Posted on 08/17/2015 12:28:27 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Maybe what is most remarkable about Trump’s immigration paper is that none of the other candidates beat him to it.
I mean no disrespect to his policy people, but anyone could have written it in a few days, a week maybe. The material is easily found online and unlike, say, health care policy, it’s really not that complicated.
Which suggests that the campaigns of most of the other leading candidates hoped they could avoid offering an actual plan, finessing the issue instead by mouthing platitudes for the yahoos without specifics that might upset donors. Trump’s paper takes direct aim at this strategy when it states “Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first – not wealthy globetrotting donors.”
And that makes me pessimistic about anyone adopting Ian’s sensible suggestion that a “candidate who wants to be formidable, and knock Trump from his perch, would assert The Donald’s principles, then bolster them with solid policies.”
The three principles the paper offers wouldn’t even have to be articulated in a healthier society; of course immigration policy must be based exclusively on the interests of We the People of the United States, not wealthy donors, not corporations, not union bosses, not big-city politicians, and not foreign citizens. Their articulation is nonetheless useful as a way to flush out libertarian and leftist opponents of American sovereignty.
As to the specifics: When the WaPo reported that Trump called Sen. Jeff Sessions to talk immigration, I’d assumed the senator wouldn’t have been able to get a word in edgewise. Well, that does not seem to have been the case, because there’s a lot of specifics in Trump’s paper, and they’re mostly quite good. Among them: Nationwide E-Verify, visa-tracking for foreign visitors, cutting off aid to sanctuary cities, making overstay of a visa a criminal offense, tightening up on H-1B visas to prevent their being used to import cheap labor, ending birthright citizenship, and more. It even addresses the excesses of refugee resettlement.
The final item in the paper is a call for “immigration moderation,” a verbatim echo of Sen. Sessions’ words from earlier this year. But while Rick Santorum has called for a 25 percent cut in the current immigration level of 1 million per year (by eliminating the lottery and certain chain-migration categories), Trump’s paper doesn’t offer specifics here. On the other hand, it’s just a six-page paper, so there’s plenty of opportunity to elaborate.
I’m less enthusiastic about the first section of the paper, on Mexico and the border. Its antagonism toward Mexico is not constructive – Mexico is indeed obstructionist in many areas, but it has been induced to be helpful in others (for instance, by interdicting many of the Central American illegals headed north). Our approach to our neighbor to the south must be firm, but not ham-handed.
On the other hand, the paper makes Trump’s earlier comments about making Mexico pay for the construction of a border wall seem less absurd. It proposes a number of ways to extract funds, including “impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages” and increased visa fees on various Mexican travelers. These may or may not be good ideas, but they’re not preposterous.
So, while I think Ann Coulter exaggerates just a little when she calls Trump’s paper “The greatest political document since the Magna Carta,” it does clearly advance the immigration debate. Some of these specifics will almost certainly come up in the CNN debate next month and Trump’s rivals will have to respond. I sincerely hope one of the other candidates makes these ideas his own in order to “knock Trump from his perch,” but whether or not that happens, the Overton window for discussion of immigration has moved appreciably in the direction most of the public prefers.
I would like to see any evidence of this.
Wow—and I don’t dispute it, either.
Krikorian is a well respected hawk on immigration law enforcement:
“Mark Krikorian, a nationally recognized expert on immigration issues, has served as Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) since 1995. The Center, an independent, non-partisan research organization in Washington, D.C.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/author/mark-krikorian
So tell us gil, why are you qualified to comment on immigration?
CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES
THINK TANK DEDICATED TO IMMIGRATION REDUCTION/ENFORCEMENT
Mark Krikorian is no idiot. He’s head of the CIS and the formost authority on the subject.
For sure, The Donald does not have to answer to his donors, as he is largely self-financing his campaign thus far.
Follow the money? The Donald IS the money. And his money is on clamping down on the border and eliminating the presence of illegal and undocumented immigrants. Then a sane and reasonable immigration policy, that eliminates “birthright” anchor babies, will go far to take one of the drivers of this illegal immigration off the books.
We have Obama, Clinton, and Lois Lerner types in high level positions making decisions. We have not heeded George Washington's warning.
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
We need a movement to convince Jeff Sessions to serve another term as US Senator. President Trump is going to need him to mentor the younger conservative wannabees and keep them on the conservative path.
It's real encouraging that Sen. Session had a lot to do with Trump's immigration plan.
RE: I would like to see any evidence of this.
SEE HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/04/23/central-american-migrants/26242165/
Mexican authorities also have made “major efforts” to make it more difficult for migrants to catch freight trains, collectively known as la bestia, heading north, he said.
“It doesn’t mean that people don’t jump on down the line, but it’s much diminished,” Olson said.
Mexico apprehended 120,000 migrants in 2014, nearly 50% more than in fiscal 2013. Mexico is on track to apprehend even more Central Americans this year with detentions doubling during the first two months of 2015 compared with the period a year earlier.
AND HERE:
http://www.businessinsider.com/mexico-is-facing-a-cental-americans-migrant-crisis-2015-6
According to TeleSur, Mexico’s national immigration institute has found that kidnapping of migrants in Mexico increased by 800% between 2012 and 2014. In the first 11 months of 2014, 130 US citizens were kidnapped and 85 were killed in Mexico, according to the US Embassy.
A year ago, the sheer number of migrants, including unaccompanied minors, pouring into the southern US raised alarm among authorities and the public. Through joint US-Mexican efforts that tide has eased. Mexico’s Southern Border Program, approaching its first anniversary, has helped the Latin American country surpass the US in the number of Central American migrants detained.
Jefferson Sessions as Vice President
Department of State , (Return INS.) – John Bolton
Department of Justice - Trey Gowdy (Suggested by The Donald)
Department of Treasury, (includes HHS Customs) – Carl Icahn (Offered and Accepted)
Department of War, (change the name back, include VA function.) - LTC. Allen West
Department of Interior, (includes former Agriculture, Transportation, HHS Border Patrol, and Energy legitimate functions) – Gov. Palin
Department of Labor and Commerce – ELIMINATE
Department of Health and Human Services - ELIMINATE
Department of Homeland Security – ELIMINATE
Department of Education - ELIMINATE
Department of Housing and Urban Development – ELIMINATE
RE: This guy is an idiot.
Which part of his article do you disagree with?
Mexico has not been behaving like an ally for decades. They should not be treated as one until they change their ways.
Don’t believe a word out of the “me toos” who will be popping soon. They’ll lie and say anything to cover their butts. They don’t mean any of it, because they don’t have permission from their donors to say it.
Well, I’m not with you on that. Kirkorian wrote a book called “The New Case Against Immigration.” He’s in Trump’s camp. I think he wishes someone else would have said this-—but that’s the point. No one else CAN. They are either hornswoggled by the notion that Republicans “need Hispanic votes” or they’ll lose, or they are beholden to the Chamber of Commerce.
I would add only one thing to Trump’s immigration plan. To give incentive to illegals to self deport, make a precondition that if they self deport, they can apply for legal re entry. If we have to deport them, they forfeit any right to becoming citizens in the future.
Good idea :D
Oh I know they do everything they can to keep ‘migration’ into Mexico at zero.
But what I suspect is they make sure none get off those north bound trains.
Krirkorian and CIS have done yeoman work on controlling illegal immigration, but there are also areas where they are somewhat mushy and irresolute.
They are not so tough on the H-1B visa disaster that is putting the scientists and engineers who put a man on the moon and gave us the Internet (the Google guys exploited it - they didn’t create it) and freed the working man with mass production into the unemployment lines to maximize Bill Gates profits.
CIS is also responsible, along with Pew, for the fiction that there are only 11 million illegal aliens when the actual number is much much more. If there were only 11 million illegals, how come no proposals (like the Gang of Eight Amnesty Bill) limit amnesty to just 11 million illegals?
Krikorian methinks is perhaps a little jealous of Trump’s ability to do what CIS couldn’t - make illegal immigration the main issue in out national debate.
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