Trump's Xenophobia

I want my country free of violent offenders, thieves, and those intending harm to the United States. Despite not being a fan of tourist havens, I don’t wish my country free from foreign tourists, either. They bring money to spend here.

However, the president’s latest insane plan is for all tourists to the US to reveal their social media activity from the last five years. Is that even possible? For those who live on social media, it could be encyclopedic in length. (I once had 40,000 minutes of political podcast video). Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would also require any email addresses and telephone numbers visitors have used in the same period, as well as names, addresses, birth dates and birthplaces of family members, including children. It’s an invasion of privacy that would do little, if anything, for public safety.

The proposed “mandatory” disclosures for entry into the US would apply to people of all countries, even our closest allies. That includes visitors from Britain, Australia, Germany and Japan, who are not required to get a tourist visa. Members of the public have two months to comment.

Many states depend on tourism. Tourism to the US has already dropped dramatically during Trump 2.0. It comes on top of his crazy crackdown on immigrants which include recent moves to ban all asylum claims and stop migration entirely from more than 30 countries. While I have, and still do support a crackdown, his method of implementation is economically idiotic.

California’s tourism industry is already predicting a 9% decline in foreign visits to the state this year. Las Vegas has been badly hit by a decline in visits. Canadian residents traveling to the US by car dropped 37% in July 2025 compared to July a year ago, while commercial airline travel from Canada dropped by 26%.

Presently, the CBP claims authority to search devices of any prospective entrant to the US. One can refuse, but that person may be denied entry. Last year (2024) CBP claims it searched 47,000 devices of the 420 million persons crossing the border, just over 1%. Inspecting ALL tourists would be an insanely time consuming deterrent.

Other actions have included crackdowns on visas for people hoping to live and work in the country, demanding prospective foreign students unlock their social media profiles for diplomatic inspection before receiving educational and exchange visas, and detaining several high-profile foreign-born students for showing support for innocent Palestinians (which I have also done).

This is not how a president should run a country that is supposedly free. We’re a country that supposedly respects other opinions even if contradictory to our own. We supposedly believe in privacy and freedom. We supposedly believe in “innocent until proven guilty”. That last one is why the only thing we should be demanding of foreign visitors is a criminal background check via respective governments listed in passports. In a world of AI, anyone sent as a spy or terrorist will already have had a fake background created and edited for them. For a president who always cries of trade imbalances, he seems to be doing everything he can to keep foreign money from coming here.

Source used: Associated Press