Leaving the Promiseland
Trump's anti-immigration policies violate American and Christian norms.
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FOR ALL THE stories that might be written about the plight of immigrants under President Trump’s xenophobic rule, I dare you to find a more compelling take than Chris Stapleton playing Willie Nelson’s “Living in the Promiseland,” accompanied by Willie’s harmonica player, Mickey Rafael, on Stephen Colbert’s show Wednesday.
Stapleton’s voice sears. Rafael’s harmonica weeps.
This verse alone should shame any Christian who supports Trump’s whites-only immigration policies:
Give us our daily bread/
We have no shoes to wear/
No place to call our home/
Only this cross to bear/
We are the multitudes/
Lend us a helping hand/
Is there no love anymore/
Living in the Promiseland
HERE’S A MORE traditional story on what Trump has wrought:
Immigrants are giving up their claims for humanitarian protection and opting to depart the United States in exponentially higher numbers under the Trump administration, mostly from the austere confines of federal detention centers where they increasingly face prolonged stays.
The Washington Post cites data from the Vera Institute of Justice to report that immigration judges issued more than 80,000 “voluntary departure” orders from January 2025 through March of this year, at least seven times as high as the number seen in the last 15 months of the Biden administration.
These orders are granted to immigrants who request to leave on their own terms while giving up the opportunity to seek a new life in the U.S. Our nation of immigrants is now so intentionally and cruelly unwelcoming that people are abandoning their rights to stay.
The shift is one of the most striking data points to emerge from Trump’s mass deportation campaign and appears to be part of his broader effort to purge millions of immigrants from the U.S. Officials have promoted the option on social media and in posters plastered in detention centers and courts. Immigration attorneys say the spike reflects the mounting strain on people who are facing long stints in detention as they await a hearing in immigration court, where it has become increasingly difficult to win asylum.
“LIVING IN THE PROMISELAND” was written by David Lynn Jones and released by Nelson sung in 1986. In the opening two stanzas, we are reminded that American once stood for something better:
Give us your tired and weak
And we will make them strong
Bring us your foreign songs
And we will sing along
Leave us your broken dreams
We'll give them time to mend
There's still a lot of love
Living in the Promiseland
Living in the Promiseland
Our dreams are made of steel
The prayer of every man
Is to know how freedom feels
There is a winding road
Across the shifting sand
And room for everyone
Living in the Promiseland
BUT NOW WE are a broken nation that destroys dreams. In the New York Times today, there’s a story about a crisis in American education driven by a decline in students. “Fewer students means less funding, which is tied to enrollment numbers. Many districts are now facing painful budget cuts — and heated conversations about whether to close schools,” the Times reports.
Several factors are affecting enrollment. For cities, housing costs and other expenses are driving some families out. The recent crackdown on immigration means fewer children are arriving from other countries, a demographic that had buoyed enrollment nationwide.
While fertility rates are the biggest factor for lower student enrollment, Trump’s immigrant purge has exacerbated the crisis. It’s one of the multiple consequences, along with the loss of vital workers in small businesses and on U.S. farms, the brain drain in higher education, the collapse of America’s moral authority in the world, and the incalculable cultural loss to this once-great melting pot.
So they came from a distant isle
Nameless woman
Faithless child, like a bad dream
Until there was no room at all
No place to run, and no place to fall
TWO DAYS AGO, the Times posted a story that lifted the mask on Trump’s motivation.
President Trump has instituted the most dramatic retrenchment of the country’s refugee program in decades, largely walling off the United States to anyone fleeing war and persecution.
But Mr. Trump has made one notable carve out: Since last year, Afrikaners, the white minority from South Africa, have had the rare ability to seek refugee status.
The whites-only immigration policy is so popular with the MAGA base that Trump is considering expanding it. Trump claims Afrikaners face racial persecution, an assertion strongly disputed by South African officials and common sense.
Mr. Trump moved last year to upend the refugee program to effectively prioritize white people. The president suspended refugee admissions for every country besides South Africa early in the year and in October lowered the ceiling of refugee admissions to just 7,500 for this fiscal year, down from the cap of 125,000 set by the Biden administration in 2024. The limited number of slots were reserved for Afrikaners, who are primarily of Dutch descent, as well as some other South African minorities.
At the same time, administration officials have discussed sending Afghan refugees who are seeking entry to the United States after assisting the American war effort in their country to the Democratic Republic of Congo. And the administration has been scrutinizing some refugees who have resettled in the United States but have not yet applied for their green cards.
Mr. Trump’s changes have had a dramatic effect.
The United States let in just 6,069 refugees for the fiscal year through the end of April, closely approaching the annual cap, according to government data released earlier this week. Three were from Afghanistan; the rest were from South Africa. In comparison, just over 100,000 refugees were admitted to the United States in fiscal year 2024.
I READ THESE stories today with Stapleton’s voice ringing in my ears. You should, too. What was an immigrants’ anthem 40 years ago rings today like a protest song.
Living in the Promiseland
Our dreams are made of steel
The prayer of every man
Is to know how freedom feels
There is a winding road
Across the shifting sand
And room for everyone
Living in the Promiseland
EDITORIAL CARTOONS, like music, often tell a story better than words. I shared these three cartoons with my paid subscribers this morning on “The Morning Read-In,” along with the first look at today’s top stories.
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I can’t keep doing this without you.
This country is going to gag and choke on it's selfishness.
The United States is now a shithole country. It’s shameful that we have betrayed our ideals.