During my testimony before the Senate Budget Committee this week, Sen. John Kennedy, R.La., claimed that some of my social media posts were “hyperbolic.” But our exchange — parts of which went viral on social media — only revealed how some members of Congress are totally unaware of the Trump administration’s extreme policies and statements.
They seem too extreme to be real, but they are. Consider this post of mine he read to the audience: “They think they can troll their way into us accepting ethnic cleansing.” Sen. Kennedy told the committee that my “they” was “referring to Republicans.”
In fact, as I explained to him, I was quote-tweeting and commenting on an X post by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) featuring an image of a sunny beach adorned with the text: “The peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world. America after 100 million deportations.”
It’s unfortunate that senators find learning about this administration’s ethnic cleansing fantasies more revolting than the existence of those fantasies.
To be clear, 100 million people would be about a third of the U.S.population, but there are about 50 million immigrants total, including naturalized citizens, in the United States. Of these, roughly 25 million are non-citizens (legal and illegal), while about 11 million are undocumented. As I told the senator, displacing at least 50 million people from their country of citizenship and birth based on their ancestry from the “third world” would obviously constitute ethnic cleansing.
It was no mistake: DHS has left the post up for months.
Then Sen. Kennedy read another post of mine, which stated: “If you rule against Trump’s population purge agenda, the nativists will name you, threaten you, and come after you. These judges are much braver than the ICE agents who hide behind masks while violating the Constitution.” Again, the senator didn’t give the context.
My comment was about a CBS News report detailing how judges who rule against the Trump administration face a deluge of death threats. In the particular video clip that I shared, the judge facing the threats had ruled against President Trump’s effort to revoke birthright citizenship that would allow the deportation of U.S.-born children.
Sen. Kennedy thought “population purge agenda” was hyperbolic. But deportation is the return of someone to their home country, so as I said, it’s not “mass deportation” to remove people born here. The senator doesn’t think we should call it “ethnic cleansing” to remove people from their country based on their ancestry, and we can’t call it a “population purge” either. It seems we can’t call it anything at all.
Unfortunately, looking at the headlines and media reports on Trump’s unconstitutional birthright citizenship order, it seems that is the attitude of much of the press as well. Looking today, I found no media headlines that plainly explain the upshot: that President Trump has ordered the arrest and deportation of U.S.-born Americans.
As a result, DHS can get away with putting out press releases that boldly proclaim: “DHS is NOT Deporting American Children.” Even if that were actively true — and reports suggest that it’s sometimes not — it is certainly not for lack of trying. Indeed, DHS is going to the Supreme Court to get permission to deport American children.
And it won’t stop with just American children either. The president has already questioned the citizenship of his 2024 political opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, who would not have been granted citizenship at birth had his order been in effect at the time of her birth — because it applies even to the children of legal immigrants without permanent residence.
Lest anyone think he would shy away from stripping people of their status and deporting them, his administration has already stripped over 1.6 million immigrants of their legal status, solely to open them up to deportation. He even deported many of those immigrants (who, again, had been living in the U.S. legally) to a prison in El Salvador. And that’s the point: his agenda does not stop with deporting “illegal” immigrants. It’s a population purge — regardless of status. As I told the senator, displacing at least 50 million people from their country of citizenship and birth based on their ancestry from the “third world” would obviously constitute ethnic cleansing. Trump has repeatedly said he would deport U.S. citizens if he could, and he didn’t rule out his on-again, off-again ally Elon Musk or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, among others. Of deporting American “criminals” to the Salvadoran prison, he said, “If we had the legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat.” Sen. Kennedy should be aware of the breadth of the administration’s agenda because at a hearing in February I talked with him at length about how the administration has banned half of all legal immigrants to the United States. He was incredulous at that time as well, but we shared with his staff the policies that led to it. The fact that the senator thought that my statements were “hyperbolic” makes clear he thinks no one would actually advocate for ethnic cleansing or a population purge, implying that he does not agree with those policy goals. Yet instead of expressing disapproval for the administration’s extremist views, Sen. Kennedy concluded our most recent exchange by saying that I make him “gag.” It’s unfortunate that senators find learning about this administration’s ethnic cleansing fantasies more revolting than the existence of those fantasies. I’m willing to bet the public disagrees.
David J. Bier
David J. Bier is the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. 
