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Bad Bunny vs. MAGA’s Bigoted Vision of America
The hatefulness and histrionics of Trump's allies exemplify how the ill-formed and culturally biased so easily make fools of themselves.
Nov 08, 2025
The selection of musical megastar Bad Bunny to headline the Super Bowl’s halftime show has ignited a storm of controversy among conservative circles. The ostensive reason is that Bad Bunny (born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) is a Puerto Rican who sings in Spanish, and thus according to his MAGA critics, he does not represent “America.”
For the new form of conservativism known as MAGA, the vision of America and Americans is narrow, and does not include the likes of Bad Bunny. Newsmax host Greg Kelly, for instance, claimed Bad Bunny “hates America, hates President Trump, hates ICE, [and] hates the English language!” Fox News host Tomi Lahren, meanwhile, claimed Bad Bunny is “Not an American artist.” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson not only mislabeled Bad Bunny as “Bad Bunny Rabbit,” he argued Bad Bunny was not a role model, calling for replacing him with someone with “broader Appeal,” like 82-year-old Lee Greenwood.
The Bad Bunny controversy raises the question: what is America and how should it be represented?
The histrionics of MAGA leaders exemplify how the ill-formed and culturally biased so easily make fools of themselves. For instance, the trope that Bad Bunny is not American demonstrates profound ignorance. Bad Bunny was born in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. As such, he was a United States citizen at birth. Puerto Rico has been a US possession since its conquest in 1898, and its residents have been US citizens since the passage of the Jones Act in 1917.
As for Bad Bunny hating America, this claim is nothing short of odd. Though Bad Bunny did not support candidate Trump in 2024, and disagrees with ICE roundups, 75 million Americans did not vote for President Trump (something that residents of Puerto Rico cannot do), and we suspect millions of others, including the authors here, do not support mass ICE roundups. Such free speech stances, which are at the core of the First Amendment of the Constitution, in no way reflect any disdain for this country. As James Baldwin poignantly taught decades ago, and is the case for millions of others today, it is our love for this country that leads us to question it in order to push it towards our laudable goals of freedom and equality.
Further, Bad Bunny singing in Spanish in no way means he hates this country or its dominant language, English. Bad Bunny is fluent in English but prefers to sing in his native tongue of Spanish. While Trump proclaimed English as the country’s official language, such a declaration does not carry the weight of law. That edict also appears to run afoul of a host of US Supreme Court decisions embracing our multicultural and multilingual country, including Meyer v. Nebraska, which held invalid efforts to forbid teaching foreign languages, and Lau v. Nichols. holding that failure to provide non-English instruction violated students’ civil rights.
The United States of America is a multicultural, multiracial nation made up of the descendants of immigrants from all over the world, as well as Indigenous nations and other lands that were conquered during a period of US imperial expansion in the 19th century. Puerto Ricans have fought bravely and died valiantly in America’s wars since WWI, and they contribute in numerous ways to make America great. So, why being a Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican makes of Bad Bunny less of an American in MAGA cohorts?
For months now, we have been witnessing a whitewashing of the American experience spearheaded by the Trump administration. Museums, colleges and universities, and even our very diverse military have all been forced to scrub references to the valuable contributions made by women, people of color, and immigrants (except for white ones).
Puerto Ricans, a Spanish-speaking, Latin American people of color (who also happen to be US citizens), do not fit the MAGA mold, and Bad Bunny’s fame is a reminder that our nation, based on the principle of E pluribus unum (Out of many, one) can be proudly represented by many people in many ways.
Previous Super Bowl halftime performers, many of them foreign-born, have reflected our nation’s best (and diverse) talents, but suddenly, a Puerto Rican is not American enough? Turning Point USA’s “All American” alternative halftime show is quite revealing of MAGA’s cultural whitewashing attempts by promising “Anything in English.”
This piece was first published in the Miami Herald.
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Trump Ripped for 'Absurdly Low' and 'Racist' Refugee Cap Prioritizing White South Africans
"Let's call this what it is—white supremacy disguised as refugee policy," said the head of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
Oct 30, 2025
After months of reporting, President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday officially announced that it is restricting the number of refugees for this fiscal year to 7,500, with most spots going to white South Africans—a policy swiftly denounced by human rights advocates and Democrats in Congress.
"This decision doesn't just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge. "For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program's purpose as well as its credibility."
The Trump administration's notice in the Federal Register doesn't mention any groups besides Afrikaners, white descendants of Europeans who subjected South Africa's majority Black population to a system of apartheid for decades. Multiple rich Trump backers—including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalist David Sacks, and Palantir founder Peter Thiel—spent time in the country during those years.
The 7,500 cap, initially reported earlier this month, is a significant drop from both the 40,000 limit that was previously reported as under consideration by the Republican administration, and the more than 100,000 allowed under former Democratic President Joe Biden.
Four congressional Democrats who serve as ranking members on related committees—Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), along with Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Alex Padilla (Calif.)—issued a joint statement condemning the new cap, which they noted is "an astonishing 94% cut over last year and the lowest level in our nation's history."
"To add insult to injury, the administration is skipping over the tens of thousands of refugees who have been waiting in line for years in dire circumstances to come to the United States, and it is instead prioritizing a single privileged racial group—white South African Afrikaners—for these severely limited slots," they said. "This bizarre presidential determination is not only morally indefensible, it is illegal and invalid."
The four lawmakers continued:
The administration has brazenly ignored the statutory requirement to consult with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees before setting the annual refugee admissions ceiling. That process exists to ensure that decisions of such great consequence reflect our nation's values, our humanitarian commitments, and the rule of law, not the racial preferences or political whims of any one president.
The reason for this evasion is evident: The administration knows it cannot defend its egregious policy before Congress or the American people. While nearly 130,000 vetted, approved refugees—men, women, and children fleeing persecution and violence—wait in limbo after being promised a chance at safety, Donald Trump is looking to turn refugee admissions into another political giveaway for his pet projects and infatuations.
We reject this announcement as both unlawful and contrary to America's longstanding commitment to offer refuge to the persecuted. To twist our refugee policy into a partisan straightjacket is to betray both our legal obligations and our moral identity as a nation.
"Let's call this what it is—white supremacy disguised as refugee policy," declared Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. "At a time when Black refugees from Haiti, Sudan, the Congo, and Cameroon are drowning at sea, languishing in detention, or being deported to death, the US government has decided to open its arms to those who already enjoy global privilege. This is not just immoral—it's anti-Blackness codified into federal policy."
This week alone, Hurricane Melissa killed more than 20 people in Haiti, and health officials said that the Rapid Support Forces, which are fighting against Sudan's government, killed over 1,500 people—including more than 460 systematically slaughtered at a maternity hospital—in the city of el-Fasher.
"We reject the idea that whiteness equates to worthiness," Jozef said of Trump's new refugee plan. She also took aim at the president's broader anti-immigrant policy, which has included deporting hundreds of people to El Salvador's so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
"From Del Rio to Lampedusa, Black migrants and other immigrants of color have been criminalized, beaten, caged, and disappeared in CECOT camp in El Salvador—while their humanity is debated like a policy variable," she said. "This moment demands our humanity, our resistance, not silence."
Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA's director for refugee and migrant rights, also tied Thursday's announcement to the broader agenda of the president—who, during his first term, faced global condemnation for policies including the forcible separation of families at the southern border.
"Setting this cap at such an absurdly low number and prioritizing white Afrikaners is a racist move that will turn the US's back on tens of thousands of people around the world who are fleeing persecution, violence, and human rights abuses," said Fischer. "Refugees have a human right to protection, and the international community—including the United States—has a responsibility to uphold that right."
"This announcement is yet another attack by the Trump administration on refugees and immigrants, showing disregard for international systems meant to protect human rights," she added. "The Trump administration must reverse course and ensure a fair, humane, and rights-based refugee admissions determination."
The announcement came just days after Trump's nominee to be ambassador to South Africa, far-right media critic Brent Bozell, faced intense criticism for refusing to say whether he would support or oppose repealing laws allowing Black Americans to vote during his Senate confirmation hearing.
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How Many Laws Will Trump Break to Make America Predominantly White Again?
Much of Trump’s domestic and foreign policy can be understood only by examining them through the lens of his obsession with deporting people and restricting immigration from non-white parts of the world.
Oct 25, 2025
The Trump administration aspires to deport a million people in its first year of office. The president has also spoken of the more ambitious goal of deporting 15-20 million undocumented people overall, even if that category probably covers only 14 million folks. The discrepancy of a couple million people shouldn’t bother President Donald Trump. He’s happy to deport those with green cards, H-1B visas, and even American citizens.
Deporting a million people in a year is a heavy lift. The previous record, 409,849 people, was during the Obama administration, as part of the 1.5 million deportations he conducted in his first term. Trump, no doubt, wants to best Barack Obama in this category, since he’s determined to outshine the former president in every respect, even the dubious ones.
Despite all the high-profile seizures by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the deals to dump Venezuelans to Salvadoran prisons, and the truly crazy efforts to send people to countries they’ve never even visited like Eswatini and South Sudan, the Trump administration has managed to deport only about 350,000 people through the end of August. That includes the 200,000 by ICE and the rest by Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard, plus some self-deportations. Another 60,000 are languishing in ICE detention centers. The government is currently monitoring about 180,000 families and individuals in its Alternatives to Detention program, which may end up becoming a Preparation for Deportation program.
Most of the people currently in detention—over 70%—have never committed any crime, which undermines the claim by the Trump administration that he’s going after the “bad hombres.”
German citizens failed to stop the Nazis. Will Americans stand up and be counted?
Detention is pretty much a fast track to deportation. After all, detainees often don’t have access to lawyers. As the American Prospect reports, “ICE uses bureaucracy and location transfers to isolate their detainees from both their families and their lawyers, limiting their ability to get out of their predicaments and increasing misery and hopelessness.” One immigration lawyer told me that some of his clients have disappeared for several days in ICE detention—and these included people who were willing to self-deport.
Trump is not close to meeting his ambitious deportation goals. That’s no comfort to all the immigrants whose lives he has already upended.
ICE Is Not Nice
The scenes involving the roundup of refugees and migrants have been harrowing. Consider this description:
Buses backed up to apartment buildings and were filled with screaming, crying people. Hospital beds were emptied. A cancer patient operated on the previous day was carried away. One woman gave birth while police waited to haul off mother and baby. Younger children were permitted to be left behind, and many parents desperately accepted that choice in the hope that neighbors or orphanages would take them in.
Oh, I’m sorry, I got mixed up. That’s a description of the French police rounding up 13,000 Jewish refugees in 1942 at the behest of their Nazi overseers, as reported by David Wyman in his seminal book, The Abandonment of the Jews.
Here, by comparison, are three snapshots of recent ICE actions:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have in recent days deported the Cuban-born mother of a 1-year-old girl—separating them indefinitely—and three children ages 2, 4, and 7 who are US citizens along with their Honduran-born mothers, their lawyers said Saturday.
In Chicago:
Agents used unmarked trucks and a helicopter to surround the five-story apartment building. NewsNation, which was invited to observe the operation, reported agents “rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters.” Agents then went door to door, woke up residents, and used zip ties to restrain them. Residents and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which canvassed the area, said those who were zip tied included children and US citizens.
In New York:
On the morning of September 4, dozens of masked federal agents raided a snack bar factory in the small town of Cato, New York. They claimed there was a “violent felon” in the plant, but proceeded to siphon off and hold anyone who looked Latinx. At least 69 workers were initially detained, with 57 still in custody or deported, though some say that could be an undercount. There are multiple reports of aggression—knees on necks, blows to heads—used during the raid.
This is happening not just to the undocumented and those on the rock-strewn path to citizenship. Quite a few American citizens have also been caught up in the ICE dragnet. At least 170 have been detained, according to ProPublica:
Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched. About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones.
Much of Trump’s domestic and foreign policy can be understood only by examining them through the lens of his obsession with deporting people and restricting immigration from non-white parts of the world. The question remains: How many laws will the Trump administration break and how many crimes will it commit in this effort to make America predominantly white again?
German citizens failed to stop the Nazis. Will Americans stand up and be counted?
Trump’s Immigration-Obsessed Foreign Policy
In exchange for a payment of about $5 million, the tiny country of Eswatini in southern Africa has agreed to receive up to 160 deportees from a variety of countries. Human rights groups in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, have challenged the arrangement in court. A US District Court judge also blocked the removal of deportees to third countries back in April, but the Supreme Court lifted that ban in June.
The $5 million is only part of the sweetheart deal. In August, the Trump administration waived all tariffs on Eswatini goods entering the United States—in contrast to the 30% rate that South Africa will be paying. A number of countries hoping for tariff reductions or similarly favorable treatment from the Trump administration—Costa Rica, Guatemala, Kosovo, Panama, Rwanda, South Sudan—have also accepted the transport of deportees.
Eswatini does have its limits. It refused to accept Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national that the Trump administration sent to a prison in El Salvador. Garcia was freed and sent back to the States, only to be arrested again by the US government and charged with human trafficking. Afraid that Garcia will be released by court order, the Trump administration is scrambling to find some country that will take him. Garcia is living proof of the administration’s lies—contrary to what Trump has said, he is not a gang member or a human trafficker. No wonder Trump wants him out of the country.
He has put a sign on America’s front door that reads: Wealthy, Christian, Right-Wing Whites Only.
El Salvador has been an enthusiastic backer of Trump’s deportation plans. The country received $5 million to house deportees like Garcia in its horrific prisons. In addition, the State Department recently gave the country its highest safety rating, ahead of France and Spain. Trump has also backed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s bid to become the country’s leader for life. Finally, the country faces a mere 10% tariff on its goods, Trump’s lowest tier.
In one of the least savory parts of the arrangement with El Salvador, Secretary of State Marco Rubio cut a deal with Bukele to return several members of the MS-13 gang who were cooperating with US authorities. Bukele wanted them back because they had information about members of his administration who had cut their own deals with the country’s various gangs. It’s best to keep your enemies close, as the expression goes, particularly if you can put them in a dangerous high-security prison.
The immigration issue also affects relations with Venezuela, where the Trump administration has used the threat of Tren de Aragua, and the alleged inroads the gang has made in US society, to step up its efforts to topple the government of Nicolas Maduro.
Trump has attempted to tilt immigration policy in favor of English speakers and white people more generally, even as the overall quotas for immigrants are radically reduced from 125,000 per year to 7,500. Among the proposals considered by the administration is one that would give preference to such groups as Europeans who support the radical right and white Afrikaners from South Africa. The overall purpose is a reduction in American diversity because, as one of the internal proposals argues, “The sharp increase in diversity has reduced the level of social trust essential for the functioning of a democratic polity.”
The administration has also radically increased the fee for a work permit—the H-1B visa—to $100,000. Although there are some exemptions to the new fee, it is clearly designed to restrict entrance to the United States to the wealthy.
Taken together, Trump has treated the “shithole” countries he identified in his first term—the poorer countries of the Global South—as dumping grounds for undesirable elements. And he has put a sign on America’s front door that reads: Wealthy, Christian, Right-Wing Whites Only.
Barack Obama wanted to create an administration that looked like America. Donald Trump wants to create an America that looks like his administration.
How Deportations Shape Domestic Policy
Trump knows a hot-button issue when he touches one, and immigration remains a great way to defeat Democrats who, however anti-immigration some of them have become, will never stoop to the race-baiting lows that Trump uses to wow his supporters. The invading “army” of migrants approaching the Mexico border, the fictitious pet eaters of Springfield, Ohio, the “murderers” and “rapists” from points south responsible for all the crime in America: These mendacious memes propelled Trump to victory in 2024.
His immigration policies are no surprise: They were all laid out in detail in Project 2025: stopping refugee resettlement; ending Temporary Protect Status for Haitians, Venezuelans, and others; ending visas for foreign students. Trump has gone further. Even Project 2025 didn’t propose revoking birthright citizenship and ignoring the Constitution.
The militarization of the United States, at the expense of social welfare, is now directed not just at China or securing access to critical raw materials: it is directed at the US population.
Trump has put ICE raids at the center of his approach, but there has been pushback from Democratic-controlled cities and states. So, the president is sending in the National Guard to ensure greater access and mobility for ICE agents. The use of the US military for domestic operations is unprecedented, of course, and several judges have ruled the president’s actions unconstitutional. Trump, meanwhile, has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress “rebellion,” which would allow him to use the military to impose civilian law (his government’s laws). It’s not quite martial law—which is the imposition of military laws on civilians—but it certainly aims in that direction (and the two may well be conflated in Trump’s mind).
ICE, meanwhile, has received a huge surge in funding—$170 billion in new money—at a time of cutbacks in virtually all non-military parts of the federal government. If ICE and associated agencies constituted a military, it would be the 13th largest one in the world, as Sarah Lazare and Lindsay Koshgarian point out. The militarization of the United States, at the expense of social welfare, is now directed not just at China or securing access to critical raw materials: it is directed at the US population.
Trump is attacking diversity more generally, as the changes in federal immigration policy suggest. Because birthright citizenship has changed the demographics of the United States, its repeal has been a priority for white nationalists, and they have also cheered Trump’s moves in this direction. Meanwhile, the president is going after diversity in federal institutions, federal grantmaking, and across the US educational system.
At the moment, lawyers and judges are the thin line that holds back the lawlessness of the Trump administration. A few civic groups like the Immigration Defense Project and Freedom for Immigrants are fighting the administration. But it will require a lot more public outcry to defend America’s disappeared and preserve diversity in this country.
As Bad as Nazis?
The Nazis were also obsessed with the diversity of German society in the 1930s. They ultimately decided not just to stigmatize and imprison Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and others. The Nazis killed them in huge numbers.
Trump and his white nationalist allies are currently at the stigmatize and deport stage. They’re content for the moment to let the killing take place elsewhere. The administration is not only erecting higher walls against refugees and immigrants—leading to more deaths among the desperate overseas—it is sending those who thought they’d already made it to safety to warzones (South Sudan), certain imprisonment (Afghanistan, Russia), and failed states (Haiti).
The US business community is heavily reliant on immigrant labor, much of it undocumented, in agriculture, construction, and the food industry. But it has failed to stand up for its immigrant workforce. The international community is busy making deals with Trump, not censuring him. Congress has been largely silent (though it recently announced an inquiry into ICE treatment of US citizens).
At a time when countries around the world are shrinking in population, the United States has remained strong because of all the people who have come here from abroad to work, to contribute to the tax base and Social Security, and, yes, to have babies. So, who will combine the necessary moral and practical arguments to convince the mass of Americans that the very survival of this country depends on immigrants?
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