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 to 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.
