DHS Is Considering A Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete For Citizenship

[BumRushDaShow]

17. I had seen the Newsweek one first before finding it on Huff Post

The Independent also has it (they are all referencing the story from the same (tabloid) outlet) -

Kristi Noem’s DHS considering U.S. citizenship reality show, amid criticism of ‘made-for-TV’ style

Oliver O'Connell in New York Friday 16 May 2025 05:18 BST


President Donald Trump famously rehabilitated his image from being known as a businessman with a string of bankrupt projects behind him to that of a hard-to-impress tycoon through the medium of reality TV, playing up myths of untold wealth weekly to viewers of The Apprentice on NBC.

Now, one U.S. government department is considering a new venture that could well appeal to his nostalgia for those days atop the TV ratings when he was lauded for his primetime success by a media industry he now largely despises.

The Daily Mail reports that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is “backing” an outlandish proposal to have immigrants pitted against each other to compete for U.S. citizenship on air in a reality show called The American. Noem’s department has strongly denied the report as “completely false,” saying that she has not backed the show and is not even aware of the pitch, but acknowledges that it exists.

Social media users are already referring to the idea as “grotesque,” a version of The Hunger Games, or reminiscent of the 1987 dystopian movie The Running Man, in which people compete for freedom by participating in a state-controlled game show. From the mind of Canadian-born writer and producer Rob Worsoff, immigrants would compete in a series of challenges across the country “for the honor of fast-tracking their way to U.S. citizenship,”

(snip)