Republican frontrunner Donald Trump released his immigration policy over the weekend, and it was met with a mix of praise and condemnation by conservatives. Ann Coulter called it “the great political document since the Magna Carta” while The Federalist’s Ben Domenech referred to it as “identity politics for white people.”
Trump breaks down his plan into three parts: Build a wall on the southern border, enforce the law, and change immigration policy to protect the wages of low-skilled American labor.
In other words, have an immigration policy that benefits Americans.
The billionaire supports building a wall and having Mexico pay for it. He accused Mexico of benefiting from the porous border and demands that they help fix it.
“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,” Trump’s immigration policy reads.
He plans on getting Mexico to pay for the wall by reducing current income tax breaks for illegal aliens, enhancing fees for overstaying a visa, taxing remittances back to Mexico, putting more fees on the admission of legal temporary alien workers, and charging admissions fees for all border crossers.
Even some liberals have praised the plan.
“His earlier, frankly ridiculous, boast that he would build a wall on the southern border and get Mexico to pay for it has morphed into a sensible approach that would get it paid for by Mexican and other illegal aliens,” said David North at the Center for Immigration Studies.
On defending the homeland, Trump called for tripling the number of ICE agents, placing E-Verify nationwide, mandating the return of all criminal illegal aliens to their home countries, detaining illegal aliens crossing the border rather than catching and releasing them, defunding sanctuary cities, enhancing penalties for overstaying a visa, and ending birthright citizenship to illegals who have children in America.
Lastly, Trump stated that we need to put the needs of American workers first.
“Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class. Today, nearly 40 percent of black teenagers are unemployed,” his plan continued. “Nearly 30 percent of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70 percent were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40 percent in 2000.”
Trump demands we increase the prevailing wages for H1-B visas, require companies to hire Americans first over foreign labor, end welfare abuse, increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers, and limit legal immigration.
“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.”
