Merit-based migrants: Is Donald Trump softening on illegal immigration?

Merit-based migrants: Is Donald Trump softening on illegal immigration? (+video)


Donald Trump's latest stance on immigration reform suggests that he wants a merit-based system to allow more "outstanding" individuals to remain in the country.


By Sanya Mansoor, Staff JULY 25, 2015

• Trump accuses media of misinterpreting immigration comments
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“If somebody’s been outstanding, we try and work something out.”
This doesn’t sound like something Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would say about illegal immigrants. But that’s exactly what he said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Friday.

Trump proposed a “merit system” to deal with illegal immigrants in the US now, saying “some of these people have been here, they’ve done a good job. You know, in some cases, sadly they’ve been living under the shadows.”

However, he hasn’t completely deviated from his earlier statements: “But before we do anything, we have to secure the border,” he said.
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His plan is to “take the bad ones – of which there are, unfortunately, quite a few” and “give ‘em back” to where they come from. “We get ‘em out and get ‘em out fast. And we get ‘em out permanently,” Trump said, according to the National Journal.

Bloomberg News noted “Trump did not say whether he would support a path to citizenship, which many Republicans oppose as amnesty.”
Earlier in his campaign, Trump claimed illegal Mexican immigrants brought drugs, crime and rapists to the US.
Although Trump has spoken extensively about immigration, he has “shed little light on his actual plans for dealing with illegal immigration beyond generalizations that have often seemed far-fetched,” CNN said.
He recently recommended the US build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.

According to The Hill, the GOP has denounced Trump for incendiary comments, leading Trump to consider running as an independent or third-party candidate. But Trump generally toes the Republican line in terms of advocating for stricter border security and rejecting amnesty.
He recently stressed he is a “conservative” and wants to run as a Republican, the National Journal reports.

Trump's latest comments echo statements made by the Republican National Committee, which also endorsed the idea of a “merit system […] that focuses on the needs of United States employers and matches the economic and cultural attributes that each immigrant possesses to those needs” in a 2012 resolution.

Last year, GOP leaders released a set of immigration principles that stated illegal immigrants “could live legally and without fear in the U.S., but only if they were willing to admit their culpability, pass rigorous background checks, pay significant fines and back taxes, develop proficiency in English and American civics, and be able to support themselves and their families (without access to public benefits). Criminal aliens, gang members, and sex offenders and those who do not meet the above requirements will not be eligible for this program.”
The Senate passed a bill in 2013, which offered hope to millions of illegal immigrants.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R) of Arizona told The Associated Press, among other requirements, “those seeking legal status after living in the United States illegally must "pass a background check, make good on any tax liability and pay a fee and a fine."

Presidential candidate Sen Marco Rubio, (R) of Florida, also floated the idea of a merit-based immigration system, according to an interview he did last year with CNS.

But Senator Rubio also acknowledged the challenges associated with enforcing such an initiative:

“You have 12 million human beings living in the United States that are here illegally […] on the one hand, there is no serious effort out there that you’re going to round up 12 million people. But how do you figure out who those 12 million people are, which ones get to stay, and which ones get to leave, and those that are going to get to stay, what sort of consequences will there be for violating the law?”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0725/Merit-based-migrants-Is-Donald-Trump-softening-on-illegal-immigration-video

For myself, Trump 's position is slightly blurred compared to the recent past. I heard Trump admit to CNN Sunday morning that he and the RNC are talking. He even said those are nice guys up there. CNN tossed an opinion that Trump suddenly recognized how costly going alone might be. But they offered no background on that nor challenged Trump to answer it. It does slightly, for me only very slightly now, slightly make another republican appear to be about money rather than principle. I'm not panicky, we have to get rid of very many D's and R;s in Congress before great progress on this issue will be made.

Clearing Congress of alien supporters chance does not look good. CNN's poll showed only 10% of D's voters put immigration in third position of importance. R's put it third by poll of 11%. If anywhere near correct, we still have either an uneducated or ignorant voting public to contend with. Of course, I am not ignorant of CNN's favoritism to alien illegals, either.

If that poll is anywhere near correct, to protect Americans we have very small chance of accomplishing it at the voting booth. All of our options need addressing.

What Trump and all candidates need to realize is that US immigration law is about numbers, it's about controlling the US population so that there is ample good jobs and opportunities for American citizens. It's not about good people or bad people, it's not about thugs or valedictorians. It's about every US citizen versus non-US citizens, regardless of who they are, what they have done or where they're from.

All populations have good people and bad people. The degree of goodness or badness is not a consideration. We have good people and bad people. Our job as a country is to protect all of our citizens, no matter who they are, what they have done or where they're from. Our obligation to each other is to protect the high school drop-out to the same degree as we protect a Ph.D., the same as we protect a "thug" to the same degree as we protect an "Eagle Scout", the same as we protect someone on welfare as we protect someone who works 3 jobs and has never drawn a dime of public aid.

We do this through blind justice. That's why Lady Justice wears a blindfold. In our land of the free and home of the brave, we have a duty to protect the rights, freedoms, interests, educations, jobs, earnings and opportunities of every US citizen above all others.

We achieve this by enforcing the laws that are passed to do that, starting first and foremost with enforcing US immigration law to the letter and verse which begins with the simple resolution that if you are in our country illegally, then regardless of who you are, what you've done or where you're from, you are to leave or be deported. This is not a hard choice, this is the only choice. Otherwise, no one leaves, no one is deported, and US citizens lose their rights, freedoms, interests, educations, jobs, earnings and opportunities because the federal government handed them off to illegal aliens by refusing to enforce the immigration laws designed to prevent such a travesty.