The Rough and the Smooth: The Trump Administration Is Still Getting Stuff Done

Amidst the sound and the fury—the fire and the fury?—of the war with Iran, it’s been almost impossible to maintain a sane, levelheaded grasp of President Trump’s wins and losses.

Things have hardly been made better by the election challenge to Rep. Thomas Massie, whose ousting has led some to claim America is no longer an independent nation, but now exists solely as a far-flung satrap of Bibi Netanyahu’s Greater Israel. Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Twitter has been unbearable in recent days, and that’s saying something. I’ve stuck to posting videos of cats doing the scuba dance and outrage-bait about the casting in the new Christopher Nolan Odyssey film. My cortisol remains unspiked.

My position, though, if it matters, is this: There is a third way. You can recognize Thomas Massie is probably an arsehole, that his “heroic” championing of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims is probably little more than a tactical move in a long-running vendetta with Donald Trump—I think Massie mentioned Epstein three times before 2025—and yet you can also say his ousting was a bad day for America. You can think Thomas Massie is not a great lawmaker, and that the influence of Israeli interest groups on the election, and on American politics more generally, is reason to be upset, which of course it is.

In short, you don’t have to be “for” or “against”: You can be both or neither—and don’t let anyone else bully you into believing otherwise. At this precise moment, when so much is it at stake, a little bit of subtlety, a little bit of calm and equanimity, can go a long way.

Case in point: On Friday, the Trump administration quietly stacked up another huge win on the immigration front. The US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) closed a loophole that’s been used for decades to legalize or provide effective amnesty to millions of temporary immigrants.

While so many “right-wingers” are frothing at the mouth about the Strait of Hormuz or speculating what percentage Jewish ancestry Dan Bilzerian has (EVERY SINGLE TIME!), leftists are crying and mewling about how “evil” this new immigration policy is and how it will cause “incalculable” damage to the millions of economic migrants currently in the US.

I think there’s a lesson there. Maybe sometimes your enemies have more interesting things to say than the kids you feel comfortable hanging around with, as amusing as it might be to hear them blowing raspberries, making their armpits fart and slapping their chops from side to side at high speed like a Basset hound.

The loophole is the little-known “Adjustment of Status” pathway that allows temporary migrants to remain in the US and “adjust” their visa to a green card, giving them permanent lawful residence.

Of course, the pathway was never actually intended to allow this. In the 1950s, Congress decided migrants could adjust their visas without leaving the US, but that this should only happen in exceptional circumstances, tantamount to a Special Act of Parliament. “An administrative grace” is the precise term, if I remember correctly.

“We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly,” said Zach Kahler of USCIS.

“From now on, an alien who is in the US temporarily and wants a green card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances. This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes.”

The change will now make it harder for low-wage employers to dangle the prospect of legalisation in front of the foreign workers they import, and it will also reduce the power of activist judges and bureaucrats, because overseas embassies have much tighter rules for approving permanent visas and they generally can’t be overruled. Temporary migrants who overstay will automatically be barred from applying for a green card for ten years.

As I mentioned earlier, all the right people are pissing their pants about this policy change, and that’s obviously a good sign. David Bier, a loser at the loser Cato Foundation, said on Twitter, “This admin continues to prove itself to be the most anti-legal immigration admin in US history.”

He estimated at least 1.2 million migrants would immediately be affected by the rule change.

“The harm this will cause to legal immigrants is incalculable. Impossible to explain how stupid and evil this policy is. It’s intended to cost [migrants] their jobs and their families” (because migrants will have to self-deport to have a chance of getting back in, even if they have family in the US).

Bier knows the removal of Adjustment of Status will “clear away a big obstacle to arresting” migrants, and that it will “allow the admin to apply the State Dept’s visa and entry bans to 50+ more countries, which will effectively double the number of immigrants banned by this useless administration.”

Add this to all the other changes the Trump administration has made to legal immigration—no more asylum at the southern border, the reinstatement of “remain in Mexico,” the dramatic reduction in refugee admissions (7,500 Afrikaners and European dissidents), the cancellation of humanitarian programs like CHNV and temporary protected status, increased fees for H-1B visas, denaturalization of citizens, and of course the attempt to overturn birthright citizenship—and yeah, I think you can say with some confidence the Trump administration is the most anti-legal immigration admin in US history.

Is that not America First?

None of what I’ve just said is intended to excuse President Trump’s more questionable choices. Nobody, least of all me, thinks the Trump administration deserves a free pass or that it shouldn’t be held to account for its failures, at home or abroad. Instead I’m just reminding you that while there may be plenty of rough right now, there’s also a lot of smooth, so maybe don’t lose sight of that.