real estate firm (with close ties to the Saudi government) is the Trump Organization’s partner in various real estate deals, including a new Trump Hotel in Dubai and a residential tower in Jeddah. In November, the Trump Organization announced a project in the Maldives with the same Saudi firm. The very next day, Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince and Jared Kushner buddy Mohammed bin Salman and announced an “Economic and Defense Partnership” with the kingdom. Hard to come up with better reasons why the Constitution prohibits the president from accepting foreign emoluments. When asked about possible conflicts of interest in the context of Trump’s then-upcoming trip to the Middle East, Press Secretary Karoline Levitt claimed that it was, “ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.”

Current Status: Each individual property may constitute an emoluments clause violation. We at Democracy Defenders Fund include leaders of the team that won multiple emoluments cases against Trump in his first term, and we are evaluating how to fight back now. Watch this space!

5: The USD1 Binance-UAE Deal

Less than two months after Trump’s WLFI launched USD1, its stablecoin, a UAE state-backed investment firm announced that it would use USD1 to finance a $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance, which was then under SEC investigation. In May, Binance decided to list USD1–and, days after the announcement, Trump’s SEC dropped its securities case against the exchange. And then there’s Trump’s treatment of Binance’s head Changpen “CZ” Zhao. He pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2023 and got a Trump pardon in October of this year. The White House defended Zhao, criticized his prosecution, and blamed the Biden administration for creating a “war on cryptocurrency.“

Current Status: Expect to keep hearing about this one—especially as campaign season approaches.

6: Justin Sun’s “Investment” in Trump Crypto

Justin Sun is a cryptocurrency entrepreneur facing SEC fraud charges. Sun loudly bought $75 million of WLFI tokens starting in November 2024. The SEC in March 2025 delayed its fraud case against Sun. Come May 2025, Sun—also loudly—purchased $20 million of Trump’s meme coin, gaining entrance to a personal dinner with the president. The timing and scale of the investments raise questions about whether Sun is trying to buy his way out of federal trouble—and into Trump’s good graces. When pressed about the ethics of the crypto dinner, Leavitt attempted to assuage fears, “I can assure you, the president acts with only the interests of the American public in mind.”

Current Status: Sun continues expanding his cryptocurrency empire while his case remains delayed according to the most recent entry in the court docket.

7: Tom Homan’s $50,000

In September 2024, before Trump’s election, his future Border Czar Tom Homan allegedly accepted a $50,000 payment from undercover federal agents posing as business executives. Homan reportedly indicated he could assist them to secure government contracts should Trump win—and there is said to be a tape in government hands. After the Trump team took over, the investigation was reportedly closed. Homan says that he did “nothing criminal” and that “I recused myself from any discussions of any contract or any monetary decisions like that….”

Current Status: My Democracy Defenders colleagues and I stepped in, launching an investigation in September. It is continuing and all legal remedies are on the table.

The $300 Million Ballroom Boondoggle

In the middle of the longest government shutdown ever, as federal workers were going without pay and standing in bread lines, Trump ordered the destruction of the historic East Wing to build a massive, $300 million-plus ballroom. Trump says he’s funding the ballroom through private sponsorships. What a kind, altruistic gesture from the corporate donors, who have over the years received billions in federal contracts–and 14 of whom are currently facing federal enforcement actions. The White House has advised journalists concerned about the lack of oversight to, “trust the process,” and said that, “a submission is not required legally,” to tear down the East Wing.

Current Status: A lawsuit has just been filed to stop construction because of alleged legal violations and a TRO hearing is set for next week.

The Executive Branch Club

After his father was sworn in, Donald Trump Jr. and business partners Zach and Alex Witkoff (the sons of Trump envoy Steve Witkoff) and others, launched a new private club in D.C. They brazenly named it “The Executive Branch.” This tacky tavern–whose “coat of arms” is topped by an ersatz presidential eagle–raises serious ethics concerns. Members are lining the pockets of the Trump and Witkoff families with reported huge initiation fees (said to be up to $500,000) plus additional annual dues for the well-heeled to mingle with government officials and their kin–not unlike its likely inspiration, Mar-a-Lago.

Current Status: The venue continues to serve as a potential influence-peddling hotspot.

Amazon Prime Video Presents: Melania

About two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Amazon Prime Video announced that it was releasing a documentary about Melania Trump—a $40 million bargain for Amazon. It’s hard to imagine Amazon picking up this project at this hefty price point without considering the company’s relationship with the Trumps. Amazon just settled one major case brought against it by the Biden Federal Trade Commission for $2.5 billion, with another potentially even larger case ongoing, and the company is also a large federal contractor (it received another $1 billion in expanded cloud computing contracts in August). An Amazon spokesperson stated, “We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only—because we think customers are going to love it.”

Current Status: The film is set to hit theaters in January, kicking off what promises to be another year of the Trump family’s shameless profiteering off the presidency. Amazon has released a still image of Melania peering out a car window onto a nondescript tarmac—not exactly a $40 million view.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/trump-and-cronies-top-10-worstpresidential?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3719374&post_id=181530934&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=43gor&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Supreme Court Showdown Exposes Shaky Case Against Birthright Citizenship

 (By John Yoo, MSN.com, 12 December 2025)

On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear challenges to President Donald Trump’sDonald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment automatically makes all babies born on American territory citizens. Trump’s effort to overturn the traditional reading of the constitutional text and history should not succeed.

Ratified in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment provided a constitutional definition of citizenship for the first time. It declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." In antebellum America, states granted citizenship: they all followed the British rule of jus soli (citizenship determined by place of birth) rather than the European rule of jus sanguinis (citizenship determined by parental lineage). As the 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone explained: "the children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such." Upon independence, the American states incorporated the British rule into their own laws.

Congress did not draft the Fourteenth Amendment to change this practice, but to affirm it in the face of the most grievous travesty in American constitutional history: slavery. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Roger Taney concluded that slaves — even those born in the United States — could never become American citizens. According to Taney, the Founders believed that Black Americans could never become equal, even though the Constitution did not exclude them from citizenship nor prevent Congress or the states from protecting their rights.  The Fourteenth Amendment directly overruled Dred Scott. It forever prevents the government from depriving any ethnic, religious or political group of citizenship.

The Supreme Court. Getty Images© Valerie Plesch/picture alliance via Getty Images

The only way to avoid this clear reading of the constitutional text is to misread the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Claremont Institute scholars (many of whom I count as friends) laid the intellectual foundations for the Trump executive order; they argue that this phrase created an exception to jus soli. Claremont scholars Edward Erler and John Eastman argue that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" requires that a citizen not only be born on American territory, but that his parents also be legally present. Because aliens owe allegiance to another nation, they maintain, they are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

The Claremont Institute reading implausibly holds that the Reconstruction Congress simultaneously narrowed citizenship for aliens even as it dramatically expanded citizenship for freed slaves. There is little reason to understand Reconstruction — which was responsible for the greatest expansion of constitutional rights since the Bill of Rights — in this way.  This argument also misreads the text of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Everyone on our territory, even aliens, falls under the jurisdiction of the United States. Imagine reading the rule differently. If aliens did not fall within our jurisdiction while on our territory, they could violate the law and claim that the government had no jurisdiction to arrest, try and punish them.

Critics, however, respond that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" must refer to citizen parents or risk being redundant when being born on U.S. territory. But at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification, domestic and international law recognized that narrow categories of people could be within American territory but not under its laws. Foreign diplomats and enemy soldiers occupying U.S. territory, for example, are immune from our domestic laws even when present on our soil. A third important category demonstrates that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was no mere surplusage: At the time of Reconstruction, American Indians residing on tribal lands were not considered subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Once the federal government reduced tribal sovereignty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it extended birthright citizenship to Indians in 1924.

The Fourteenth Amendment’s drafting supports this straightforward reading. The 1866 Civil Rights Act, passed just two years before ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, extended birthright citizenship to those born in the U.S. except those "subject to any foreign power" and "Indians not taxed." The Reconstruction Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment because of uncertainty over federal power to enact the 1866 Act. If the Amendment’s drafters had wanted "jurisdiction" to exclude children of aliens, they could have simply borrowed the exact language from the 1866 Act to extend citizenship only to those born to parents with no "allegiance to a foreign power."

United States Supreme Court (front row L-R) Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan, (back row L-R) Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pose for their official portrait on October 7, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Getty Images© Getty Images

 We have few records of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification debates in state legislatures, which is why constitutional practice and common-law history are of such central importance. But the few instances in which Congress addressed the issue appear to support birthright citizenship. When the Fourteenth Amendment came to the floor, for example, congressional critics recognized the broad sweep of the birthright citizenship language. Pennsylvania Sen. Edgar Cowan asked supporters of the amendment: "Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? Is the child born of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania a citizen?" California Sen. John Conness responded in the affirmative. Conness would lose re-election due to anti-Chinese sentiment in California.

Courts have never questioned this understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court upheld the citizenship of a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents. The Chinese Exclusion Acts barred the parents from citizenship, but the government could not deny citizenship to the child. The Court declared that "the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens." The Court rejected the claim that aliens are not within "the jurisdiction" of the United States. Critics respond that Wong Kim Ark does not apply to illegal aliens because the parents were in the United States legally. But at the time, the federal government had yet to pass comprehensive immigration laws that distinguished between legal and illegal aliens. The parents’ legal status made no difference.

President Trump is entitled to ask the Court to overturn Wong Kim Ark. But his administration must persuade the justices to disregard the plain text of the Constitution, the weight of the historical evidence from the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and more than 140 years of unbroken government practice and judicial interpretation. 

A conservative, originalist Supreme Court is unlikely to reject the traditional American understanding of citizenship held from the time of the Founding through Reconstruction to today.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/john-yoo-supreme-court-showdown-exposes-shaky-case-against-birthright-citizenship/ar-AA1S4cBE?ocid=socialshare

Why Trump Is Holding Back On Helping People Who Can't Buy Food

 

(By David A. Super, MSN.com, 9 Nov 2025)

 The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps 42 million Americans obtain enough food each month, is currently not issuing benefits. Each day, more and more low-income families pass the one-month mark since they last received assistance and risk running out of food. This appalling state of affairs in one of the world’s richest countries is made all the worse because it is completely unnecessary.   Congress has given the Trump administration all the funds it needs to provide full SNAP benefits, and on Thursday, a judge ordered the administration to fully fund this month’s benefits. But the administration continues to drag its feet.

SNAP is the nation’s largest food assistance program. As I wrote last week, two fifths of SNAP households include at least one employed member, and almost all the remaining households are either elderly, disabled or relying on SNAP during brief periods while looking for work.  Though states operate the program, the Department of Agriculture, or the USDA, funds its benefits. And although the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 requires the USDA to provide food assistance to all eligible families that apply, Congress traditionally has included specific funding for SNAP in its annual appropriations bills. October benefits were funded by last fiscal year’s appropriations act, but when that expired at the end of September and the government shutdown began, the question arose what would happen to SNAP.

The answer seemed clear: Congress set aside a $6 billion contingency reserve to pay SNAP benefits in just this type of situation, and also gave the USDA authority to transfer funds from one food assistance program to another as needed to prevent interruptions in benefits. In October, the Trump administration exercised this same transfer authority to move money from child nutrition programs to keep WIC running.

 The administration, however, refused to tap either source of funds to continue SNAP in November. The USDA even took down a plan it had posted a few weeks earlier promising to pay benefits from the contingency fund. Instead, the department’s website has added a deeply partisan post blaming congressional Democrats for shutting down SNAP. This sequence, without a coherent rationale for refraining from spending the funds, suggests that the administration’s decision was motivated not by legal or operational concerns, but rather by a desire to further pressure congressional Democrats in the current shutdown fight.

The USDA promptly faced several lawsuits, one from a group of states, one from a group of cities and nonprofits worried about how they could feed millions of people whose food aid suddenly stopped and one from SNAP recipients themselves. Two judges separately found the USDA’s withholding benefit unlawful, with a federal judge in Rhode Island ordering the department to allow states to provide at least partial SNAP benefits right away.

Rather than promptly complying, the USDA began foot-dragging. It told the court it had already spent some of the contingency fund on other things but would devote what was left to paying SNAP benefits. It then told states to recalculate every household’s SNAP benefits under a formula that would cut far more than was needed to fit within even what the USDA said was left in the contingency fund. After plaintiffs pointed out that it was not complying with the court’s order, the USDA told states to start over and recalculate everyone’s benefits under a new, modestly less parsimonious formula.  This formula would still cut every family by more than one-third and would leave millions with no food assistance at all. And the repeated changes in direction slowed down getting SNAP to people even more.

 On Thursday, Judge John McConnell expressed frustration with the USDA’s continued delays and found no legal reason why the department could not transfer excess child nutrition funds, as it already had to fund WIC. He therefore ordered the USDA to allow states to deliver full SNAP benefits by Friday. The USDA has sent states a vague statement that it is “working towards implementing” the court’s order while the administration filed an emergency appeal with the court of appeals. The department did not, however, explicitly rescind its previous guidance telling states to recalculate and cut households’ benefits. Some states have read the memo as authorizing them to issue full benefits, but other states are seeking further clarification, further extending the waits of their low-income families. SNAP may be entering a period of chaos, with a supposedly “uniform national” program staying open or shutting down based on the empathy and risk tolerance of individual state governors.

 And despite the USDA’s statement, the administration has not withdrawn its appeal. It claims that it is refusing to transfer the needed funds to SNAP out of concern that Congress might, for the first time in almost 80 years, decide to defund the child nutrition programs — something nobody in either party is proposing to do. Instead, it asked both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court to delay Judge McConnell’s order.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson postponed that order’s effective date long enough for the Court of Appeals to evaluate the Government’s appeal.

One can only conclude from all this foot-dragging without any legal justification that the Trump administration is seeking to maximize the suffering of low-income Americans to gain political leverage on Democratic lawmakers. The USDA’s warning last week that stores cannot offer discounts to households that have lost their SNAP benefits seems to support that conclusion.

 Last weekend, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that it would be his “honor” to provide SNAP benefits if a court told the administration where to find the money. Judge McConnell has done just that. This shameful episode must end.

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/why-trump-is-holding-back-on-helping-people-who-can-t-buy-food/ar-AA1Q5Hko?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=DCTS&cvid=6910cda36e944ce9bf4e9685e2377b0c&ei=12

Middle Class Woes: This MAGA Fan’s Complaint Holds The Key To Ending Trump

(By Thom Hartmann, Alternet, 6 November 2025)

 Yesterday was election day in much of America, although the biggest races were in California, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine, and New York City. As a bellwether for next year’s midterms, they could could define the fate and future of Trumpism. The stakes were enormous, and were bleeding through into social media.

One of the most viral Facebook posts this week was from a MAGA mom complaining that her Democratic mother-in-law won’t loan her grocery money. She explains that she can’t feed her family because Trump’s government shutdown has frozen her SNAP (Food Stamps) and WIC benefits, and, she wrote of her husband: “He asked his mother to buy a can [of baby formula] until our WIC comes in. Her response was, ‘We voted for this.’” The largest percentage of comments were variations on, “That’s what you wanted when you voted for that orange a–hole, but you must have thought he’d only do it to Black and Hispanic people. FAFO!”

Along those same lines, Trump went on 60 Minutes this weekend and lied to Nora O'Donnell’s face multiple times, including a whopper about grocery prices when she pointed out that they’re going up, up, and up. “No, you’re wrong.” Trump lied with his best “sincere” expression. “They went up under Biden, right now they’re going down. Other than beef, which we’re working on.”

Yeah, tell us about it, Donny. Just like climate change is a hoax, cutting taxes on billionaires helps working people, and you and your sons taking billions in crypto money from foreigners isn’t corruptly peddling influence out of what’s left of the White House. The simple fact is that back in the 1960s you could rent a small apartment, buy a used car, and put yourself through college on a minimum wage job. I know because I did it (pumping gas, washing dishes, working as a part-time DJ), as did millions of my generation. Just ask your grandparents.

So, what happened? Through most of America’s history, our economic life was similar to that of other countries that practiced unregulated capitalism. Charles Dickens wrote about that era in most of his novels, including Christmas Carol. There was a small 1% that owned about 90% of the nation’s wealth. A small middle class of professionals (doctors, lawyers, retail shop owners, etc.) who worked for the 1% making up around 10%-25% of the population. And a very large cohort of the working poor.  In Christmas Carol, the 1% don’t even show up. Ebenezer Scrooge was the middle class: he was a small businessman who owned a company so meager that it had only one employee. Bob Cratchit was the working poor, who couldn’t even afford to cover the cost of healthcare for his son, Tiny Tim.

That was the norm across most of Europe and America from the 16th century right up until the 1930s. After the Hoover administration and their corrupt Wall Street buddies drove the world economy off the edge with the Republican Great Depression, and America elected Franklin D. Roosevelt to put the country back together, conservatives began to worry aloud about FDR’s advisor, British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes and FDR (and Francis Perkins) had this wild idea that it should be possible to create a nation where at least two[1]thirds of the people were in the middle class. They’d do it by heavily taxing the morbidly rich (FDR raised it to 77% in 1936), giving union power to working people (Wagner Act, 1935), and providing a solid social safety net — Social Security (1935), a minimum wage (1933/38), unemployment insurance (1935), and Food Stamps (1939) — to create a middle-class floor.

The programs were universally decried by the GOP as socialism, the doorway to communism, and “radically anti-American.” Every major social program since the 1930s has been opposed by Republicans, and in the 1950s Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater and other “thinkers” in the movement provided a rationale for their opposition. They argued, throughout the 1950s, that if the middle class ever got “too large,” American society would begin to disintegrate “under the weight of FDR’s socialist programs.” Kirk and Buckley warned that women would forget their place in the kitchen and bedroom, young people would stop respecting their elders and the value of hard work, and racial minorities would demand social and economic equality with whites. The result would be societal chaos leading to the downfall of America as we knew it.

Their warnings were largely ignored or even ridiculed through the 1950s as the nation’s prosperity steadily increased and we shot past that 50% threshold. And then came the 1960s, as we passed 60% of us in Kirk’s dreaded middle class. The birth control pill was legalized in 1961; within a few years there was a full-blown women’s movement. The Civil Rights movement was embraced by the Kennedy brothers and Black people began to fight back against police brutality, causing multiple cities to erupt into flames. And by 1967, young men were refusing military service, protesting in the streets, and burning their draft cards.

The collective response of the Republican Party was something like, “Holy crap! Russell Kirk, Bill Buckley, and Barry Goldwater were right!! The country is on the verge of something like the Bolshevik Revolution that led straight to communism!!!” Thus, Ronald Reagan came to the White House in 1981 with a simple mandate: cut the middle class down to size to restore social and political stability. To save the nation. He started by destroying the unions that supported high wages and benefits. A third of us were unionized when Reagan came into office; now it’s in single-digits and Trump just de-unionized an additional few-hundred-thousand federal workers.

Then he instituted the first long-lasting freeze on the minimum wage (9 years), cut the top income tax rate from 74% to 27%, “reformed” Social Security by raising the retirement age to 67 and taxing its benefits as income, ended enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine (1987), gutted federal support for colleges, and threw small local businesses to the wolves by abandoning enforcement of 100 years of anti-monopoly laws and securities regulations that forbade stock buy-backs.

Before Reagan, the middle class was thriving and growing and you could get into it with a minimum wage job. A union job, like my dad had at an a tool-and-die shop, was virtually a lifetime guarantee of stability solidly in the middle of the middle of class. Look through newspapers of that era and they talked about “wage-earner income” because most middle-class families were making it just fine with a single paycheck. Today, instead, you’ll find references to “household income” because it takes two or more paychecks to maintain the same standard of living a family could in the 1960s and 1970s with one wage-earner.

In the intervening years, Republicans (and a few “moderate” and “Third Way” Democrats) have continued the Kirk/Buckley/Goldwater/Reagan project of dismantling Keynes’ and FDR’s grand middle class project. As a result, the middle class has shrunk to fewer than 50% of us, and it takes two paychecks to do it. Student debt has frozen two generations out of the American Dream. Healthcare expenses destroy a half-million American families every year. Republicans have kept the minimum wage frozen for sixteen long years as they transferred fully $50 trillion from working-class homes and families into the money bins of the top 1%. Trump’s Big Beautiful Billionaire’s Bill simply continues Reagan’s assault on the American middle class. You could call it, “Making America safe for the morbidly rich like in the 1920s.” He even had a Great Gatsby party at Mar-a-Lardo over the weekend to celebrate his accomplishments, 

We now have more billionaires, and richer billionaires, than any other country in the history of the planet. Trump himself and his boys are setting an example for the pillaging of America: they have taken in at least, by some estimates, $5 billion in just the first 10 months of his presidency. We stand in a pissed-off progressive populist moment, although that movement is up against a massive wall of billionaire-owned media and infrastructure. Five bought-off Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized bribery of judges and politicians. Bondi and Noem are spouting lies to militarize our cities, presumably in anticipation of the 2026 and 2028 elections.

If America is to survive as a democratic republic, our middle class must again become the beating heart of both our economy and our politics. That means restoring strong unions, ending legalized bribery of politicians and judges, breaking up corporate monopolies, providing healthcare and education to everybody, and taxing billionaires enough to rebuild the social contract that made this country great in the first place. Every generation faces a choice between oligarchy and democracy, between government by the people and government by the morbidly rich. We made the right choice in 1932, when my parents’ generation rose up and said “enough.” It’s past time for ours to do the same.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/this-maga-fan-s-viral-complaint-holds-the-key-to-ending-trump-opinion/ar-AA1PVQuB?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=690d5da13b3f4b5dabbf147cab09fd34&ei=19

Trump Just Got A Wake Up Call As He Tries To Escalate His War On Defiance

(By Sabrina Haake, Raw Story, 15 June 2025)

 Ever since he was ignominiously blocked from shooting George Floyd protesters, Donald Trump has been itching to sic the military on U.S. citizens. Seizing California’s National Guard and sending U.S. Marines into Los Angeles to deliberately escalate violence brings his long-festering fever dream closer to life.

Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has recounted how, during a White House meeting in 2020, Trump looked at Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and asked why he couldn’t just shoot protesters, adding, “It was (both) a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue hung very heavily in the air.”

Milley pushed back on that suggestion and other illegal Trump impulses, eventually leading Trump to call for Milley’s execution and revoke his security detail. During Trump 1.0, Trump apparently suggested shooting protesters enough times that Esper issued a public statement opposing the use of the Insurrection Act against protesters, enraging Trump.

Trump made sure that would not happen again in his second administration by appointing a dangerously unqualified defense secretary with few moral qualms. As a Fox News host, Pete Hegseth echoed Trump’s desire to deploy the military against protesters. He defended war criminals who ‘killed the right people in the wrong ways,’ advocating “total war against our enemies… All of ’em, you stack bodies, and when it’s over, then you let the dust settle and you figure out who’s ahead.”

A trillion-dollar defense budget to kill whom, exactly?

Even though the U.S. is not at war, and Trump has shamefully abandoned our NATO military alliances, Hegseth waxes hard on “lethality,” and rails against “woke” laws that punish soldiers for indiscriminate killings. Trump/Hegseth seek a trillion-dollar defense budget, not to defend America from foreign enemies who are now Trump’s mentors, but to attack “enemies within,” i.e., Americans who oppose Trump’s agenda.

None of this, including Trump’s deliberate escalation of violence in LA, was unforeseen. Who can forget how Kamala Harris was panned as histrionic when she said Trump would sic the military on U.S. citizens, following his promise to do just that? In October, 2024, Trump said he’d use the military against the biggest threat to America — Americans who don’t support him.

“I think the (main problem we face) is the enemy from within,” Trump said, adding: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

 Both he and Hegseth have already weeded out military officers who would honor their oaths to the Constitution over illegal orders from Trump. This week, Hegseth inadvertently confirmed that the military, under Trump, will become a domestic force when he testified before Congress, saying, “We’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland.”

It’s galling that no congressman has connected the dots and asked about explosive military spending that Trump/Hegseth have signaled will be used against Americans.  As of this writing, Trump has not declared martial law, but recent Trump history, paired with his glaring mental illness, suggests it’s “when,” not “if.”

Trump’s plan to use troops to impose his domestic agenda is decidedly un-American. Today it includes deportations and manufacturing civil unrest; tomorrow, Trump’s goons will round up journalists who criticize him, judges, Democrats, and political opponents, as just happened Thursday when Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was tackled to the ground for trying to ask Kristi Noem questions.

If you have any doubt, watch Trump’s illegal and partisan address at Ft. Bragg, where he led troops in uniform to wildly “boo” journalists, California’s governor, and LA’s mayor. If you have any lingering naivety, still hoping soldiers will honor their oaths and not follow America’s Hitler, that speech will erase it.

For now, Trump is acting in LA pursuant to a presidential memorandum deploying the National Guard under a rarely used federal law, 10 U.S.C. § 12406. Under that code, a president possesses the power to federalize the National Guard only when there is “a rebellion or danger of rebellion” against federal authority, or when the president cannot execute federal laws. As Trump sees it, this assessment depends on his own untrained and undisciplined opinion. Under that statute, however, the National Guard can only support other law enforcement officers and defend federal property.

The Posse Comitatus Act also remains in effect, prohibiting the use of the military as a domestic law enforcement agency, except in extraordinary circumstances not yet present in LA despite Trump’s best efforts. The Insurrection Act of 1807, the authority under which Hegseth sent active Marines to LA, is a broader set of statutes granting Trump the power to use military force in specific circumstances, including suppressing armed rebellion, civil disorder, or other extreme circumstances where the states are unable to maintain public order.

Gov. Gavin Newsom formally objected to Trump sending troops, because California in general, and LAPD in particular, have sufficient resources to maintain order. Newsom knows that when US Marines start shooting civilians, whether in LA, Chicago, or New York, violence will ratchet up to the necessary threshold to circumvent Posse Comitatus and allow Trump to declare martial law.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-just-got-a-wake-up-call-as-he-tries-to-escalate-his-war-on-defiance-opinion/ar-AA1GKxio?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=DCTS&cvid=bab17248ede14a09bf947a493cef3d8b&ei=12

Trump Claims Obama And Biden Achievements For Himself

 (By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, 25 September 2024)

We’ve documented many times the false claims that former president Donald Trump has made about his achievements during his presidency. But there are also instances when Trump claims credit for something that either former president Barack Obama or President Joe Biden did. Here’s a recent sampling.

Capped insulin at $35 a month

“Low INSULIN PRICING was gotten for millions of Americans by me, and the Trump Administration, not by Crooked Joe Biden. He had NOTHING to do with it. It was all done long before he so sadly entered office. All he does is try to take credit for things done by others, in this case, ME!”

— Trump, in a social media post, June 8

“And Kamala and Crooked Joe, they try and take credit for $35 insulin. But I was the one that did the $35 insulin, not them.”

— Trump, in a rally speech in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., Aug. 17

“I got insulin down, and they took credit for it, but I got it down to $35. And I said, ‘I hope I win because somebody’s going to take credit.’ It takes a period of time before it kicks in statutorily. And I got it down to $35, which was a very low price, and they took credit for it, which is, you know, now, I’m taking credit because I’m talking to you.”

— Trump, in an interview with comedian Theo Von, Aug. 20

In a constant refrain, Trump accuses Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of claiming credit for imposing a $35-per-month cap on insulin; in one speech, he denounced it as “a lie.” But this is highly misleading, especially when he says Biden and Harris had nothing to do with a $35 cap.

Trump did establish a voluntary, time-limited model for a $35 monthly cap on insulin that was available only to some seniors enrolled in certain insurance plans. Fewer than half of Medicare Part D prescription drug plans chose to participate, and they were able to select which insulin products would be available at $35. Medicare estimated that the two-year model was made available to about 800,000 Medicare enrollees who used insulin.

Naturally, when Trump ran for reelection in 2020, he falsely claimed that the $35 cap was available to every senior. When he announced the temporary program in 2020, he jabbed, “Sleepy Joe can’t do this.”

Even today, notice how Trump, in one interview, said the program took a “period of time before it kicks in statutorily.” That misleadingly suggests he passed a law, not just authorized a temporary pilot program.

A law is what Biden achieved. Over the opposition of the pharmaceutical industry, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (passed with a tiebreaking vote in the Senate by Harris) permanently required all Part D plans to charge no more than $35 per month for all insulin products; it also limited cost sharing for insulin covered under Part B (Medicare medical insurance) to $35 per month. KFF, a nonprofit health-policy organization, estimated that nearly 3.3 million Americans would benefit from this provision of the law. That’s four times more than people who were covered under Trump’s temporary measure.

Trump announced a small pilot program for a group of seniors with an expiration date; Biden passed a law that benefited every senior. There’s no comparison.

Lowest Black unemployment rate

“Achieved the lowest African American unemployment rate, the lowest ever.”

— Trump, in remarks to Black American business leaders, June 26

The current Black unemployment statistic has been in existence for about 50 years. It fell to 5.3 percent for two months in 2019 during Trump’s presidency before rising to 6.1 percent in February 2020 — and then of course soared above 15 percent during the pandemic.

Trump keeps talking about this “lowest ever” achievement but the Biden-Harris administration topped his brief record. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the Black unemployment rate reached a new low of 4.8 percent in April 2023. The unemployment rate was lower or matched Trump’s 5.3 percent for a total of five months under Biden. As of August, the rate is 6.1 percent.

Passed VA Choice

“In my first term, I gave the VA Choice and made it permanent. You know, VA Choice, when you don’t have a doctor, you go, and you go outside. I mean, people were waiting for four months, for five months. You people probably know it. You have friends that know it very well. They go in for something that was not a big deal, and they’d end up being terminally ill because they couldn’t get to see a doctor. So, I created and have VA Choice. They’d been wanting to do it for 57 years. I got it done, passed in Congress.”

— Trump, remarks to National Guard Association Conference in Detroit, Aug. 26

This was a favorite claim during Trump’s presidency — he said it more than 200 times, according to our database of Trump’s false and misleading claims — but he actually signed the MISSION Act, which was a modest update of the VA Choice law passed by Obama in 2014. The Obama legislation expanded veterans’ ability to go to private doctors.

In 2020, our colleague Ashley Parker documented how this falsehood took root, using it as an example of Trump’s method. “The president’s handling of the VA Choice legislation offers a crystalline window into the anatomy of a Trump lie: the initial false claim, the subsequent embellishment and gilding, the incessant repetition and the clear evidence that he knows the truth but chooses to keep telling the falsehood — all enabled by aides either unwilling or unable to rein him in,” she wrote.

It’s four years later, and Trump is still trying to claim credit for Obama’s achievement.

When I came into office, the auto industry was on its knees, gasping its last breaths after eight long years of Obama and Biden … It is no exaggeration to state the Trump presidency and the deftly used and applied Trump tariffs and taxes saved the American auto industry from extinction time and time again.”

— Trump, remarks at a campaign rally in Clinton Township, Mich., Sept. 27, 2023

Yet another false claim. During the 2008-2009 Great Recession, Obama (and George W. Bush before him) saved the auto industry with significant interventions. Obama’s Treasury Department, for instance, organized taxpayer-financed reorganizations of General Motors and Chrysler. The auto industry was in good shape when Trump took office in 2017.

Auto retail jobs under Trump declined 77,000 from February 2017 to February 2021, according to the BLS. Auto and auto parts manufacturing jobs saw a slight increase — 2,500 jobs — in the same period. If one looks at job creation before the pandemic tanked the economy, there were 61,000 new auto manufacturing jobs and 38,000 auto retail jobs under Trump though February 2020.

But compare that to Obama’s record: a gain of 238,000 auto manufacturing jobs and 332,000 auto retail jobs. That’s a total of 570,000 jobs — more than five times more than Trump’s pre-pandemic number. Under Biden, auto manufacturing jobs have risen 125,000 and auto retail jobs 146,000 — almost three times more than Trump’s pre-pandemic number. (In a speech on Tuesday in Savannah, Ga., Trump falsely said “our auto industry has been decimated.”)

As for Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum helping the auto industry, that’s wrong too. Automakers reported that Trump’s tariffs cost hundreds of millions of dollars in profits and led to job losses and plant closings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/25/obama-biden-achievements-that-trump-claims-himself/?utm_campaign=wp_fact_checker&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_fact

The Trump Family’s Long History With Immigration

 (By Tal Kopan and Curt Devine, CNN, 20 April 2017)

President Donald Trump has made overhauling the nation’s immigration system a central promise of his administration – and Tuesday he announced new efforts to get companies to “buy American (and) hire American.” But when it comes to hiring, he should know quite a bit about looking abroad.

The Trump family’s business ventures have made use of virtually every part of the US immigration system over time – including reported instances of illegal labor on two Trump-branded building projects.

Businesses run and owned by Trump and his adult children have been certified to legally hire 1,371 foreign visa workers since 2001, a CNN analysis of visa records shows. In addition, Trump-branded real estate has raised at least $50 million in foreign investor money through a program that gives foreign investors access to green cards, according to the company that did the development of the real estate.

Those permits have reflected the wide spectrum of the US immigration system.  The Trump enterprise has made use of low-skilled permits for vineyard seasonal workers, for example, and has used high-skilled visas to bring in models for its modeling agency.

Trump has telegraphed a hard-line position on immigration, and many of his administration’s hires have signaled a move to clamp down on the US immigration system. But Trump has not spoken at length about how his own business dealings influence his approach to the US immigration system. The White House has not responded to a request for comment about how Trump’s life experiences will influence his policy decisions.

Here’s a look at the ways Trump and his family have engaged with the US immigration system:

H-1B visas

How Trump businesses used it: In their business ventures, the Trumps’ businesses have received 283 H-1B visas since 2001. The high-skilled visas have been used for Trump’s modeling venture, Trump Model Management, Mar-A-Lago, the Trump Corporation and businesses associated with his hotels and resorts.

Melania Trump also used H-1B visas as a model to work in the US before she was granted a green card, according to a letter from her attorney released last year.

What it is: Often referred to as high-skilled visas, H-1Bs are “specialty occupation” permits, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services. They cover a variety of fields, including science and technology fields like computer programming, and most types require higher education degrees. Other specific categories include research related to the Department of Defense and modeling.

What the political fight looks like: H-1B visas are in high demand by powerful industries, including Silicon Valley, the medical field and academia. The demand far outstrips the supply, and powerful lawmakers like unlikely allies Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have long sought to overhaul the program. Indian outsourcing companies are often accused of abusing the visas to take jobs away from other American employers.

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On Tuesday, Trump announced as part of his “Buy American, Hire American” initiative an executive order that calls for a review of the H-1B visa program, with the goal of reforming the program. Legislation on H-1Bs has long failed to advance on H-1Bs in Congress despite Grassley, Durbin and others’ efforts, but the administration this year took some steps to change the way the visas are distributed.

The Friday before the application cycle opened for 2017, USCIS and the Justice Department issued new guidance and policies to make it more difficult for computer programmers to gobble up the visas. While restrictionist immigration groups have sought to cut back the number of visas, as they have with virtually all forms of legal immigration, most lawmakers have sought reforms that would allow the US to attract top talent from around the world and encourage them to stay, especially in the STEM fields.

Asked about H-1B abuse during the primary, Trump said during a CNN debate in Miami: “I know the H1B very well. And it’s something that I frankly use and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We shouldn’t have it. Very, very bad for workers. And second of all, I think it’s very important to say, well, I’m a businessman and I have to do what I have to do.”

H-2B and H-2A visas

How Trump businesses used it: Trump businesses have received 1,024 H-2B visas since 2000, according to a CNN review of Labor records. Those visas have gone to Mar-A-Lago, Jupiter Gold Club, Lamington Farm and the Trump National Golf Club for jobs like cooks, waiters and waitresses and housekeepers. Trump Vineyards has received 64 H-2A permits since 2006, a CNN review found, for agricultural work.

What it is: H-2B visas are temporary authorizations to fill non-agricultural jobs with foreign workers. H-2A visas are specifically for temporary agriculture jobs. Employers are required to establish there are no qualified American workers to fill the positions and that hiring the workers will not affect American workers’ wages. The jobs can be either seasonal, one-time need, based on peak operations or intermittent.

What the political fight looks like: The H-2B programs are controversial but also necessary to many regional economies. The industries that use the H-2 visas, primarily agriculture and food service, also tend to draw heavily on undocumented labor when workers are unavailable legally or the system is perceived as too onerous. Employers in the H-2 program are usually required to provide certain wages, transportation and housing for workers, which can be a burden on businesses that feel they can use undocumented labor for cheaper pay. The program has also been found to be ripe for abuse, as the Government Accountability Office laid out in a 2015 report questioning the effectiveness of penalties built into the program – without which it is difficult to ensure the prevention of exploitation and abuse of workers.

Another concern for employers in the program is that the jobs must be temporary. But some agriculture industries like dairy farming require labor year round, making it difficult for them to use the program to import labor, which they have difficulty finding legally in the US.

Like other forms of immigration, several lawmakers on both sides of the aisle would like to boost the number of permits and make them easier for employers to use, in part to alleviate the demand for undocumented labor. Members of Congress, especially those from heavily agricultural districts, pay attention to the issue. But on the other side of the equation, restrictionist groups, who are represented in the administration by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, believe these guest worker programs take jobs away from Americans, and thus should be heavily curtailed.

Asked during the 2016 primary about his use of foreign workers during the 2016 primary, Trump defended his Mar-A-Lago property’s hiring to The New York Times, saying in an interview, “There are very few qualified people during the high season in the area.”

EB-5 visas

How Trump businesses used it: A project by the family company of Trump’s son-in-law and top White House adviser, Jared Kushner, called Trump Bay Street in Jersey City, New Jersey, raised $50 million, or one-quarter of its funding, from EB-5 investments, a company representative confirmed to CNN. The property uses the Trump name but was not a project managed by the Trump Organization. Kushner Companies has not otherwise made us of EB-5, the representative said, although new deals being pursued by the company have drawn scrutiny in recent weeks.

Because EB-5 investment does not require disclosure, it is also difficult to know fully how many Trump-branded properties could have benefited from it; Trump also licenses his name to properties that his company does not directly develop.

The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment on its use of EB-5.

What it is: The EB-5 program allows foreign businesspeople and their families to apply for green cards, eventually leading to citizenship. To qualify for the program, would-be applicants must make a qualifying investment in a US enterprise and demonstrate they plan to “create or preserve” 10 US jobs, according to USCIS. The Department of Homeland Security has proposed rule changes that would increase the investment threshold over $1 million.

What the political fight looks like: The program has drawn criticism from members of Congress on the left and right, who assail EB-5 as essentially selling citizenship to wealthy foreigners – many of whom are based in China – although they acknowledge it does have value as a way to spur investment in the US and job growth. Some rural lawmakers complain that the program unfairly benefits major cities that are already economically well off.

Lawmakers that represent major metropolitan areas, like the New York delegation, have often defended the program.  EB-5 is currently tied to government funding, which expires at the end of April. Despite years of reform efforts, lawmakers have repeatedly extended the program in continuing resolutions funding the government. At a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing on the topic, lawmakers signaled they would not allow another reauthorization without reform, but with five legislative days left this month before funding runs out, leadership has moved to avoid any controversies that might slow down passing funding.

Family visas

How the Trump family used it: Trump’s family also has a personal connection to immigration, with his grandfather, mother and two wives being immigrants themselves. Melania Trump is Slovenian, but began modeling in the US with H-1B visas and was given a green card in 2001, before she married Trump. Trump self-sponsored herself for residency, according to a letter by her attorney released during the campaign. She became a US citizen in 2006.

Trump’s grandfather was himself an immigrant to the US, joining his sister from Germany in the late 1800s. Trump’s mother was an immigrant from Scotland, coming to the US in her teens to work as a domestic servant. His first wife, Ivana, was also an immigrant, coming to the US via Canada from Czechoslovakia. Ivana became a US citizen in 1988, 11 years after she married Trump.

Melania’s sister, Ines Knauss, lives in New York, but neither she, family attorneys nor the White House answered an inquiry about whether she was sponsored for a visa or residency by her sister.

What it is: In addition to business-related visas, the US offers unlimited visas for “immediate relatives,” according to the State Department. That includes spouses of US citizens, unmarried children of US citizens under 21, orphans adopted by US citizens and parents of US citizens who are at least 21 years old. There are also limited numbers of visas for more extended family.

 What the political fight looks like: Proponents of immigration reform and restrictionists alike have sought to address “chain migration,” a term used to describe the practice of bringing immigrants to the US largely based on their familial connections as opposed to the merits of what they could offer the US. Restrictionists especially have viewed the US system as too lenient, and Trump himself spoke of the need for a “merit-based” immigration system in his joint address to Congress.

Illegal labor

How they used it: There have been two incidents in which Trump-related projects reportedly used undocumented immigrants as labor.

Trump faced a lawsuit in the 1980s that accused him and business partners of withholding wages from undocumented Polish immigrants and union workers hired by a contracting company called Kaszycki & Sons to demolish the building that would make room for Trump Tower. Trump testified he did not know the workers were undocumented and blamed the contractor for hiring them.

A judge ruled in 1991 that Trump and his associates owed the workers more than $300,000 plus interest. The ruling was appealed, and the case was eventually settled under a sealed agreement, according to a source familiar with the proceedings.

Separately, The Washington Post reported in 2015 that it interviewed workers on the construction of Trump’s hotel in the nation’s capital who said they entered the country illegally, several of whom were still lacking authorization to live and work in the US. Trump’s spokespeople at the time said the company requires its contractors to comply with hiring laws and check status of employees, and denied hiring any undocumented immigrants to build the hotel.

What it is: Non-citizens of the US are not allowed to live and work in the country without proper authorization. That could be a green card, or a particular type of visa, but foreigners who live and work in the US without proper authorization – including expired visas – are considered undocumented immigrants. There’s an estimated 11 million of them in the US.

What the political fight looks like: Illegal immigration has been arguably the most contentious fight of the landscape. Trump made cracking down on it the focal point of his campaign, pledging to vastly step up border security and deportations and detentions of undocumented immigrants.

Many Democrats and moderate Republicans agree with Trump’s stated objective to deport serious criminals here illegally. But they have also called for a compromise solution that allows undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for years, sometimes decades, raising families and contributing to their communities, to have a pathway to legalization and citizenship. Trump has said the “bad” ones need to be dealt with first.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/18/politics/trump-family-immigration-visas/index.html