Federal judge finds Trump's 'America First' slogan is racist toward immigrants

President Trump’s immigration policy, like most of his foreign policy, is saturated with references to his campaign slogan “America First” — and a federal judge this week said it shows illegal and racist “animus” toward immigrants.

Judge Edward Chen blocked Homeland Security from revoking a special deportation amnesty for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants, at least in part because Secretary Kristi Noem justified the decision by citing Mr. Trump’s America First agenda.

Judge Chen, an Obama appointee to the court in northern California, said the term had an “inference of animus given the historical connotation of that phrase.”

The White House said the judge got it wrong.

“President Trump’s commitment to putting Americans and America First has only to do with his love for our country and our citizens, not animus against anyone else,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told The Washington Times.

Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project who served as a key Senate staffer in the confirmation of judges in the first Trump administration, blasted Judge Chen.

“After San Francisco Obama Judge Chen ruled it’s illegal for the president to put America first, which country is Judge Chen putting first?” he said.

He called Judge Chen “another unelected Democrat activist judge in another wealthy Democrat enclave” who was “sabotaging the duly elected president’s constitutional duty to protect our homeland from foreign invasion.”

Judge Chen’s ruling blocked Ms. Noem from revoking a Biden-era extension of Temporary Protected Status for some 600,000 Venezuelan migrants. That revocation would have left 350,000 in danger of deportation early this month, but for the judge’s ruling.

He said Ms. Noem failed to properly justify her actions and showed “unconstitutional animus” toward the Venezuelans.

The case is the latest to test Mr. Trump’s harsh words, particularly toward some illegal immigrants, and how much weight judges will give to those words as they seek to divine the president’s intent behind his policies.

In his first term, Mr. Trump’s reported use of the term “s—-hole” to refer to TPS countries was used against him.

This term, Judge Chen also cited Mr. Trump’s outlandish campaign claims of Haitian migrants eating dogs, his and Ms. Noem’s claims that Venezuela emptied its prisons and mental institutions to send people to the U.S., a heavily challenged claim that Venezuelan gang members took over an apartment complex in Colorado, and calling gang members “animals” and “dirtbags.”

Judge Chen also cited an Axios analysis that found Mr. Trump’s public remarks over the course of 13 months during the run-up to the 2024 election referred to Venezuelan “criminals” at least 70 times.

Ahilan Arulanantham, lawyer for the National TPS Alliance, which brought the case, said that evidence proved overwhelming for the judge to find racist motives behind Mr. Trump’s TPS decisions.

“The government had every opportunity to defend any of those statements using evidence, but it failed to do so,” he said. “If an employer made any one of these statements about people from some country and then fired its workers from that country, that would make for a very straightforward employment discrimination case.”

Mr. Trump first used “America First” during his 2016 campaign, and upon taking office said it would be the guiding principle of his administration.

The slogan stuck even after he left office in 2021, with one group of advisers forming the America First Policy Institute and another, led by Stephen Miller, establishing America First Legal to continue Mr. Trump’s fights.

In the second term, it has become the catch-all for the total Trump agenda, using it to justify everything from immigration restrictions and tariffs to slashing foreign assistance and withdrawing from international climate change agreements.

His critics say the term has been used by racists and antisemites dating back a century. Mr. Trump, though, has said he just likes the way the phrase sounds.

It’s been a sticking point for Judge Chen for years.

He oversaw a previous case in 2018, when the first Trump administration tried to wind down TPS for a number of countries.

He said he asked the government’s lawyers what “an America first view” of immigration was, but the Justice Department “was unable to provide a clear and direct response.”