‘Don’t want brown people’: Mark Kelly claims Trump’s migrant crackdown is rooted in racial prejudice
MARK KELLY: “When I heard the secretary say that they're going to pause immigration from third world countries, I take that as a message that they don't want brown people coming to the United States. And I find that disturbing.” pic.twitter.com/1cb32drqZ1
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) November 30, 2025
WASHINGTON, DC: Senator Mark Kelly appeared on NBC's ‘Meet the Press’, on Sunday, November 30, and discussed Donald Trump’s permanent pause on immigration from third-world and concerning countries in light of the recent attack on the National Guard in DC.
Kelly stated that his understanding of the new directive was that “they don’t want Brown people” coming to America.
Mark Kelly criticizes Trump’s permanent pause on immigration
During the conversation, Kristen Welker asked for Kelly’s thoughts on Donald Trump’s permanent pause on immigration. Kelly said he found the move “disturbing,” noting that America has always welcomed people who were struggling and fleeing famine and violence.
“It would be a fundamental change to the fabric of our nation to change that,” he said.
Welker asked Kelly what he thought the Trump administration wanted to do when they used the term “remigration,” and Kelly said it meant they were “kicking people out.”
The senator claimed that Donald Trump wanted to deport people. He said it was “ridiculous” and called it a “strategy.”
Referring to Kristi Noem’s recent appearance on ‘Meet the Press,’ Kelly said that the secretary of Homeland Security talked about deporting criminals from America.
He said that, while he was on board with that, the Trump administration was going after only a “small percentage of the people.”
Mark Kelly claims Trump would blame everything on Biden
The two discussed the suspected shooter in the DC attack on Thanksgiving, an Afghan native who reportedly arrived in America when the country withdrew from Afghanistan under the Biden administration in 2021.
Welker asked Kelly about his thoughts on Trump blaming Biden for the lack of vetting of immigrants at the time.
“This administration, they’re going to blame Joe Biden for everything,” he said.
He said it was “comical,” and said that it sounded like the Biden administration did “some vetting.” But added that it also sounded like the Trump administration didn’t do enough vetting before they signed Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s asylum claims.
Kelly claimed that Noem saying that the Trump administration was changing the vetting process was a good idea.
He added that things that needed to be changed should be changed and that “process improvement” was important.
Mark Kelly also appeared on ‘State of the Union’ on Sunday, and he said that the Trump administration was “harassing” Afghan migrants in America.
He claimed that they were “going after a large group of people” years after they came to the country.
Although the Trump crackdown on Afghan nationals was in light of the recent attack on two National Guard members in Washington, DC, Senator Mark Kelly said that it did not make a lot of sense to him.
