Posted on 08/21/2015 1:13:23 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Donald Trump's six-page platform on immigration may not be, as Ann Coulter wrote, "the greatest political document since the Magna Carta." But given the issue's role in elevating the candidate to leading Republican polls, it merits serious attention.
And at least some of the platform's planks are serious. Trump calls for nationwide use, presumably mandatory, of E-Verify, the government system that is supposed to enable prospective employers to verify a job applicant's immigration status.
He also calls for completion of a visa tracking system. About half of the nation's estimated 11.3 million illegal immigrants (Pew Research Center estimates, not significantly changed from 2009 to 2014) are people who entered on valid visas and have stayed past the expiration date.
There's only one problem here: gummint don't do IT good. Example: healthcare.gov. Example: the FBI system abandoned after millions were spent. Example: the NextGen air traffic control system that went on the fritz last Saturday and stranded thousands at New York and D.C. airports.
Unfortunately, Trump the businessman did not accompany these reasonable proposals with suggestions about how to get government IT working.
Trump makes sense too in calling for outlawing sanctuary cities, though his remedy (withholding all federal funds) might not be the most effective. And ending catch-and-release of illegal border crossers seems like a no-brainer.
However, some of Trump's proposals are, as Bloomberg's Megan McArdle writes, "a farce."
"End birthright citizenship," he says bluntly. There's an argument that the Supreme Court erred in its 1898 decision declaring that the Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except diplomats and the like).
But that argument isn't going to sway the Court anytime soon, and amending the Fourteenth Amendment requires two-thirds votes of both houses of Congress and ratification by 38 state legislatures. Ain't gonna happen.
Trump calls for building "a permanent border wall," even though that's technically unfeasible in some places (such as along the Rio Grande) and declares, "Mexico must pay for the wall."
That sounds good in TV debates and on talk radio. And there's a wisp of justification also for his claim that Mexico has encouraged illegal immigration to the United States. Mexico does seek to protect its citizens in this country and provides them with "matricula consular" documents.
But Trump's argument that the U.S. can make Mexico pay by increasing border transit fees and impounding remittances from illegal workers is unrealistic. Will banks and Western Union be required to determine the legal status of depositors and customers? Will the government confiscate money deposited into U.S. bank accounts of workers' foreign relatives?
What may be most important about Trump's six-page platform are the things he misses -- such as the fact that immigration from Mexico is sharply down from the 1982-2007 surge. Net migration from Mexico to the U.S. in 2008-2012 was zero and any subsequent rise minor. Nor has Central America produced an offsetting surge. China and India each account for more immigrants than Mexico in recent years.
Nor does Trump address the fact that current immigration law has more places for collateral relatives of low-skill immigrants than for immigrants for whose high skills there is market demand.
He gets bogged down instead in a complex proposal to increase salary levels for holders of H-1B visas. He's probably right that for a few big high-tech companies H-1Bs are a source of indentured labor that costs some Americans higher-paying jobs.
But the solution is to ditch the H-1B formula that tends to tie down high-skill migrants to specific employers and substitute something like the Canadian and Australian point systems that provide more places for high-skill immigrants -- and let them contribute to free-market growth any way they like.
The most unrealistic Trump proposal is his call for "a pause" -- of unspecified length -- in issuing green cards to workers abroad, "where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers."
That's a nod to history-minded immigration critics Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter who argue the 1924 immigration act provided such a "pause." But much of that "pause" came during depression and wear, when immigration would have been minimal anyway. Shutting high-skill immigrants out today is cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
Some of Donald Trump's prescriptions make sense. But too many result from misdiagnosis and would transform treatable illness into wasting disease.
The problem with the Scribblers, GOPE, Dems, et cetera, the dang well know it’s going to be effective.
Michael Barone, GOP surrender monkey.
Barone should stick to election science - he’s very good at. I’m sooooo sick of these condescending headlines and written text. Like Barone is smarter than Trump at anything other election science.
Michael Barone = GOP-e
What has the Republican House and Senate done to roll back Obama’s invading hordes on our southwestern border? Answer: absolutely nothing.
I stopped there. If the author thinks the only reason to address illegal immigration is to address Trump's concerns, not an objective piece on the very real problem.
Net migration is calculated as legal entries minus legal exits. This is fairly easy to calculate insofar as the ports of entry and departure keep accurate records. It may be near zero, but it isn't zero.
Now, if you leave out the legal part, it is a much higher net that we can't calculate because there has been almost zero border enforcement at land ports of entry.
Pro-establishment RINOs and RATs can pick at Trump’s effort to bring the issue of federally-subsidized invasion of America’s “borders” all they want. NOBODY who should have been attacking and fixing this issue over many past decades has done, or even said much about, this major America-busting crime at all in our dysfunctional and complicit government at all representing total lack of assigned responsibility for the sovereignty of America.
Yes, let the massive hypocrites show their hand and underline it — THANKS TO TRUMP we are now looking at the issue on the table and making it the issue it should have been long ago.
Go Trump. Regardless of what happens with this ongoing disaster upon our nation, God Bless Trump (and Cruz) for being there and standing up for it.
Another one on the list...
Didn't he predict a Romney landslide victory the day before the 2012 elections?
Um...that's easy Michael. Hire dependable private IT firms. I've seen e commerce sites that are 100x more easily navigated than the simplest Government site.
Let’s see the counter-plan, all you other candidates out there. All you do it talk talk talk while saying actually nothing and accomplishing nothing. You’re free to generate a document yourself, SO LET’S SEE IT.
Disappointed in Michael Barone, who once was a voice of reason in a sea of leftwing media.
Right! Barone is the media buttboy shill who “acts” conservative butt bashes conservatives all the time (ala George Will)
So sayeth the man who predicted President Romney.
Barone makes one sweeping assertion after an other while providing little or no support. When studies have shown that only a fraction of US citizens graduating with STEM degrees actually find jobs in those fields, the notion that "high-skill" immigrants are needed today, and that that the H1-B program should provide immigrants more flexibility in changing jobs, is both unsupported and ridiculous on the surface.
And, of course, he makes no mention of the fact that almost one in five heads-of-household in the US makes use of one or more means tested government poverty programs, the idea that we need to cut back legal immigration and move more US citizens into jobs at all levels seems to make the most sense of all.
Well, the RINOs are going to get TRUMPLED under our feet!
America is going to close the border and remove the illegals. After all, we can get 200,000,000 to the polls in one day to vote. Don’t these clowns think that finding 12 million over 3 years is possible? Get on the TrumpTrain or lay on the tracks...we don’t care, but we are coming.
RE: Now, if you leave out the legal part, it is a much higher net that we can’t calculate because there has been almost zero border enforcement at land ports of entry
Somehow, I think that’s the part that guys like Barone ( and also Michael Medved ) ignore when they present numbers like “net migration”.
If half of Trumps enforcement plan ever happens, it will be a far better result than all of Hillar/Jeb’s amnesty plans coming to pass.
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