A Competitive Reality-TV Show for Citizenship? I Wouldn’t Put It Past Them.

The problem with the news coming so fast and loud is that important stories can fade away just as quickly as they arrive, before the public sees what’s really going on.

Such was the case with last week’s bizarre story that the Department of Homeland Security was considering a reality-TV show that would give away US citizenship as its prize.

This is the exact opposite of what citizenship is supposed to mean. It replaces the commitment to a larger intellectual or cultural or community project with the spectacle of the self and of the gimmick. It replaces knowledge of civics with pizza-making contests and “gold-rush challenges.” In short, it casts aside deliberation and dignity and brings to the fore the carnival barking of an ill-informed TV studio audience.

It really isn’t a stretch from that concept to The Hunger Games or the amphitheater spectacle of the gladiatorial fight: the poor, desperate immigrant who can entertain the toga-clad crowd with the most spectacular displays of violence, cruelty, or selfishness wins the ultimate prize—citizenship, bestowed by the decadent emperor and his train of sycophants.

The New York Times reported that a DHS spokesperson said the department was happy to consider the pitch by reality-television producer Rob Worsoff. “The pitch generally was a celebration of being an American,” the spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said. “It’s important to revive civic duty.” (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem later contradicted the spokesperson, saying the agency had “no plans” for such a reality show. Given the administration’s relentless lying, however, it’s hard to believe anything they say on this.)

Tricia McLaughlin will get no argument from me about the importance of reviving civic duty; after all, I teach classes to university students in which I often find that several members of the class don’t know the names of their own state’s US senators and can’t articulate the difference between the three branches of government. And I have interviewed people around the country who voted for Donald Trump because they think the president directly controls the price of eggs and who believe their political or religious opponents deserve to be executed.

Call me old-fashioned, though, but I can’t see how handing over the citizenship process to a TV producer whose credits include Dating Naked and Millionaire Matchmaker fulfills the particular function of civics lesson.

Worsoff’s name—”Worse-Off”—is entirely appropriate here. His suggestion should have been booted to the sidelines the moment it saw the light of day. Instead, the genre that gave us The Apprentice, and thus ultimately Donald J. Trump, now seeks to turn the citizenship process itself into nothing more than a game, one with potentially infinite and ludicrous permutations. If I were “Worse-Off,” I’d be checking in on my cosmic karma credits right about now to see just how deep into the karmic hole I would fall were such a stupid and cruel project actually embraced by the US government.

Yes, perhaps season one would be no more offensive than seeing how fast a would-be-citizen can put together a pizza; inane, yes, but cruel, probably not. However, what if season two involves a “who can traverse the Darién Gap quickest” segment? Or “who can dodge national guard and military forces on the Rio Grande crossing”? What if it features an alligator-wrestling contest (recall Trump’s request during his first go-around in the White House to create an alligator-filled moat along the southern border to deter would-be migrants)? What if someone proposes a spin-off that involves turning in undocumented immigrants, with the highest number winning US citizenship? What if someone else films a version that features all the ways one can prove one’s loyalty to Trump’s America by finding new techniques to denigrate those most targeted and dehumanized by his administration?

It’s also worth noting that, at the time that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem let it be known that the agency was not considering the show, she was erroneously claiming before the US Senate that the principle of habeas corpus was a concept that gave the president the “constitutional right” to deport people. That’s not just a little bit off; it’s wildly, preposterously, off. It’s like saying that ice cream is a dish best served hot as a side to your steak and baked potato.

Habeas corpus, one of the bedrock principles of Western legal systems, goes back to English legal doctrine from the 12th century and quite literally means “you have the body.” It’s a doctrine that basically rules against arbitrary and indefinite detention, requiring authorities, even those with regal pretensions, to produce a person in court within a specified number of hours or days of their detainment. It most certainly is not a legal doctrine aimed at codifying the executive’s right to yank people off the street and into secretive detention facilities before rushing them onto military planes or hired commercial transport planes and dumping them in random prisons or dysfunctional states overseas.

In the reality-TV show that is the Trump administration—with telegenic but entirely vapid political figures, whose leading qualification seems to be their sycophancy, competing with each as to who can say the most offensive things about immigrants and about supposed DEI hires—Noem is rapidly winning the “crowd favorites” vote for her combination of willful ignorance and cruelty. Among her greatest hits moments: filming a bizarro BDSM public service announcement in front of a CECOT cell in El Salvador crammed with shirtless, heavily tattooed, head-shaven prisoners. Noem herself was, of course, perfectly coiffed, and sporting a Rolex watch worth more than many Americans earn in a year. She has toured the southern border on ATVs and kitted herself out in tactical gear to do ride-alongs with ICE in New York City.

As with everything else in Trump world, Noem’s presence is all spectacle and no substance. She appears to have an understanding of the legal system and the Constitution that places her somewhere between an intelligent toddler and a falling-behind middle-schooler. But, to make up for that intellectual flaw, she certainly does know how to put on a good show, as was evidenced by her CECOT performance.

If I were “Worse-Off,” I wouldn’t be deterred by Noem’s perfunctory denial that the reality show idea was being seriously considered. I would, instead, offer her a starring role. Surely, it wouldn’t take her long to find a cast of immigrants to humiliate.