It doesn’t begin with a scandal. Not with an official statement. It begins with a sentence, casually posted, deliberately seeded. “Deport Xi Jinping’s daughter.” Not a line from a dystopian novel, but a real call to action from the present-day United States. Spoken by Laura Loomer, a far-right activist, once mocked, now well-connected. Her voice may be shrill, but it hits a nerve: Trump’s America needs enemies, and once again, it’s turning to the university campus to find them.
The student visa, once a symbol of curiosity, exchange, and openness, has now become a weapon. In the hands of a president who despises thought, even education becomes a threat. The new enemy doesn’t wear a uniform, they wear hoodies, glasses, notebooks. They don’t march. They read. And that’s enough. Because those who read, question. And those who question, quickly become dangerous.
Xi Mingze, daughter of the Chinese president, allegedly a student at Harvard, has become the projection surface of an America that long ago traded its moral compass for a machine of political fog. Her presence is not even officially confirmed, but it doesn’t matter. She is not judged by what she says or does, but by who her father is. And in Trump’s world, it takes nothing more than origin, a name, mere existence, to be guilty.
Loomer’s demand is no outlier. It’s a symptom. It fits seamlessly into a policy that for months has been targeting international students. Those who protest the war in Gaza are branded “pro-Hamas.” Those who look Chinese are suspected of espionage. Over 300 visas have already been revoked - a figure that sounds like bureaucratic footnote but in reality, tears lives apart.
This policy isn’t new, but it is now shameless. What used to happen in the shadows is now demanded in the open. Deportation as demonstration of power. Expulsion as spectacle. The university - once a space of refuge — becomes a stage. The campus has turned into a battlefield.
Trump’s rhetoric despises complexity. It recognizes no shades of gray. It thrives on suspicion, not evidence. On guilt by proximity, not by action. It revels in silence, when people are too afraid to speak. And it delights in a society where thought is treated as subversion.
The targeted exclusion of Chinese students is only the most visible expression of this new strategy. A bill from 2022, spearheaded by Republican Vicky Hartzler, was titled the Protecting Higher Education from the Chinese Communist Party Act - a law claiming to protect, but in truth, seeking only one thing: control. This isn’t about American security. It’s about the reinvention of American identity. If you want to study here, you should no longer be allowed to think what you want.
Within this logic, even the visa - a document of hope - becomes a political hostage. Today, it’s Xi Jinping’s daughter. Tomorrow, it’s the Syrian medical student. The Palestinian environmental scientist. The Iranian philosopher. And someday, it will be the American student who asks the wrong question at the wrong time.
There is a word for systems like these. It is old. It is ugly. And it doesn’t begin with blood, but with lists. With suspicion. With the systematic reshaping of reality. What we are witnessing is not the defense of freedom, but its disassembly. A state that punishes young people for the origin of their parents has long since crossed into the territory of arbitrariness. And a country that sees education as a threat has begun to dismantle itself, in a language that no longer thinks, but merely repeats.
Trump’s America no longer recognizes that line. It throws itself into repetition like an actor diving into the final scene of a play long since lost. The applause comes from the wrong direction. And no one seems to notice that the stage is already on fire.
Targeting Xi Mingze does not make China weaker. It makes America poorer. Poorer in principle. Poorer in reason. Poorer in future. And the most tragic thing of all: it is not happening in secret. It is happening in broad daylight. On the platforms. In the lecture halls. In front of our very eyes.
America stands on the brink of losing what once made it great — not its weapons, not its economy, but its courage to remain open. And it is not doing this out of fear. It is doing this by design.
That is the most chilling thing about this moment: it is not a mistake. It is deliberate. Intentional. Controlled.
And like so many catastrophes before it, it begins with a sentence that was meant in all seriousness: “Deport Xi Jinping’s daughter.”
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