Unsafe and Unwelcome

Issues of safety and welcome have long been a topic of conversation in the United States. The days of racial segregation provided overt and legal signs that warned of potential dangers. Separate waiting rooms, water fountains and schools for Whites and Blacks were clear in their discriminatory practices, and was also the case for housing, access to hospitals and other community services like parks. The laws and the accompanying signs were explicit in identifying that Blacks and other minorities were unsafe and unwelcome.

Jim Crow laws were enacted in the 1870s and ensured that racial segregation was enforced, White supremacy was maintained, and African descendant people were relegated to being second class. “Separate but equal” was the rule of the day in a country where equity and equality were not an option extended to all. These were state and local laws present in the south, laws which came on the heels of the emancipation of enslaved people. Slavery may have been over, but the law was used to keep freed Blacks “in their place” with reduced access to better living conditions for their lives and better options for their economic success.   

Jim Crow laws were struck down with the passage of a series of federal legislations in the 1950s and 1960s and court cases during the years of the Civil Rights movement.

These days, the “Whites Only,” signs and other physical signs of racial discrimination are gone from the windows of the stores, over the bathroom doors and are missing from public spaces. The signs live on as historical relics in museums and landfills. Yet the spirit of Jim Crow lives on across the United States, resurrected with other names, ensuring that the law is still weaponized and deciding through discriminatory practices who is safe and unsafe, who is welcome and unwelcome. Jim Crow abides with us, resurrected for another generation.

White Christian nationalism is the shroud of the new Jim Crow with the accompanying war on immigrants, intention to change birth right citizenship, reduction to scholarships for Black students, attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, rolling back the civil and human rights of millions.

 State and local laws are no longer the problem when enforcement of discriminatory practices are coming with the stoke of the pen through Executive Orders signed by the current President of the United States. The signs in the windows are back, but the truth is they never went away. Now they are being dusted off and returned, metaphorically, to the restaurant windows and movie theaters of our lives. There is nothing invisible about the signage of this moment.  Immigrants are unsafe and unwelcome along with millions of others who do not fit criteria laid by individuals who claimed the right to decide who is in and who is out.

The pen is being wielded as a weapon as rule by executive order moves the inaction of law without public debate.

The President signed Executive Order 14406, Restoring Integrity of America’s Financial System on May 19, 2026. Another innocuous title for an executive order with implications that cannot be grasped from the title. The purpose of this one is however, clearly stated very early. Executive Order 14406 states: “My Administration will not tolerate national security and public safety risks caused by illicit cross-border financial activity, nor will it permit risks to our financial system posed by the extension of credit or financial services to the inadmissible and removable alien population.”

The order appears to be concerned with drug trafficking, money laundering and other activities related to the war on drugs, or more specifically, Mexico based cartels. A closer and further reading identifies the challenge to the latest group targeted en masse for expulsion from the United States. “Banks and other financial institutions should also be attentive to the credit risks posed by the extension of mortgage and auto loans, credit cards, and other consumer credit to the inadmissible and removable alien population.”

“Federal law does not give government agencies the power to stop people from opening bank accounts or applying for credit based on their immigration status. But the Trump administration has been aggressive in using any power it has to make immigrants feel unsafe and unwelcome in the United States.”

The Executive Order attempts to limit the access immigrants will have to affordable banking services – that is immigrants documented or undocumented. Like Jim Crow laws of old, the limitations being placed on access to banking services is critical for investment in financial well-being and economic viability for immigrants. Buying homes. Money in a safe place. Earning interest. Investing funds. Business loans. All these aspects of life are threatened by the order which is a veiled approach to addressing the challenges being place on banks by illegal activity which targeting the financial viability of immigrants in these United States.

The signs are out, and the message continues to be clear: immigrants are unsafe and unwelcome. White Christian nationalism is the new Jim Crow.

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