But I have to say that Trump can send VERY confusing messages when he speaks on immigrants and immigration, legal and illegal alike.
I have listened to virtually every one of his speeches, either live or on YouTube. If I have one gripe with him it's how he presents his policy on immigrants.
He uses his machine-gun delivery to say he's going to deport all illegals...that the beautiful door is always open....that the educated, talented ones who attend prestige colleges are the ones we want to keep (my query: the educated legals AND the educated illegals, all of them or just some of them?...what about OUR graduates looking for jobs?)
He never mentions the QUOTA SYSTEM pertaining to immigrants from each and every origin country, a system we've operated under since the last century (my question: is there NO limit or NO quota per country in the Trump plan?)
Of course, I have more questions, too many to list here. But the devil is always in the details, and Trump only speaks in glittering generalities on immigration and illegals. I'd like at least SOME details to hold him to after he's elected.
I keep waiting for him to amplify even slightly, but he never does, we just get the same old speech lines repeated over and over.
The way he couches his words leave the low-info voters who don't know his style getting turned-off in many cases. This issue and the related jobs issue are the two most important topics in this primary campaign...and we know people are fed up and DON'T want open-end immigration any more...NOT EVEN SMALLER numbers unless and until our economy turns around and our children can find jobs after leaving school.
I have to say with all honesty that the uneasy folks on this thread who are questioning Trump's "beautiful door" vision are more afraid he's referring to an OPEN door...they are right in posting their concerns.....and as clued-in as I am to Mr. Trump's unique modus operandi, he's leaving me cold right now on the immigration issue because he's not even offering the most general specifics on how he's ACTUALLY going to address it. He just keeps harping on the same trite comments over and over again on how much he loves all those good-people foreigners and how so many thousands and thousands of wonderful foreigners he's employed over the years.
I hope my fellow Trumpeters get my drift on this subject. I can testify to the fact that when many of your grandparents (and mine) came from the old country to these shores....and before they sailed, they had to fill out a manifest stating they had a job awaiting them in the U.S....that they had X number of dollars in cash (around $70) in their possession.....that they had a sponsor in the new world (had to be named along with address and the relationship to the voyager)....that they had no criminal past nor any communicable disease, and if they had an injury or handicap or even a cold they had to write it down....along with a host of other probing questions. I've seen my kin's manifest....the documents can be obtained through the Ellis Island web site if your folks came through Ellis. Fascinating stuff.
Are those probative days gone forever...or will those who seek the "beautiful door" find it and then feel they can walk right in without the checks and balances of yesteryear?
Unfortunately, in some of his speeches referring to the subject of immigration. Trump makes it sound so easy and so "beautiful" to get into these fruited plains...and if you went to Hahvahd or Wharton you're already a step ahead.
Say that all this rainbow stuff isn't so, Mr. Trump.....and sooner rather than later. You can be both compassionate and tough on immigration and immigrants...and you're the only one that I can see who can successfully accomplish a workable and satisfactory program.
Times are tough for Americans.....and this is why immigration and jobs are at the top of the most-important-issues lists.
Leni
Trump released the details of his plan to finally clean up the VA yesterday, and now it will be dissected for sure! AND it is the ONLY plan any of us have heard about EVER! Just take John McCain, the one who professes to have done SO MUCH for Veterans. Truth is, the conditions of the VA in his home state of Arizona is one of the very worst in the nation! McCain and Graham are BIG talkers about helping our Veterans and full of NO ACTION!
Trump is still the candidate leading in all of the national polls. But he seems to be the ONLY candidate who is demanded for details on ALL his issue plans. Yet once Trump releases the details about one of his particular issue plans, I see no other candidate asked for the details on theirs!
I’m not questioning Trump’s strong immigration stance, in the least, Leni.
You so beautifully explained the LEGAL immigrants who’ve come to this country (most of us likely have ancestors who did), and I don’t doubt for a second that Trump feels exactly the way WE ALL DO about LEGAL immigration vs ILLEGAL immigration.
In fact, I actually get a kick when Trump says....”and, they’ll come back LEGALLY”. He knows we have laws and he’s repeated said, we’re not a country, without (immigration) laws.
He also referred to Dwight Eisenhower’s deportation process, several times this past week (that I know of) and even explained further why that process wasn’t successful in the beginning...because the illegals weren’t returned far enough into Mexico.
Trump has studied our out-of-control immigration problem, has leaned on valuable experts like Sen Jeff Sessions to consult for his wonderful Immigration plan and will do what it takes to make sure laws...and new laws and prohibitive means will be instituted, to protect our country and the American worker.
He’s explained how Mexico will build the wall.
When he speaks of the talented ones, I get him to be saying that we’ve invested OUR money in their education, so why not reap the benefits of their talents....IF we CAN’T fill these high-level, high-tech or research jobs with qualified Americans. I’ve read posts from FReepers who’ve said that some states (MN maybe?) have a hard time filling some of these high-intelligence positions, for research, tech, etc. Even with $200K base salaries. I think those are the type of (legal) immigrants Trump has lauded.
It’s the entry-level STEM jobs, that the Silicon Valley companies are hiring like crazy, that Trump wants to get under control, via wages, etc....and, always, by putting the AMERICAN worker, first.
Trump can only say so much (remember, he likes to say he’s “unpredictable”...so the press can’t jump on and absolutely hammer his stances...like they have done to EVERY Pubbie candidate that I can recall). He’s playing to win and playing smart, imho.
Trump Immigration Plan highlights...
1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.
2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.
3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.
Make Mexico Pay For The Wall
Defend the Laws of the Constitution and the United States
Triple Number of ICE Officers
Nationwide E-Verify
Mandatory return of all criminal aliens
Detention - not catch-and-release
Defund Sanctuary cities
Enhanced penalties for overstaying a visa
Cooperate with local gang task forces
End birthright citizenship
Put American workers FIRST
Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class. Today, nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed. Nearly 30% of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000. Across the economy, the percentage of adults in the labor force has collapsed to a level not experienced in generations. As CBS news wrote in a piece entitled “America’s incredible shrinking middle class”: “If the middle-class is the economic backbone of America, then the country is developing osteoporosis.”
The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans - including immigrants themselves and their children – to earn a middle class wage. Nearly half of all immigrants and their US-born children currently live in or near poverty, including
more than 60 percent of Hispanic immigrants. Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million
immigrants. We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream.
Additionally, we need to stop giving legal immigrant visas to people bent on causing us harm. From the 9/11 hijackers, to the Boston Bombers, and many others, our immigration system is being used to attack us. The President of the immigration caseworkers union declared in a statement on ISIS: “We’ve become the visa clearinghouse for the world.”
Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs.
We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program’s lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry- level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.
Requirement to hire American workers first.
End welfare abuse.
Jobs program for inner city youth.
Refugee program for American children. Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses. Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.
Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women’s plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.
More detailed information can be found at Trump’s site...
https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Immigration-Reform-Trump.pdf
“Times are tough for Americans.....and this is why immigration and jobs are at the top of the most-important-issues lists.”
As long as Ann Coulter doesn’t turn on Trump, we’re fine. She hasn’t. Ann is the canary in the coal mine. With the fence up, that’s the bottom line. Trump’s beautiful door is for legal entries, not illegal ones. I trust Trump. He’s no dummy and he’s going to do more than all of the other Pub candidates combined to stem illegal immigration. Name one who would do more than Trump. There aren’t any.
I think it's too soon for that...The minute he comes out with specifics, the smooth talkers are going to be all over his plan...Besides, the details likely are no where near being worked out...
We know he wants to move out the illegals and give as many of those jobs to Americans as possible...
The H1-b visa foreign workers, who dominate competition for American workers, are overwhelmingly in IT field, as programmers.
If I understand correctly, Trump is talking about Foreign students who graduate with post-graduate degrees (Masters & PhD) in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math).
The smartest American students prefer to go in Medicine & Law & Business fields. That is where the big bucks are in America. That creates a shortage of talented graduates with advanced degrees in STEM. Those foreign students have skills to start their own businesses. When we kick them out after graduation, they compete with our corporations from abroad.
I saw a report saying we allowed 1.8 Million legal immigrants in 2013. 97% of them were sponsored by a close relative. Majority are either under-educated, unskilled, or seniors over age 65. Those people become a burden on our safety net. A close relative of my own, immigrated at age 70, collected Supplemental social security for 22 years before passing. Never paid a dime in social security taxes.
The advanced degree STEM graduates are an asset to our economy. Trump is exactly right in giving them preference over relatives based immigrants.
That's an artificial construct that the uni-party-political-media-class puts out to explain why they issue Visa's to some, but not others, and a rather lame attempt to explain why it changes under every administration.
Frankly, as a Republican and a USA Citizen, my interest in potential legal immigrants is limited to their health, and their willingness/ability to attempt to adapt to our society and support themselves.
Most will succeed, some few will fail, and they will need to be sent back to wherever they came from.
As for illegal aliens, I am not now, nor will I ever be cowed enough by leftist PC speech to call them “immigrants”.
There is now, and has always been, a HUGE difference between an immigrant and an illegal alien!
Or do you really not know how many illegal aliens from all of the many nations of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Canada and China are counting on another magic wand blanket amnesty deal?
That's on top of all the “illegals” from Mexico, Central and South America!
I'm not confused by Trump.