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I don't think I'm choosing the most benign interpretation. I'm distinguishing between evidence of policy and evidence of intent.
You've presented evidence that the administration pursued a significantly more restrictive immigration policy. I don't dispute that.
Where I think we differ is in the next step. You conclude that the objective is reducing the immigrant population for its own sake. I think that's one possible interpretation, but not the only one. Supporters would argue the objective is to reduce immigration levels because they believe doing so improves border security, labor markets, social cohesion, or assimilation. You may disagree with those judgments, but they're different from saying the objective is simply reducing immigrants regardless of consequences.
That's why I hesitate to infer a single underlying motive from rhetoric and policy alone.
social cohesion, or assimilation
You just described the rationale.
The administration has already supplied the label:
Remigration.
Like it or not.
Believe it or not.
Admit it or not.
No, saying "remigration" over and over doesn't make your interpretation the only correct one.
I see the same facts and reach a different conclusion. That's not ignoring the evidence, it's disagreeing with your interpretation of it.
I think we've both said our piece and I'll leave it there.
Fair enough. We draw different conclusions.
My point isn’t that repeatedly saying “remigration” makes my interpretation automatically correct.
My point is that the administration has repeatedly chosen that word to describe its own project.
Once a government repeatedly embraces the language of remigration, repeatedly describes immigrants as “poisoning the blood,” and repeatedly pursues policies reshaping both legal and illegal immigration, we’re all left to draw reasonable inferences from the totality of the evidence.
Mine is one of them.
At some point, repeatedly choosing the most benign interpretation of every piece of evidence stops looking like caution and starts looking like a refusal to reckon with the evidence.