President Trump ran on a platform of clamping down on illegal immigration and deporting people who were in the US illegally. He has pursued that agenda vigorously. Viewing his administration’s actions more broadly, however, shows that his beef isn’t only with illegal immigration–he has also taken vigorous action to cut legal immigration and stripped legal status from an estimated 1.6 million immigrants already in the country legally. Here are some of the actions he has taken against legal immigration:
- Blocking American citizens from sponsoring relatives’ immigration, contrary to law;
- Banning immigration from 39 countries;
- Ending Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Haitians, and others;
- Freezing immigrant visas from 75 countries;
- Stripping human parole status for 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua;
- Pausing the green card lottery system;
- Imposing a $100,000 fee for certain specialty workers;
- Slashing refugee quotas from 125,000 to 7,500.
While he suspended the admission of refugees who had already been vetted and slashed overall refugee quotas, he created an expedited pathway for White South Africans. He cited supposed genocide against White South Africans, but there is no credible evidence for this claim. In sum, the President who promised to slash illegal immigration has taken a bazooka to legal immigration–with one very conspicuous exception.
Questions:
- Do you support the administration’s actions to reduce legal immigration?
- Do you support the administration’s actions to strip legal status from immigrants who are (or were) here legally?
- Are these actions xenophobic, racist, both, or neither?
- In case those questions weren’t leading: People are now talking about a looming demographic crisis in the US: A declining and aging population. This demographic issue lies at the heart of the Social Security Trust Fund problem. One proposed solution is the “natalist” movement–encouraging people to have more babies. Problem with that is, it hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been tried. It seems to me that increasing legal immigration is the obvious solution. But we’re going in the opposite direction under Trump. What’s up with that?