No more nation of immigrants: Trump plan calls for a
major, long-lasting cut in legal entries
Donald Trump lays out his
immigration policy at a rally in Phoenix. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times), by David Lauter and Brian Bennett
Donald Trump’s immigration speech
generated intense speculation about whether he would soften his hard line on
illegal immigration, but instead, the real change came with his
unexpected, full-throated advocacy of a long term cutback
on legal immigrants.
Trump had previously flirted with
the idea of cutting legal immigration, but Wednesday’s speech in Phoenix marked
his first public embrace of the full restrictionist position.
Trump broke sharply from
the Republican Party’s long-standing positions and adopted the most
openly nativist platform of any major party presidential candidate
in decades.
If Trump is elected, the shift
he advocates would greatly reduce immigration overall and move the U.S.
from an immigration philosophy of allowing strivers from around the world to
take advantage of American opportunities to one focused on bringing in
people who already have money and job skills.
This kind of emphasis on dealing
with legal immigration in this way is not something a major nominee has done in
the last 60 years. says Roy Beck, head of Numbers USA
That viewpoint is deeply
divisive within the GOP — another example of the stress that Trump’s
campaign has put on the party. “This kind of emphasis on dealing with legal
immigration in this way is not something a major nominee has done in the last
60 years,” said Roy Beck, the head of Numbers USA, a Virginia-based group that
advocates immigration restrictions and helped lead opposition to a
bipartisan immigration overhaul in 2013. “It was great.”
After four decades of high levels of
immigration, Trump said, the country needs to “control future immigration”
to “ensure assimilation.”
The model, he said, should be what
the U.S. did after “previous immigration waves” — a reference to the
restrictionist legislation passed under President Calvin Coolidge in the
1920s that remained in place until 1965.
The goal should be “to keep
immigration levels, measured by population share, within historic norms,” he
said.
Groups that call for a return
to “historic norms” often point to the 1960s and 1970s, when the
foreign-born share of the U.S. population fell to about one out of every 20
people, rather than one in eight as it is today.
Trump’s call was a major
victory for advocates of immigration restriction, led by Sen. Jeff
Sessions (R-Ala.), an influential advisor who traveled to Mexico and Phoenix
with Trump on Wednesday and whose former staff members have shaped Trump’s positions.
Sessions has long fought to cut
overall immigration levels, arguing that high rates of immigration depress
wages for American workers. But until Trump’s rise, he had largely been shut
out of the party’s policymaking. Republican presidential nominee
Donald Trump has talked about building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border since
his campaign began.
The U.S. admits about 1 million
legal immigrants a year, and the foreign-born share of the population is now
at the highest point since the early 1920s.
Gallup Poll: 79% of Americans Oppose Increasing Immigration
PUBLISHED: Wed, AUG 24th 2016 @ 1:01 pm EDT
According to a recent Gallup
poll the number of Americans who oppose increasing immigration levels rose to
79% while the percentage of people who want to see immigration levels increased
dropped to 21%. The poll is tied with 38% of Americans wanting to decrease
immigration and 38% wanting to keep it at the present
level with the rest undecided.
Comments
Ending
excessive legal immigration is a necessary part of restoring jobs for US
citizens. We have 100 million
working-age US citizens without jobs. We
have seen job creation at the 2 million a year mark for 8 years. If we freeze immigration it will still take
50 years to get jobs for all US citizens. Another necessary part of restoring
jobs is to cut the corporate tax to 15%.
Our
communist congress will go nuts. Maybe Trump can teach our RINOs how to become
real Republicans.
We need
to hang a sign on the Statue of Liberty that says “Closed for Repairs”.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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