IMAGINE THERE ARE NO FOREIGNERS -- IT'S EASY IF YOU TRY

America's neo-Nazi Department of Homeland Security posted this on December 31. I wondered where the number ("100 Million Deportations") came from.

At first I assumed that DHS was taking a Trumpist approach to statistics. A few months ago, Pew reported that 51.9 million immigrants live in the United States. The vast majority are here legally.

As of 2023, 46% of immigrants were naturalized U.S. citizens. Nearly a quarter (23%) were lawful permanent residents, often referred to as “green card holders,” and another 4% were lawful temporary residents who were permitted to stay in the U.S. for a limited period of time, usually for work or study. The remaining immigrants in the U.S. fell into the “unauthorized” category and constituted 27% of all U.S. immigrants.

"Take the real number, approximately double it, and make it round because round numbers sound better" is a standard Donald Trump approach to statistics. Pew says 14 million immigrants are here unlawfully. Most other estimates range from approximately 11 million to approximately 13 million. Trump and his surrogates regularly say that the number is higher, and suggest that every immigrant here without authorization arrived during Joe Biden's presidency, even though we know that many have been here for decades. In October, during an Air Force One news conference, Trump said:

Well, when people come into our country illegally, especially in terms of speed, the very bad ones, murderers, because we've had murderers came in through the Biden administration. We have very tight borders now, but we had open borders....

It was really a terrible mistake that was made. When you think of it, so much of our time -- our time is spent on that subject and it's a big subject because it's probably 20 or 25 million people, the real number. And of the 25 million people, it's -- you know, millions of people should not be here now.

At a campaign stop in 2024, J.D. Vance said:

"Kamala Harris let in 25 million illegal aliens ... the 25 million people who are here in this country illegally."

Marco Rubio said in 2024, "We’re talking upwards of 20, 25, maybe 30 million."

So did DHS apply Trumpian logic to the total number of immigrants? Did it approximately double 51.9 million to arrive at 100 million?

Or does 100 million refer to the total number of non-white people in America? Statistia says that there are approximately 342 million people in America, and 254 million are white. That leaves 100 million, more or less.

But I think the 100 million figure is an incorrect reference to non-citizens -- including all immigrants (not just the ones from "the third world") and tourists.

Here's an AP fact check from August:

After the Trump administration announced Thursday that it is reviewing the valid visas of more than 55 million people, social media users began using this figure to inflate the number of noncitizens living in the U.S. by tens of millions.

Posts claimed that these 55 million visa holders, plus about 25 million or more people living in the country illegally, means that nearly a quarter to a third of the people living in the U.S. are not American citizens.

We've established that the number of immigrants living here illegally is well under 25 million. And there aren't 55 million visa holders living here.

The 55 million visas, which includes tourist visas, is not representative of U.S. residents, as not everyone with a visa resides in the U.S. ...

“The 55 million figure is the total number of visa-holders worldwide, not people who are currently in the United States,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

But the numbers made right-wing social media users' heads explode.

Still, many social media users overstated the number of noncitizens living in the U.S., pointing to these figures.

“55 million on visas, tens of millions of illegals—close to 100 million are foreign aliens,” reads one X post. “Almost 1/3 of the entire country are foreigners. Completely insane if you really think about it. America has no reason or obligation to tolerate this. If America doesn’t deport the tens of millions it needs to, it will cease to exist as a nation.”

That tweet is here. Other tweets -- here, here, here -- claim the fraction is a quarter.

55 Million on VISAs
30-40 Million Illegals

Almost 1/4 of Americas population is not American!

How many are on welfare??

— Idaho Conservatives 🇺🇸 (@NorthIdahoRight) August 21, 2025

But if you (incorrectly) assume that all 55 million visa holders are living here, add the (exaggerated) 25 million figure for immigrants here without authorization, and round up, you're getting close to 100 million.

I think that's the message here: We don't want any foreigners living here illegally. We don't want any foreigners living here legally. We don't want any foreigners visiting.

Which makes one of the community notes that have been appended to the DHS tweet rather curious.

The art -- which might make you think of California, big cars, and the early Beach Boys -- was done by a Japanese artist who, Wikipedia tells us, is "known for his cover designs of city pop albums in the 1980s." City pop is a Japanese music subgenre that never migrated to America, presumably because it's heavily influenced by American music (soft rock, funk, disco, R&B), as interpreted by Japanese musicians.

So this image is an immigrant, a work of visual globalism by an artist associated with musical globalism -- appropriated without permission in the service of an extreme anti-globalist message. Hey, steal an American's artwork next time, you idiots!