Judge Asks If ‘America First’ Is Code for Racial Hostility

The same day President Donald Trump spoke to the United Nations in New York about “America First,” a federal judge in San Francisco wondered aloud whether the slogan was being used by the president’s lieutenants to camouflage discriminatory immigration policies.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen heard arguments for more than two hours over whether he should block the Trump administration from overturning portions of a George H.W. Bush-era humanitarian policy that offers U.S. residency to nationals from countries in perilous conditions. At stake are protections for about 300,000 people from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Sudan who could be deported en masse if those countries’ Temporary Protected Status is scrapped by the Department of Homeland Security.