Editorial: Trump DHS reality show only seeks to make sport of immigrants’ desperation

The Hunger Games. Gamer. The Running Man. There’s no shortage of films and television shows in which members of an oppressed minority are subjected to arduous, even lethal tests for the enjoyment of cruel, corrupt rulers.

Instead of recognizing such stories for what they are — dystopian tales of humans who are treated like animals for entertainment — the current administration run by a former reality TV star reportedly likes the idea.

Homeland Security officials have confirmed that the agency is in talks with producers of Duck Dynasty, Dating Naked and other reality shows to create a series in which immigrants are put through a series of tests, with the winner getting a chance to become a U.S. citizen.

Welcome to Donald Trump’s America, where our own government sees nothing wrong with making sport of foreigners’ dreams of escaping corruption, violence and poverty in their home countries.

Producers have said people shouldn’t worry about the losers being shipped off to Venezuela. No mention was made of Libya and Syria, however; Trump reportedly is working to normalize relations with those countries, known for their brutal, oppressive regimes, so he can send U.S. deportees there.

A DHS official told The New York Times the administration sees the show as “a celebration of being an American and what a privilege it is to be able to be a citizen of the United States of America.”

This is the same administration that pledged to conduct the biggest mass deportations in history and has sent hundreds of thousands of deportees, including legal residents and even some U.S. citizens, to foreign prisons that are known for their brutality.

Producer Rob Worsoff, who is pitching the show he calls The American, said it would take contestants to different U.S. states where they would face challenges inspired by each state’s history and culture.

Trying to stay atop a bucking bull for eight seconds or running through a pit of rattlesnakes in the Texas-themed episode, perhaps?

Worsoff sought to allay such fears, insisting that “this isn’t the Hunger Games for immigrants.”

Immigrant rights supporters demonstrate during a May Day rally outside the federal courthouse in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Matt Rourke/AP Photo)

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the discussions, telling The Wall Street Journal that the show proposal is “in the very beginning stages of the vetting process.”

Worsoff, himself an immigrant from Canada, said he made similar proposals to the Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations but was rejected.

Rightly so.

Despite the utopian view many native-born Americans have of this country, the decision to leave one’s homeland to seek better opportunities here usually is a difficult one. People are leaving the only places they know, understanding that they might never go back. They might never see family and friends again, and have no assurances that they will make the sometimes long and difficult trek to get here safely. Most don’t even know how they will survive once they get here.

To prey upon such desperation and devise tests to see just what immigrants are willing to endure in order to stay here is cruel, even inhumane.

Let’s hope enough sensible people remain in this administration who can keep this from show from becoming a reality.

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