Here's what Trump should have done regarding illegal immigration:
Look, nobody is really concerned about the garden-variety illegal immigrant who is working construction, landscaping, whatever and otherwise not being a criminal, we're worried about the violent, drug, gang elements in the illegal population.
The smart thing to appease the base and fulfill his campaign promise would have been to 1) use the full force of the US police machine to round up gang members, drug dealers, and other violent felons known to be in the country and very publicly kick them out. 2) given that there will never be mass roundups, introduce a plan for the rest of them that basically promises non-voting legitimacy if they pay back taxes, register with the INS to become taxpayers, stay out of trouble for the 10 years that they must wait to become a voting citizen, and finally pass the same citizenship test(in English) that all immigrants take.
If Trump had done what I proposed, he would be wildly cheered by his base and the democrats wouldn't have an opposing leg to stand on because they've advocated for the exact same thing.......kick out the violent criminals and create a path to citizenship for the good ones.
But they didn't ask me.
1 comment:
Immigration policy should not be dictated by the people who ignored current law. We get to set and enforce our immigration laws. Do we need 10-20 million unskilled or semi-skilled workers in our job market just as technology and companies moving out of the country take away millions of these kinds of jobs. A growing supply and shrinking demand will depress wages for non-college graduate American citizens. Rather than debating about how cruel it is to deport millions of illegal immigrants (a debate you will never win), debate what immigration policy should be. We should end the preference for family immigration and accept immigrants based on their skills and what they can add to our country. We allow about a million new immigrants a year. We should give preferences to PhD students graduating from college that would prefer to stay in America, especially high value degrees like engineering. Perhaps we still need framers, painters, landscapers and nannys. But we don't need all framers, painters, landscapers and nannys.
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