Column · 16 October 2026
2 min read · 1 read
U.S. cuts Muslim-majority immigration by 96%. What about us?
While Trump cuts immigration from Muslim-majority countries by 96%, Ottawa stays the course and Quebec bears the consequences. There's a lesson here, not to copy Washington, but as a reminder that a sovereign people has the right to say no.
You can hate Trump for whatever you like. You can find him crude, dangerous, unpredictable. You can even feel the United States is still far too American for our taste. But when it comes to curbing immigration from Muslim-majority countries, there's no denying he delivered.
The numbers are in, and they don't come from some activist website. They come from the Cato Institute, a rather pro-immigration think tank, which analyzed official State Department data. Between December 2024 and February 2026, legal admissions (immigrant visas and refugees) from 45 Muslim-majority countries fell by 96.2%, from 21,096 to 808 per month. Refugees from those countries dropped to zero. Afghanistan has all but vanished from the radar (from over 5,500 to 9). Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen… same treatment.
This is neither a fluke nor a seasonal effect. It is the result of deliberate policy decisions: visa restrictions, tighter vetting, a pause on refugee admissions, targeted suspensions. Trump did what many Western governments refuse to do: put security and real integration capacity ahead of symbolic quotas and good intentions.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Ottawa keeps serving us the same talking points. We hear about "levels," "absorptive capacity," "integration," yet the numbers stay high, communities with large Muslim immigrant populations keep growing, and debates on secularism, halal, accommodation requests or security concerns are still too often treated as taboo. Quebec, for its part, doesn't have full control over its borders. We select a little, we take in a lot, and we live with the consequences of policies decided elsewhere.
The question isn't whether Trump is perfect. He isn't. The question is whether a country has the right to choose who it lets in, based on security, cultural compatibility and real capacity to integrate. The answer is yes. And when a government does so this clearly, you can criticize the man all you want, but you can't deny the result.
Quebec should learn from this. Not to copy Trump, but to take back control. Immigration is not a right. It's a privilege. And as long as Ottawa decides the volumes and the sources, we'll remain spectators of our own demographic and cultural decline. Sovereignty isn't just a flag. It's also the right to say no.
Hate Trump all you want. On this file, he made a smart move. Canada, meanwhile, keeps pretending everything is fine.
