Immigration hawks want you to believe that men are a threat by default. Figures like former President Donald Trump and current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R–La.) argue that immigration is really an "invasion" because many migrants lined up at the border are "military-age males" from "adversarial nations." The implication isn't that these people work for any specific army or militant organization, but that any young man from the wrong country is guilty until proven innocent.
Conservatives and liberals alike might be surprised to learn that this idea was written into U.S. policy by former President Barack Obama. During drone campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Obama administration counted any "military-age" men in certain areas as enemy fighters, even if the U.S. government didn't know who those men were. The policy allowed Obama to lowball the number of civilians killed by U.S. drone strikes.
