Posted on 02/21/2016 12:25:27 PM PST by Jim Robinson
IMMIGRATION REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
The three core principles of Donald J. Trump's immigration plan
When politicians talk about "immigration reform" they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties.
Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first -- not wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change. Here are the three core principles of real immigration reform:
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
For many years, Mexico's leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well as in other Latin American countries). They have even published pamphlets on how to illegally immigrate to the United States. The costs for the United States have been extraordinary: U.S. taxpayers have been asked to pick up hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, housing costs, education costs, welfare costs, etc. Indeed, the annual cost of free tax credits alone paid to illegal immigrants quadrupled to $4.2 billion in 2011. The effects on jobseekers have also been disastrous, and black Americans have been particularly harmed.
The impact in terms of crime has been tragic. In recent weeks, the headlines have been covered with cases of criminals who crossed our border illegally only to go on to commit horrific crimes against Americans. Most recently, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, with a long arrest record, is charged with breaking into a 64 year-old woman's home, crushing her skull and eye sockets with a hammer, raping her, and murdering her. The Police Chief in Santa Maria says the "blood trail" leads straight to Washington.
In 2011, the Government Accountability Office found that there were a shocking 3 million arrests attached to the incarcerated alien population, including tens of thousands of violent beatings, rapes and murders.
Meanwhile, Mexico continues to make billions on not only our bad trade deals but also relies heavily on the billions of dollars in remittances sent from illegal immigrants in the United States back to Mexico ($22 billion in 2013 alone).
In short, the Mexican government has taken the United States to the cleaners. They are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up.
The cost of building a permanent border wall pales mightily in comparison to what American taxpayers spend every single year on dealing with the fallout of illegal immigration on their communities, schools and unemployment offices.
Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards -- of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore.
Defend The Laws And Constitution Of The United States
America will only be great as long as America remains a nation of laws that lives according to the Constitution. No one is above the law. The following steps will return to the American people the safety of their laws, which politicians have stolen from them:
Triple the number of ICE officers. As the President of the ICE Officers' Council explained in Congressional testimony: "Only approximately 5,000 officers and agents within ICE perform the lion's share of ICE's immigration mission...Compare that to the Los Angeles Police Department at approximately 10,000 officers. Approximately 5,000 officers in ICE cover 50 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, and are attempting to enforce immigration law against 11 million illegal aliens already in the interior of the United States. Since 9-11, the U.S. Border Patrol has tripled in size, while ICE's immigration enforcement arm, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), has remained at relatively the same size." This will be funded by accepting the recommendation of the Inspector General for Tax Administration and eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.
Nationwide e-verify. This simple measure will protect jobs for unemployed Americans.
Mandatory return of all criminal aliens. The Obama Administration has released 76,000 aliens from its custody with criminal convictions since 2013 alone. All criminal aliens must be returned to their home countries, a process which can be aided by canceling any visas to foreign countries which will not accept their own criminals, and making it a separate and additional crime to commit an offense while here illegally.
Detention--not catch-and-release. Illegal aliens apprehended crossing the border must be detained until they are sent home, no more catch-and-release.
Defund sanctuary cities. Cut-off federal grants to any city which refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
Enhanced penalties for overstaying a visa. Millions of people come to the United States on temporary visas but refuse to leave, without consequence. This is a threat to national security. Individuals who refuse to leave at the time their visa expires should be subject to criminal penalties; this will also help give local jurisdictions the power to hold visa overstays until federal authorities arrive. Completion of a visa tracking system -- required by law but blocked by lobbyists -- will be necessary as well.
Cooperate with local gang task forces. ICE officers should accompany local police departments conducting raids of violent street gangs like MS-13 and the 18th street gang, which have terrorized the country. All illegal aliens in gangs should be apprehended and deported. Again, quoting Chris Crane: "ICE Officers and Agents are forced to apply the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Directive, not to children in schools, but to adult inmates in jails. If an illegal-alien inmate simply claims eligibility, ICE is forced to release the alien back into the community. This includes serious criminals who have committed felonies, who have assaulted officers, and who prey on children...ICE officers should be required to place detainers on every illegal alien they encounter in jails and prisons, since these aliens not only violated immigration laws, but then went on to engage in activities that led to their arrest by police; ICE officers should be required to issue Notices to Appear to all illegal aliens with criminal convictions, DUI convictions, or a gang affiliation; ICE should be working with any state or local drug or gang task force that asks for such assistance."
End birthright citizenship. This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it's the wrong policy, including Harry Reid who said "no sane country" would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.
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."
Here are some additional specific policy proposals for long-term reform:
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. Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.
End welfare abuse. Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.
Jobs program for inner city youth. The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program.
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.
You are very helpful in trying to bring understanding based on facts and with links to the irrational Trump-haters. That is what the MAGA list is for, to give us a place to find resources. Thank you! We all need to pull together against the Democrats, no matter who gets the nomination.
Why does ANYONE even doubt this? Throughout history, this is why wars were fought. It just doesn’t get any simpler than this!
In the world of faculty lounges and liberal coffee shops thinking this deeply is frowned upon as actually an impossibility and could get one expelled from the social circle of Progressives.
He doesn't mean send them a bill and tell them to pay it, or else bill collectors will call them on the phone!
He means use sanctions, decrease aid, increase entry fees, impound the money illegals are sending back there, stop accepting their prisoners to feed and house here -- all the things he listed in the paper, had you read it before posting. The cost savings from not taking care of Mexico's social problems any more add up to more than enough to pay for the wall -- and Mexico won't get that money they had been getting. That is how they will pay for it.
You left out an important word in that headline, "good." The entire original headline read, Trump: I'll Try To Bring Back 'Good' Illegal Immigrants 'Rapidly'.
Since Mexico is sending us their criminals, that leaves him a lot of margin, since he has said no convicts will be allowed back. The article also says he wants to return to our former policy of wanting worthwhile people to come, such as university-trained doctors.
Make America Great again, like we used to be when we were kids.
I want a secure nation for my grand children, I have 4 so far.
He also adores the memory of both of his parents, and was obviously well loved by them, in spite of being one of the younger children of five. In spite of his precociousness making him hard to handle, his parents apparently did a great job. The parents lived out their final days in their 90s in an apartment on the floor just below his penthouse in the Trump Tower.
I had to prove I could afford my Filipina wife before they would grant her a K1 VISA (fiancee’).... in 2009
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
(Wikipedia): The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (... enacted June 30, 1968), also known as the Hart–Celler Act, abolished the National Origins Formula that had been in place in the United States since the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. Representative Emanuel Celler of New York proposed it, Senator Philip Hart of Michigan co-sponsored it, and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts promoted it.
...The new law replaced the quota system with a preference system that focused on immigrants' skills and family relationships with citizens or U.S. residents. The bill set numerical restrictions on visas at 170,000 per year, with a per-country-of-origin quota, not including immediate relatives of U.S. citizens or "special immigrants" (including those born in "independent" nations in the Western Hemisphere, former citizens, ministers, and employees of the U.S. government abroad).
The 1965 act marked a radical break from the immigration policies of the past. The law as it stood then excluded Asians and Africans and preferred northern and western Europeans over southern and eastern ones. At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s the law was seen as an embarrassment by, among others, President John F. Kennedy, who called the then-quota-system "nearly intolerable". After Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.
In order to convince the American people of the legislation's merits, its proponents assured voters that passage would not influence significantly America's culture. President Johnson called the bill "not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions", and Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other politicians, including Senator Ted Kennedy, asserted that the bill would not affect America's demographic mix; these assertions would later prove grossly inaccurate.
So, what percentage of improvement would you consider acceptable? What percentage who are here meet his criteria: hard workers, good jobs, families, not criiminals?
What about if he is only able to stop the citizenship of anchor babies, get rid of the overt criminals, unaccompanied minors and Syrian refugees and stop the welfare payments and much of the education and healthcare costs for illegals -- would that be enough for you, or would that mean you couldn't vote for the guy because that wouldn't be enough?
Or...what if he just talks the talk when it is convenient and doesn’t really mean much of it? He has a record of having taken both sides to nearly every important issue over the years.
Oh please. You're just itching for a doctor from Grenada dispensing "Trump care"? Now that Xero has released so many convicts, I guess they get to skate. "Good" being defined as the ones that pass the bogus expedited screens ICE will apply, as if anybody has computer systems that can access all Federal, State, and local criminal and welfare databases. LOL. That will happen in nothing less than geologic time. Hence, the criterion is a fantasy and you know it.
That's all you Trump fans really have, and he knows it.
Trump is a flaming and willful liar. In falling for this fascist dissembler, you're digging a grave for conservatism, just as California did when Republicans fell for Arnold, the result being the total and willful destruction of the CAGOP. I suggest you repent.
aha my neighbor. In the early 60s I was a child. The Marshall Estate (now Greenwood village) was for sale. The manse and gorgeous acreage. I begged my parents to buy it. If they had know-how they could have.. as a child I didn’t have know how — I do now.. It was pie in sky. They bought in Sagamore and I am now living in the home they build which is contiguous to the national park. we do need to meet for “whatever”
Who do you think ultimately picks up the tab for all the illegal aliens and families leeching on our public services? And for those illegally working, who picks up the tab for all the unemployed Americans whose jobs are lost? And the costs of the criminal illegals? And how do you compensate those who have been raped, maimed, killed or had their lives forever changed by illegals?
We the people are always left with the tab. No matter what. And we want this illegal alien invasion stopped! Now! Whatever the cost! Comprende?
It can't be said much better than that and there's not another candidate who's had the balls to say s/he'll lift a finger to turn it around.
The man has put up enomous towers all across the U.S. and in several other countries. Do you think he played fast and loose with the laws of physics and just dashed something off? Told the cities, the reglators, the utilities, the legislators, the mechanics and architects and engineers to just do whatever? None of his buildings have fallen down.
He has been providing housing, office space, retail space and resorts to literally millions of people. You need to go to his business web site and have a good look around. Don't skip the links in the gray sidebar on the left where the details are found.
Don’t post to me any more.
workers in trades like construction, farm and ranch work, hospitality, etc are not hired due to the green card holders who will work for less, and/or cash-it has been going on since late 2009-thanks to Obama’s welcome mat at the border...
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Dear Texan,
I am a real estate developer who hires builders to build my homes. My builders are on notice, not to use any illegal labor on my projects. Although our company puts Americans first, we lose out on profits and are willing to and have the ability to make that stand.
My competitors, however, don’t care or they struggle with debt so they willingly take the cheap labor to drive down costs. There are other builders who want to “do the right thing” but simply would be out of business competing with the contractors who don’t care and they all have families to feed.
That is why we need leaders who are willing to enforce the laws such as E-verify and others, so that it is UNIFORMLY implemented. The “cheap labor” driving down wages and hurting the working class must be stopped but it cannot be achieved through voluntary compliance; the incentive to cheat is too high for the bad guys and inability to compete with the cheaters is too devastating for those contractors would want to comply.
Don’t tax all, but one could tax, say, five percent and I doubt it would alter the flow all that much. Some will shift to money orders, but if the tax rate isn’t that high most will continue to use wire transfers
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How honest are the mail carriers in Mexico that the Mexicans would send money orders? That is the question!
what you advocate is reducing america to second or third world levels.
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2nd largest market in the world? I don’t think so.
(Excuse me while I go copy and paste some more Cruz/Washington Insider talking points.)
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