Trump Deals Massive Blow to Economy With New Small Business Loan Rule

Donald Trump’s administration will bar green card holders (read: legal, permanent residents) from receiving small business loans, threatening to further unravel the U.S. job market.

The Small Business Administration has barred green card holders from receiving SBA loans and will expand that policy to SBA-backed loans from private companies starting in April, the Associated Press reported Monday. Additionally, any business that is even partially owned by a green card holder will no longer be eligible for a small business loan.

Speaking at CPAC Saturday, SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler touted the end of “DEI lending” to “foreign nationals.” Of course, the individuals affected by the policy change are not foreign nationals but legal permanent residents who may have lived and worked for their entire lives in the United States.

The SBA’s blatantly racist policy is an extension of the administration’s nativist preference that is making the country poorer.

Immigrants are more likely to start businesses than those born in the U.S., and nearly half of Fortune 500 companies in 2025 were founded by immigrants or their children. SBA loans are an essential resource for foreign-born entrepreneurs because they typically accumulate low interest and do not require a strong credit history.

This policy will undoubtedly wreak havoc on state economies that rely on immigrant-run businesses. For example, 99 percent of new jobs in California come from small businesses, and immigrant entrepreneurs account for 40 percent of the state’s economy.

As part of the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigrants—both legal and undocumented—the SBA’s new policy threatens to further unravel the U.S. job market, which has reached its lowest hiring levels since April 2020.

ICE agents will be staking out Marine Corps graduation events to find undocumented immigrants in the recruits’ families.

NBC News reports that REAL IDs, U.S. passports, or U.S. birth certificates are now required to access Marine bases as part of heightened security measures following the war in Iran. Anyone who travels to Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island in Beaufort, South Carolina, for graduation and family days this week without such documentation could be detained.

“Increased force protection measures” at the recruit depot means that “federal law enforcement personnel will be present at installation access points to conduct enhanced screening and lawful immigration status inquiries during recruit family and graduation days,” the Parris Island website states.

Graduation at Parris Island is on April 3, and family members are invited to visit the base beginning April 1 as recruits complete their 13-week boot camp. During their training period, Marine recruits aren’t allowed to see their families. This is the first time that federal agents will be there for immigration enforcement.

“While the Marine Corps routinely coordinates with federal partners on security matters, this is the first time in recent memory that federal law enforcement agencies have supported base access operations at Parris Island in this capacity,” a spokesperson for MCRD Parris Island told NBC.

The Department of Homeland Security contradicted the message, with a spokesperson telling NBC that “ICE will not be making arrests at the basic training graduation in Paris Island, SC.”

That’s not surprising, considering that sending ICE agents after the family members of military recruits is not a good look. But the Trump administration doesn’t normally care about where it sends its violent ICE agents, who can now be found at schools, churches, and even emergency rooms.

The Trump family has unveiled its AI-concept art plans for the Trump Presidential Library—a gratuitously ostentatious skyscraper in the middle of Miami that may feature at least two massive gold statues of the president. There will be massive outdoor patios with palm trees, full-size planes and fighter jets inside, a large ballroom, a replica of the Oval Office, and of course gold everywhere and on everything.

“FIRST LOOK: The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library is officially here. Over the past six months, I have poured my heart and soul into this project with my incredible team at [The Trump Organization],” Eric Trump wrote Monday evening on X. “This landmark on the water in Miami, Florida will stand as a lasting testament to an amazing man, an amazing developer, and the greatest President our Nation has ever known. These images have never been seen by the public—until today. Enjoy!”

While no presidential library is some unassuming little building, most of them are nowhere near as gaudy as this one plans to be. And while these libraries are supposed to serve as archives and historical centers, it’s clear that this is just another monument to Trump—if the massive golden idols of himself didn’t make that abundantly clear.

“A golden statue in a temple where the faithful gather to worship their idol,” historian Rutger Berman wrote sarcastically. “But enough about the Book of Exodus—here’s Trump’s Presidential Library!”

Aside from the idolatry, the timing of this message—in the midst of the war of Iran, while Trump has his lowest approval ratings ever—couldn’t be more tone-deaf. Recent polling from Nate Silver shows President Trump with a brutal -17.4 net approval rating.

Trump voters across America are walking back their support for the president.

Conservative opposition to the war in Iran has poured into the pro-MAGA network Real America’s Voice. On Monday, host Jack Posobiec spent nearly 10 minutes reading mail from people who claimed they were walking away from the president over the unpopular military operation.

The letters included criticism that the war was “wasting tax dollars,” would likely halt the “likelihood of [Republican] success in the midterms,” and was a “complete betrayal and flip-flop” of Donald Trump’s “no new wars policy.”

“Cannot dispute the fact that the U.S. and Israel have clearly won this operation,” a viewer named Chuck said. “However, if there is a regime change that excludes the Ayatollahs and basically returns Iran to pre-1979, it will have been a loss. We can’t continue bombing campaigns every two years, wasting tax dollars.”

Other writers were more blunt, penning that the war is “the stupidest thing ever,” “the worst thing Trump has done,” and is “destroying MAGA.”

A good chunk of the letters focused on the economy and the soaring price of gas due to the various attacks on the Middle East’s oil reserves and processing equipment.

“Gas is $4 a gallon,” a viewer wrote.

“This economy will tank,” wrote another.

The ramifications of the war were “hurting the very people that Trump has fought for,” according to yet another disappointed viewer.

“I voted for Trump, and I want my vote back,” wrote one former supporter. Another noted that this campaign was “the opposite of what I voted for.”

“I’m going independent, but will likely never vote again,” one Republican wrote in a letter to the network.

So far, more than 1,937 people have been killed in Iran, including dozens of political leaders, according to Al Jazeera. At least 13 U.S. soldiers have also lost their lives in the war, and more than 300 have been wounded. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Monday that the conflict would be resolved in the coming weeks, though military officials have indicated that the war could rage for months or even years.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Colorado’s ban against so-called “conversion therapy,” finding that it was discriminatory to the viewpoints of people who want to torment LGBTQ+ people.

In an 8-1 ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, the court sided with Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor who claimed that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy violates her First Amendment rights to free speech.

“Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, as applied to Ms. Chiles’s talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny,” the ruling, written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, stated.

Gorsuch argued that Chiles’s talk therapy was not subject to restrictions on conduct, and claimed that the law’s targeting of health care professionals “changes nothing.”

“Her speech does not become conduct just because the State may call it that. Nor does her speech become conduct just because it can also be described as a ‘treatment,’ a ‘therapeutic modality,’ or anything else. The First Amendment is no word game,” he wrote.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed the lone dissenting opinion, in which she argued that the court had ignored the context in which Chiles was practicing speech. “Chiles is not speaking in the ether; she is providing therapy to minors as a licensed healthcare professional,” Jackson wrote. Therefore, Chiles was subject to the same regulation that any state exercises over medical practices.

“In concluding otherwise, the Court’s opinion misreads our precedents, is unprincipled and unworkable, and will eventually prove untenable for those who rely upon the long-recognized responsibility of States to regulate the medical profession for the protection of public health,” Jackson wrote.

Speaking from the bench Tuesday, Jackson called the decision “wrong as a matter of precedent, first principles, and history.”

More than 20 states have enacted some form of ban on so-called “conversion therapy.” Major medical organizations have unanimously said that these “therapies” are not only ineffective and unsupported by scientific evidence, but can do immense psychological harm to gay and transgender patients.

The high court’s ruling could have broader implications. By siding with Chiles, the court has suggested that sexual orientation and gender identity are mutable traits, setting them apart from other protected “suspect classifications” such as race and religion that receive the highest judicial scrutiny when challenged in court. This could signal significant reversals for LGBTQ+ rights in future cases.

This story has been updated.