Thread: Donald Trump’s Amnesty

Donald Trump’s Amnesty (John Moore/Getty)
by the Editors August 10, 2015 6:41 PM

That Donald Trump has said something incoherent is not remarkable. But even for a campaign that has largely substituted adjectives for ideas, Trump’s recent incoherent comments on immigration were remarkable, coming as they do from a candidate who has made immigration the keystone of his platform. His intellectual failure is instructive, and the other candidates should learn from it.

Trump’s original proposal was to build a wall and force the government of Mexico to pay for it. The latter half of that proposition is too silly to merit much criticism and may be dismissed as bluster. The first half is a little more complicated: The actual geography of the U.S.–Mexico border ensures that there will not be a wall, though a series of barriers is desirable. But that is only a small part of the solution: Walls can be ascended or tunneled under, and must be patrolled; recent research suggests that more than half of new illegals do not sneak cross any border but simply enter legally and overstay their visas; no effective national system is in place to enforce our immigration laws at the critical place: the work site. “Build a wall” is at most a part of the broader solution.

Asked about his immigration ideas on CNN, Trump was a mess, beginning with the old “jobs Americans won’t do” canard favored by open-borders proponents (a canard because it always leaves out the relevant qualifier: “at current wages”), then suggesting that we should deport the millions of illegals who are already here only to turn around and bring them back (“I want to move them out, and we’re going to move them back in, and let them be legal”). This process would include those brought here as young children, who will be deported and recycled based on the criterion of whether they are — Trump’s word — “terrific.” What might constitute a federal terrificness standard remains unclear. “We’re going to do something,” Trump said. “I’ve been giving it so much thought. You know you have a, on a humanitarian basis, you have a lot of deep thought going into this, believe me. I actually have a big heart.”

This issue, like so many others, requires less heart-power and more brain-power. Deporting some 11 million illegals who have for many years evaded deportation only to reimport them under an expedited legal immigration system, the contours of which currently are undefined, and then granting them some sort of permanent legal status is simply another variation on amnesty, and a complicated, expensive, and thick-headed version of amnesty at that. Like the proposed reform program of 2007, which would have purportedly required illegals to be present in their country of origin when applying for legal status, this isn’t just amnesty — it’s also amnesty-laundering.

“Do something,” Trump says, and the perceived immediate need to do something — something — about immigration is what drives politicians toward amnesty and “comprehensive” reform schemes. And there is a need to do something immediately, but it is not what Trump or most other political candidates seem to think.

There is, in fact, no pressing immediate need to either deport the 11 million illegals, including those brought here as young children, or to normalize their status. Many of them have been here for decades, and while this situation is deeply undesirable, it is no more undesirable today than it was five years ago. Deciding what to do about the illegal population already resident in the United States is important, but it is of secondary importance.

The first item on any intelligent immigration-reform agenda is: Secure the borders of the United States and start enforcing our immigration laws. The first item on any intelligent immigration-reform agenda is: Secure the borders of the United States and start enforcing our immigration laws. Not only is that the first item on the agenda, until it is done it should be the only item on the agenda, since in the absence of secure borders and robust immigration controls any conceivable proposal to resolve the status of the illegals already here would simply provide another incentive for additional illegal immigration. That is not workable as a practical matter or as a political matter.

Republicans have made the politics of this more difficult than they need to be. A plurality of Americans supports reducing our current levels of immigration, legal and illegal; only a tiny minority wants higher levels of immigration; enforcement is very popular, including among the Hispanic voters that Republicans believe themselves to be courting with indulgent attitudes toward illegals. National security, economics, prudence, and the poll numbers are all united on the right side of the issue, but Republicans aren’t.

Here is the coherent immigration platform that Republicans, including many conservatives, cannot quite seem to articulate: 1. Build and supplement border barriers where appropriate, and see to it that they are patrolled; 2. Develop an effective system for tracking those who overstay their visas, deport over-stayers, and impose heavy sanctions on them, up to and including a lifetime ban on future travel to the United States; 3. Mandate the national use of E-Verify or another system for checking employment eligibility, and then take the necessary additional step of making sure that records are current and complete so as to avoid the use of hijacked Social Security numbers; 4. Reform employment laws to impose much heavier penalties on those who employ illegals, and to make those cases easier to prosecute; 5. Decline to renew the legal status granted under President Obama’s executive amnesty; and then, when that’s done, on the matter of the illegals who are already here, do . . . more or less what we’ve been doing, at least for a while, deporting those illegals who come into custody as we do under current protocols.

If we can control our borders and inland ports of entry and substantially reduce the economic incentives for illegal immigration — marching a few meatpacking executives off to prison, if it comes to that — then it is very likely that we will find our illegal-immigrant problem somewhat mitigated. Mitt Romney was mocked for suggesting that “self-deportation” could play an important role in dealing with illegal immigrants, but experience suggests that it is effective: When recessions have reduced the economic incentives to immigration, we’ve seen fewer illegals cross the border and resident illegals cross it going the other way.

Once real enforcement is in place, we will have a much better idea of what our illegal-immigrant situation looks like in the context of secure borders and meaningful universal workplace screening. It is almost certain that the problem will look very different in that context than under current conditions, probably in some ways that will be unexpected. For that reason and for the others described above, no new national policy resolving the status of resident illegals should even be contemplated until real border security has been achieved.

Republicans should press for enforcement as a standalone proposal, not as part of a wider immigration compromise. Once that enforcement is in place, then we can open the discussion about broader subsequent reforms. That discussion should be oriented toward serving — radical as this may sound — the interest of the United States and the American people, economic and otherwise. Those interests are not well-served by steady flows of poor and unskilled workers or by the maintenance of an unassimilated underclass. We don’t expect Donald Trump to grasp these subtleties. But there are 16 other candidates in the race, and one of them ought to try getting this right.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...sty-build-wall

A New Yorker to end all New Yorkers! Who knows what will happen? However, the fact that he is going so far out on a limb gives me encouragement.

Originally Posted by MW

Here is the coherent immigration platform that Republicans, including many conservatives, cannot quite seem to articulate: 1. Build and supplement border barriers where appropriate, and see to it that they are patrolled; 2. Develop an effective system for tracking those who overstay their visas, deport over-stayers, and impose heavy sanctions on them, up to and including a lifetime ban on future travel to the United States; 3. Mandate the national use of E-Verify or another system for checking employment eligibility, and then take the necessary additional step of making sure that records are current and complete so as to avoid the use of hijacked Social Security numbers; 4. Reform employment laws to impose much heavier penalties on those who employ illegals, and to make those cases easier to prosecute; 5. Decline to renew the legal status granted under President Obama’s executive amnesty; and then, when that’s done, on the matter of the illegals who are already here, do . . . more or less what we’ve been doing, at least for a while, deporting those illegals who come into custody as we do under current protocols.

This is what the military calls defense in depth. In my opinion it is the most effective and efficient way to deal with the problem.

The date of that article is August 10th, before Trump posted his in-depth immigration plan or at least before the author of the article bothered to read it. Here it is again:

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positio...gration-reform

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 women’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.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...america-needs/

Jeff Sessions: Donald Trump’s Immigration Policy Is ‘Exactly the Plan America Needs’

by Matthew Boyle16 Aug 2015 Washington, DC

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) the intellectual leader of the conservative movement and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, issued a statement on Sunday afternoon praising 2016 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s immigration policy plan for America.

“This is exactly the plan America needs,” Sessions said in response to Trump’s plan. “Not only would the plan outlined in this paper work, but more quickly than many realize.

“Most importantly, this plan reestablishes the principle that American’s immigration laws should serve the interests of its own citizens.

“For too long, ‘immigration reform’ plans in Washington have served the special interests at the expense of working Americans. By contrast, this plan puts the needs of working Americans foremost, and develops an effective strategy for improving their wages and job prospects.

“Crucially, this plan includes an emphasis on lifting struggling minority communities, including our immigrant communities, out of poverty — by preventing corporations from bringing in new workers from overseas to replace them and drive down wages.

“When the labor market is oversupplied, it tilts the balance of power away form workers and towards employers. In combination with a smart, fair trade policy this proposal would reinvigorate the middle class.

“Polling shows this plan will appeal broadly to all segments of the electorate: prioritizing the just demands of loyal, everyday Americans who have been shunned by a governing elite.”

Trump’s plan is designed to put American workers first, and calls for halting of green cards until Americans are employed again—and pushes for a significant slowdown in the issuance of donor-class-craved H-1B visas, which have been used by many companies like Disney and Southern California Edison among others to replace Americans with cheaper, foreign workers.

Trump consulted Sessions in putting together the plan, and now that he has the support of such an influential lawmaker who’s the key leader in Congress on this issue, it’s unlikely that anyone will ever be able to legitimately criticize him for lack of substance again.

Trump is currently the runaway Republican frontrunner, and as the months between now and voting slip away, predictions that he’d fall apart keep falling short.

What concerns me is that Trump does not mention the part of his plan about bringing illegals back into the US.. .which is prohibited by current US laws. Also, when discussing the matter and trying to placate the illegal alien supporters he never says how many he plans to "let back in".

And this is very unfortunate language considering the part of his plan America is hearing is the part they like. Especially the part about building a wall and kicking them all out!

W

I think you answered your own question, right? His plan is very clear, everyone goes home, no one comes back in illegally, no one comes in legally unless they're needed and don't steal jobs from Americans, and existing legal immigration levels are going to be stopped and then significantly reduced to moderate historical levels only if they can prove they will not be using welfare of any type to live here, he's going to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens, sanctuary cities, and catch and release and reverse Obama's Executive Amnesty Order.

Trump's immigration plan is the most comprehensive, thorough and complete immigration control plan we've ever had, which is probably why Jeff Sessions supports it.

Donald Trump’s Amnesty (John Moore/Getty)
by the Editors August 10, 2015 6:41 PM

That Donald Trump has said something incoherent is not remarkable. But even for a campaign that has largely substituted adjectives for ideas, Trump’s recent incoherent comments on immigration were remarkable, coming as they do from a candidate who has made immigration the keystone of his platform. His intellectual failure is instructive, and the other candidates should learn from it.

This is an anti-Trump editorial piece by National Review editors, that obviously supports other establishment candidates or other outsider candidates they know won't do anything about stopping illegal immigration or reducing legal immigration levels.

Originally Posted by Judy

This is an anti-Trump editorial piece by National Review editors, that obviously supports other establishment candidates or other outsider candidates they know won't do anything about stopping illegal immigration or reducing legal immigration levels.

The article clearly doesn't support any one candidate over another. I know you only want to hear and see the good in Trump posted here on ALIPAC as evidenced by your numerous "good Trump" post. Personally, I believe every aspect of any serious candidate needs to be well vetted ......... the good with the bad. For example, if Cruz was polling as the #1 candidate right now, I would expect the same thing, which is the good and bad. If Trump was the Republican nominee, I would support him, however, that doesn't necessarily mean I think he is perfect.

Originally Posted by Captainron

A New Yorker to end all New Yorkers! Who knows what will happen? However, the fact that he is going so far out on a limb gives me encouragement.

I agree and am also encouraged. However, we must remain vigilant in our observation.