CRT highlights the need for vigilance in identifying emergent mechanisms of discrimination (30). CRT describes colorblindness as a declared absence of racial thinking in perceptions, attitudes, and practices (31). Policies implemented in a nominally color-blind manner foster structural racism by allowing an unspoken preference for whiteness (20). CRT theorists have described immigration policy as a “technology of racism” that gives proponents of restrictive policies non-racist-sounding language to employ when proposing constraints on the dignity, mobility, and safety of non-white populations (32). Technologies of racism allow the mechanisms that privilege whiteness to shift and reconstitute themselves, creating the illusion of progress while sustaining a status quo in which racialized legal statuses restrict movement, benefits, access to employment, or services (30).

Although President Trump used racist comments and innuendo throughout his first presidency, he simultaneously claimed not to “see color,” to fend off criticism over racially charged language (33, 34). In one instance, he complained about Democratic Congressional representatives Rashida Tlaib (birthplace, Michigan), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (birthplace, New York), Ayanna Pressley (birthplace, Ohio), and Ilhan Omar (raised in the U.S. and now a citizen), saying “Why do not they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came? …” (35). In response to the ensuing uproar, his campaign invoked colorblindness to provide him plausible deniability for the use of derogatory language. A Trump campaign official declared: “Donald Trump does not see color. He does not see race” (36, 37). But even while making this disclaimer, the president suggested that these elected officials were not qualified to participate in government (36). In his 2024 presidential run, Trump dispensed with any plausible deniability, referring to his Black female opponent as low-IQ and immigrants crossing the Southern border as “animals” (38).

For over half a century, the U.S. has been referred to as a nation of immigrants—celebrating how diversity and contributions of people from other countries and ethnicities strengthen the U.S. But once he returned to office, President Trump issued an executive order that banned efforts to improve recruitment and retention of employees across race or ethnic groups (39). In the wake of the American Eagle Flight 5,342 air traffic accident on January 28, 2025, he attributed responsibility for the deaths to the efforts to ensure a diverse applicant pool, telling White House pool reporters, “they [Obama Administration] actually came out with a directive, too white” (40).

CRT argues that whiteness bestows entitlement and functions as a resource (41). Race, as a social construction, is sustained by the acceptance of whiteness as the normative default and standard against which other groups are defined (42). In 1790, the first US immigration law designed only “free, white” persons as eligible to apply for naturalization as citizens (42). Rooted in the need to distinguish an individual subject to enslavement from an individual who was not, the status of whiteness “became a shield from slavery.” (41) [p. 1720]. Trump’s immediately-enjoined executive order purporting to end “birthright citizenship” is entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” (35). Attempts to end birthright citizenship and eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion devalue the lives and contributions of racially minoritized populations, many of whom are immigrants. They also minimize the legacies of systemic oppression and exclusion, and privilege whiteness across all sectors and institutions.

Whiteness has continued to shape the distribution of social and economic benefits. The Trump administration pursued a variety of ways to penalize immigrants who used public benefits that impoverished white Americans are perceived to be exclusively entitled to (43, 44). The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Rule on Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds (45–47) expanded the list of benefit programs in which participation could prompt adverse immigration consequences to include Medicaid, food stamps, and any type of federally financed housing benefit (45). Heightened scrutiny was designed to activate Trump supporters’ fears that immigrants were using resources meant for them (41).

These policies obscure immigrant contributions in the labor market and tax base. Even as immigrants contributed $492.4 billion federally in 2019 (48), the rule suggested that people recently admitted to the U.S. could not “rely on their own capabilities.” (45) Even though most of the penalized benefit programs were already unavailable to individuals without a green card, the policy reducing participation in the use of WIC, SNAP, and health insurance among immigrants in all status groups (27). As many as 260,000 children may have been unenrolled in Medicaid because of the rule (26). In his second administration, an Executive Order issued on February 19, 2025, revived the rhetoric of the 45th administration public charge rule, ordering all federal agencies to “identify all federally funded programs administered by the agency that currently permit illegal aliens to obtain any cash or non-cash public benefit ….,” implying that while everyone contributes to the economy, not everyone is entitled to benefit from the same (49).

How policies affect one racialized population relative to another is frequently driven by labor needs, political power, foreign policy considerations, or a combination of the three. CRT observes that each non-white racialized group has its own unique set of adverse experiences with structural racism (42). Often these experiences manifest in instances where, as one group sees progress, more blatant attacks are trained on another (42). Differentially racialized groups may find it difficult to act in solidarity with one another when they are conscious of the variations of their narratives in the U.S. These tensions are easily exploited by those in power to prevent solidarity. Trump’s reliance on the specter of external threats to the U.S., or the “enemy at the gates,” (50) appeared designed to create a siege mentality among his supporters while also deepening differential racialization of U.S. residents (51). Trump’s executive order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry, known as the Muslim ban, racialized Muslims as outsiders and as a danger, similar to what happened after September 11, 2001. Linking a religion to terrorism reinforces a racialization of all adherents of that religion, contributing to interpersonal and community-level tensions (52).

Despite World Health Organization recommendations against naming newly emerged diseases for a particular geographic area, Trump referred to COVID-19 as the “China Flu” and “Kung Flu” numerous times as the pandemic propagated (53). Twenty-four tweets by President Trump with stigmatizing language implicating China or Chinese individuals were retweeted 1,213,700 times for a total of 4,276,200 likes between January 1 and August 31, 2020 (53, 54). Trump’s response to COVID-19 coincided with a dramatic increase in attacks on Asian Americans (55). Between 2019 and 2020, although overall reported hate crimes diminished by 7%, incidents targeting Asians increased by 150%. Between March 2020 and the end of the year, 4,193 hate crimes and incidents were documented by the organization Stop AAPI Hate (55).

“Interest convergence” describes how progress in racial equity is limited to moments in which the majority white population’s interests converge with the demands of communities of color, or when there is a perceived win-win situation. When these interests no longer align, progress may be undone or blocked. Derrick Bell proposed this concept in the 1970s, noting that major civil rights successes of the 1960s were only achieved when the interests of white-dominated power structures converged with the demands of communities of color (30). Specifically, at the time of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, it was the convergence of interests between Black demands for integration and white concerns about the United States’ Cold War image, fear of civil unrest at home, and the need for economic development in the South that allowed progress in school integration (56).

Trump’s narrative of divergent interests was prominently displayed in this attempt to remain president after he lost in 2020. While speaking to supporters protesting the certification of election results on January 6, 2021, before violently taking over the federal Capitol, he said, “If you do not fight like hell, you are not going to have a country anymore” (57). His use of the border as a political prop and rallying cry to energize his followers and as a backdrop for visible and punitive immigration enforcement actions (58) highlights how racism seeks to protect the interest of white people (32, 59). Indeed, in January 2025, he halted refugee resettlement programs and ended processes for undocumented immigrants to seek asylum at the border – continuing to reassure his supporters that the U.S. belongs only to them and that immigrants are bad for the country (60).

CRT itself was targeted by President Trump. In September 2020, he issued an executive order prohibiting federal agencies and their contractors from including anything that could be construed as CRT in employee diversity training (61–63). Opponents of inclusion and anti-racism initiatives in universities, schools, companies, and local governments have changed their target from a largely fictional presence of CRT to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and initiatives (64). As of January 2025, bills restricting how teachers or state agencies may teach or train about racism have been introduced in 44 states, and 18 states have enacted bans (65). Immediately upon entering the White House, declared that federal hiring had come to reflect a “commitment to illegal racial discrimination under the guise of equity” (66) the administration moved to memorialize these restrictions federally with executive orders that banned DEI initiatives within federal agencies and (67) directed federal agencies to spur private employer bans (39).