The U.S. continues to have a low birth rate, 2 per average woman, not enough to stabilize the population, let alone “grow the economy”. Cutting off the inflow of immigrants (read: ambitious New Americans, with proven abilty to travel and work) because of some fiction about the “burden” that they are... this is a slow-motion “shooting your own economy in the foot”. Immigrants have always been your economic running-shoes, if fact. Those “public charge” numbers? —Don’t y’all take Social Security and Medicare, when you can?
8
As a lifelong Dem I applaud the enforcement of immigration policies, something completely ignored for decades.
If we need more labor business will petition for more labor visas.
Many other countries limit immigration, taking only so many unskilled, and prioritizing the skills they need. Canada does this.
While I don't at all care for the way Trump wields his hammer, change was LONG overdue.
We can't pay for our own programs and we're doling out dollars to illegals? Time to reallocate some of those funds.
I can't just go to another country, get a regular driver license, benefits, etc etc etc... As if I'm entitled.
Just saying!
Dems brought this upon themselves by rubber stamping the status quo. Most of the importation of illegal labor benefits big business, so don't call Dems anti capitalist. They are as complicit in this kind of human trafficking as the GrOPers.
29
Stop the open border Democrats!
Vote Republican down the whole ballot.
Trump 2020!
16
The intent of the law is racist, so I don't support it. I could get behind cracking down on illegal immigration, but making it harder for immigrants to become legal, rubs me the wrong way. Once we stop tolerating tax subsides in the billions for corporations so they can buy back their stock, then I may hop on this "poor immigrants are a drag on our country" nonsense. Until then, I have no problem with these people becoming citizens. America, in all likelihood, probably created the problems they are trying to escape. Plus, their offspring might produce some future leader and innovators that will greatly improve the lives of the people in our country.
7
This is great news!
Thank you, President Trump for implementing this policy!
21
While the administration pursues benighted and bigoted immigration policies, they are now seeking funds from congress for a real threat from the corona virus. Hopefully, Ms. Pelosi et al. will let Trump know that he can just as easily divert funds for pandemic prevention as he can to fuel hate by diverting funds for an unneeded wall.
6
I met my husband in high school. We were blessed with our 4th child almost 5 years ago. I considered abortion because of the public charge rule but we were in the 2nd trimester so getting 3 doctors and $20,000 to get an abortion meant being separated or uprooting. So we are separating and my husband will miss the first days of school and graduation and so many other things because I cannot live in his country safely. I have nothing left in this world and no matter how much in student debt i get and how many hours I work it is not enough to keep my husband here helping me. My trump supporting family is so joyful I will be a single mom. I never thought I would hate my own country and feel so abandoned and shackled to being a single mom. Driving the border and sitting 4 hour in line to go to work sounds so upsetting. I don't know what to do.
3
I am perpetually disappointed but no longer surprised by the responses to 45’s racist and xenophobic scapegoating of immigrants and refugees for his re-election through his immigration policies. 45 is going to enact his racist immigration policies that appeal to his racist and fear-gripped base as a way to explain away all that ails them. No matter that it’s the big corporations that pay little to no taxes and ship their jobs overseas are the reason for their stagnated or lower standard of living...no no blame the immigrants. When this country gets exactly what it wants (a white-ethno state?) and is at net zero migration from all other countries (as it has been the case from Mexico for almost 10YEARS) then the tears of economic, cultural, innovation and moral stagnation will flow. It took me 30 years to become a naturalized citizen of the U.S, no part of it was easy and I have contributed so much to this country and taken virtually nothing. Stop scapegoating immigrants! These immigration laws from 45 are racist and white supremacist. Sugarcoat it all you want with high minded theories of merit-based rules or population control and purity (all classist, racist and economically dubious not to mention amoral notions). Is this still the United States of America? These laws are nakedly immoral and so are those who support them.
8
While I support legal immigration I don’t support naive assumptions and the hodgepodge of immigrations laws that appear to be routinely manipulated. I know of many fake marriages used to obtain legal status and I know of none that are real. And exactly what basis is is there for the naive assumption that immigrants seeking legal status are in fact “Those fleeing violence or persecution.” It appears to be common knowledge that the asylum system is used by many to gain entry and then disappear into the population never to show up for asylum hearings that are rarely successful. It appears that the most immigration is for economic opportunity - which is fine, But let’s be honest about it and develop policies that provide economic opportunities through a well thought out system that addresses many of the concerns expressed in the many comments supporting reforms to the current non-system.
16
What a shame. America has never been in such dire need of fresh blood and fresh ideas as now.
8
The 1930s were riddled with isolationism, protectionism, and xenophobia.
Sadly, we are right back there today -- in America (based on the comments on this article), and in regard to anti-immigration memes. And this is not limited to the United States. These same sentiments are rising across the globe, as are right-wing authoritarian tendencies.
That sentiment in the 1930s led to WWII.
The current sentiment will lead to WWIII.
We must stop this now.
Sadly, most Americans (and people of the world) do not know history. So they are doomed to repeat it.
And sadly, we in the United States are just enough years past the 1930s and early 1940s that no one is left alive who remembers that period of history.
Donald Trump is an echo of the 1930s business-oriented fascists, both in the United States and Germany. Let the pro-business government reign large. Stocks are going up. Everything is hunky-dory. Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, et. al in America. You know who in Germany, and Italy and Spain.
Stop it now. Read some history. Get it together, people.
Americans need to lead the world away from this horrific outcome of reactionary politics and inevitable world war.
We can, and must, do better. You know I'm right.
5
This is good news. There already is a shortage of affordable housing caused by disatrous Democratic policies. The last thing the country needs is more people seeking housing.
30
What disastrous Democratic policies caused a housing shortage? You’re so wrong on your facts. Please stop.
8
I got mine, and you got yours... if we stand united against all the rest, we can prevent them from getting anything they haven't paid for. No one promised them a rose garden...
3
I would think that by deliberately blocking legal immigration, illegal immigration would rise.
1
I am appalled at the majority of comments on this thread, which are opposed to legal immigration.
Do I support open borders?
- Absolutely not.
Do I think legal immigration is a net positive for America?
- Absolutely yes.
Do I believe that legal immigrants come to America to get on the dole?
- Absolutely not.
- They come here to pursue the American Dream, and to work hard, and to seek better lives for themselves and their children, and to contribute to our country.
===
We are nearly unique in the world, as a nation that is founded upon a common philosophy, as embodied in the Constitution. We are not a nation founded upon a common ethnic and religious heritage, blood and soil. Anyone who supports the U.S. Constitution is eligible to apply to become an American.
We must continue to support legal immigration. And to invite the best and the brightest from across the world to become American citizens, and to contribute to the future of our nation and the world.
5
This story outlines a continuing outrage. An outrageous set of policies that will have long term efforts on the economy and social and innovative vitality of our country.
We are collectively afraid of our future and taking steps to promote and perhaps hasten our decline. How soon, or if ever will, we recognize our blunder?
4
This stance is a winning issue for Trump, as much as I hate to say it. We cannot continue to bring in uneducated immigrants with no skills that will need financial support for a generation. If it is fair to say other countries have better and less expensive health care, then it is also fair to say that most developed countries have policies in place for immigration that Trump is enacting. The American people will simply not tolerate massive immigration from poor uneducated people skipping the line while more deserving people are waiting years for their turn.
31
We have over 8 million men between 25 and 54 who are not working or looking for work. It's time to pull them into the economy, and get them earning money. Of course employers will prefer immigrants who will accept low wages and poor working conditions, but they'll just have to pay up.
Once we have US citizens working, then we can see if we need more immigrants.
26
@Jonathan - Exactly where are those "8 million men between 25 and 54"? How many are dead, incapacitated or living overseas?
2
I’m torn by this, my parents are immigrants from the former Soviet Union, they have definitely been a burden on the American people and so have many people from the soviet community in New York City. All you have to do is go down to south Brooklyn and see a soviet immigrant wearing name brand clothes using food stamp. The Soviet mindset isn’t to give back from the community its to take all you can from the government, my family is no exception. The issue I have with this is that I don’t, I finished college and proudly pay my taxes. So do many of cousins, and friends. The mindset to take generally changes in a generation.
11
The immigration piece is very thorough. The 11% number in the title is a little misleading. The 11% is over a 2 year period; around 6% per year. Given domestic social ills, this is not draconian. It shows that Trump, though a loudmouth who makes reckless rule changes is running into resistance. Thank you to all the judges, civil servants and activists who have pushed back. I hope the country can make inroads on shifting government expenditures from the military to social and environmental challenges. When the big stick is too big it steals resources more effectively used elsewhere. I can only imagine how the billions used to build an aircraft carrier could be used for food, clothing and educational purposes in the U.S. and around the world. The Corona virus shows how interdependent we are with each other and nature. Where is John Muir?
6
Congratulations to President Trump and his xenophobic policies regarding immigration! His desire to limit and if possible end the inward flow of foreigners needs to be seen in the context of US population growth overall.
Thanks to the decline in the birth rate and increase in the death rate of the US population as a whole, US population growth has slowed to its lowest rate since the 1930s, when people weren't having babies because of the Great Depression.
If this goes on, U S wealth, power and prestige will decline along with its population. The country really needs those immigrants to make up for its declining native-born citizens. How else will it be possible to compensate for their loss?
I suppose President Trump thinks that if he can make it impossible for enough teenagers to obtain contraceptives, and abortion is outlawed once again, the country's birth rate will rise with unwanted babies. A savagely cynical solution at best, but one I wouldn't put past him and the religious fanatics from whom his campaign for re-election derives so much strength.
3
@Piri Halasz
While we could use more immigration, most for the past few decades has been low education and low skill which depresses wage growth ot the bottom of the employment scale. These aren't the people that we need. As to your comments about contraception, Trump has made no proposals to limit it in any way. Abortion is a different issue that has been talked about ad nauseum.
Interestingly, the big proponents of increased immigration also tend to be the ones calling for increased minimum wages, something not needed if wages grow normally. They also tend to be converned about global warming so bringing more people into a high energy use country would seem to be a bad idea.
13
@Locke_ People with low skills and low education are the ones who have the most children -- and they work very hard to send those children to college. This means that we may have to wait a few years for additional educated workers but when we get them, they will work harder and more enthusiastically than the children of those born to the upper classes (who typically wind up in a lower earnings bracket and even lower income bracket than their parents).
People of low skills and low education are the only people who really want to come to this country. They do it because they think they can better themselves. You can wait a long, long time before any Norwegians, Swedes, Finns or Danes want to come to this country. They know when they have it good!
As to contraception, the Trump Administration and its Republican allies have done everything they could to deprive Planned Parenthood of government funding - and in case you hadn't heard, Planned Parenthood is into contraceptives and family planning in a big way as well as supporting abortion. And in the Republican-dominated courts, everything possible has been done to keep contraceptives out of the hands of employees who have medical plans with their employers...All these companies which suddenly get religion so that they can get out of paying for their employees' contraceptives are to me the quintessence of hypocrisy!
3
Trump and his administration are 'desperate, desperate' for more rich white emigrants. Unfortunately those are exactly the people who are not interested in leaving their chateaus and national health services behind.
9
@Larry Leker : everyone in Europe lives in a chateau?
Just like all Americans live in McMansions.
4
why would people from around the world want to come here when the Democrats and “Democratic Socialists” tell us every day this is a horrible and racist country???
25
@Ilya I think you have that backwards.
1
@Ilya - So that they can settle in Texas and register as Rich Republicans?... am I right?
It is invalid to claim that human overpopulation is not the fundamental environmental problem - that instead, it is poverty that is the problem. Some claim that to solve the issue, those in poverty should be lifted out of poverty. If the eight billion humans on this planet had a standard of living of any moderately prosperous country the biosphere, the flora, and the fauna, would be annihilated through pollution and habitat destruction.
Eight billion humans are the problem.
20
I would suggest most American's would not be in America today if their ancestors faced the same stringent migration laws. Aren't migrants what made America great in the first place?
7
@Joseph B
Those of our ancestors who came through Ellis Island would have been rejected if they had had a chronic illness, had a mental disability, were illiterate in their own language, were morally unfit (eg. a prostitute), or were likely to be a burden on society.
Tour Ellis Island today to learn how immigration agents instructed migrants as they came off the ships to carry all of their luggage from the dock to a building and then up to the building’s second floor. The agents positioned themselves on the stairs to carefully watch for any migrants who looked tired, troubled, or sick in any way. These potentially problematic migrants were then given extensive mental and physical exams. All migrants with perceived mental disabilities were automatically sent back to Europe.
Migrants who were thought to be too tired or ill were put into a hospital on Ellis Island to see if they could recover. Those who could not recover were also returned to Europe.
Anyone who had been admitted to the U.S. and was then found to have received public assistance was deported.
In sum, the laws used to be stricter than they are today.
27
@ann - What about our ancestors who arrived prior to the Civil War? those who enlisted and fought for the Union, defeating the rebels? There were no rules and regs at all, were they not the real Americans? And, what about those Rebels... should they be allowed to be citizens, after having caused enormous costs to be compounded one on top of another, so much so that it's a difficult burden to bear even today? Should those families even be allowed to own property? After all, the Union Army could have slaughtered every last one of them so that they might not have profited from their despicable, hate-filled revolt. In that case, the entire South would be owned by Yankees today. Fair is fair, right? I wonder why that was not the result... do you have any ideas on that?
I'm a legal immigrant. When I immigrated 30 or so years ago, I was required to get a doctor's certificate, a TB and AIDS screening. I was also required to have two sponsors who agreed to be financially responsible for me for 5 years. These are not unreasonable requirements. The one thing this administration should be doing is making e-verify mandatory and fining employers who game the system and hire undocumented workers, which drive down wages. I worked in a factory where this was the standard operating procedure. They were making buckets of money, the workers they employed, were supplied with phony papers and had to kick back part of their paltry wages to a contractor. People worked in unsafe conditions. I was part of management and when I complained I was fired. My kids could not get jobs as teenagers in fast food, because they didn't speak enough Spanish. This will win DT the election again and the democrats won't even address it.
41
How please are hard-working Americans saved anything when the Federal Government under Trump is running trillion dollar deficits? We do know that Corporations and Trump's donor class are raking in millions in tax breaks.
2
@HPower
You do underastand that it's Congress which passes all spending bills?
5
@Locke_ - You do understand that Corporations and Trump's donor class enable all those spending bills, then hide their wealth from the tax collectors?
I teach computer science at a major STEM university. I have wonderful students, most of whom have a bright future ahead of them, contributing to the betterment of the United States, as well as their own lives.
About half of my students are Americans whose families have been here for generations. The other half of my students are children of immigrants (themselves American citizens), or in some cases foreign nationals. All of them are bright, want to succeed, and are contributing to our nation.
Do we really want to close the doors to the best and the brightest from across the world, and hobble the future of America by denying these bright young minds from living and working in America?
I will add that, among the children of immigrants, many of my students' parents had no opportunity for education themselves, and came here to work hard (for wages or starting a business), and then managed to send their children to a top-notch college, as the first to do so in their family. That is clearly part of why they chose to immigrate to America. And their children are largely winners, and represent the best that we have to offer as the leaders of the future of America.
If we shut down legal immigration, my classes would be half empty. And so would the future prospects for America.
12
Whoa. People here reacting to the "public charge" rule, please hold your horses. This rule has always been in effect in some form or the other. When you apply for a Green Card, you need to declare if you ever received any form of public assistance and this has been in force for over 30 years. In the university I work in, there are PhD students who earnings place them below the federal poverty rate. If they have a child under 6, they are eligible for SNAP (food stamps). They typically do not apply because they will be denied immigration later if they apply for a Green Card. And by the way, I am talking about PhD students in Computer Science, Math, Physics and Engineering. These happen to be 95% international - not for lack of trying. Universities are unable to get any domestics to apply for these PhD programs. So please interpret the "likely to need public assistance" sentence carefully.
7
@jen : and why should I pay taxes to support universities -- give private ones tax-free status -- pay taxes to give loans to students! -- so that ALL the PhD programs have less than 5% Americans and the rest foreigners?
If true -- I think it is a bit exaggerated -- then those programs should be shut down ASAP.
9
@Concerned Citizen
Sure. I personally have no problem. You just have to close down NASA, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and R&D units of all American companies. Say goodbye to all the US patents. Oh and say goodbye to the majority of US Nobel Prizes that have been won by immigrants who came here for education.
2
Some of you are arguing that there are too many people. "We are full." And are claiming this as an argument against legal immigration. And are justifying this based on environmental or climate change grounds.
1. Climate change and resource consumption are global problems. Keeping these humans out of the United States does not solve any environmental or climate change problems. They still exist.
2. You are falling into a Malthusian trap. In the 19th century, the British economist Thomas Malthus argued that exponential population growth was a problem, and that it would be checked by some combination of famine, disease, and war. That makes sense intuitively, but he was wrong.
3. The problem is not people. The problem is global poverty. In fact, contrary to Malthus, the developed and prosperous nations have fertility rates at or below replacement level (among the native born populations). People self-regulated population growth. Exponential population growth exists only in poor developing nations today. Poverty, not people, is the problem.
4. By claiming people are the problem, you have declared that you are a misanthrope. You despise mankind.
5. We Americans consume twice the resources per captia as compared to our fellow humans in other developed nations. Look in the mirror. Move to a smaller house. Drive less.
6. Otherwise you are admitting that you value your American hyper-consumption lifestyle more than you value your fellow man.
7. Don't align yourself with Trump.
6
Some of these comments are priceless. People calling Central American and African immigrants uneducated, when Trump's ancestors and most European ancestors came here dirt poor and illiterate.
By the way, I haven't yet met an uneducated West African immigrant. Even the cab drivers are college educated and multilingual. And don't tell me no one has noticed the number of African doctors, lawyers, and businesspeople in their communities.
The real issue is that Trump wants white immigrants. Period.
10
@PABD Trump is a racist, and Trump's immigration policies are racist. By extension, that makes the supporters of Trump's immigration policies racists. Wouldn't it just be faster to say Trump supporters are in the basket of deplorables?
2
I'd sooner have my tax dollars helping an immigrant get established in this country than having them go to Trump's golfing vacations and cable TV subscriptions.
21
Every developed country in the world except the US requires that would-be immigrants demonstrate they can support themselves. I'm no fan of Trump but this is a logical requirement that should have been put in place years ago. We already have huge numbers of homeless citizens and overcrowded public schools, why bring in more needy, dependent people from the Billions of needy people in the world and further burden these overwhelmed systems?
50
My wife emigrated here 15 years ago, and had to sign papers that stated that she would not be a burden on anyone or the state or Federal Government.
16
@JD - Why aren't Pennsylvanians paying enough taxes to keep your overwhelmed systems up to date? You expect the wealthier states to pay your way if you neglect it long enough, eh?
2
There's one other thing Trump should be doing to help the global migration problem.
According to UN numbers, as of 2017, 55 percent of refugees worldwide came from three nations: South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Syria. These are countries our military has been meddling in and causing conflicts.
Stop meddling in other countries. We save money, they live their lives whichever way they want, and everyone wins.
8
@CacaMera
Afghanistan yes, but not the other two. The only activity in Syria was helping the Kurds fight ISIL. The Syrian civil war started in 2011, long before the US was there at all.
5
I support restricting immigration for several reasons. One of them is that I want to see a much stronger social safety net for Americans. I think all Americans should be entitled to food, shelter, education and health care, like they are in the Scandinavian countries. However, we can't both let the whole world in and provide all these benefits at the same time. Let's take care of our own, then figure out how many more we can add. Second, allowing large numbers of immigrants invites the very backlash that elected President Trump. The same backlash against too-rapid immigration is apparent across Europe. It takes time for immigrant groups to assimilate. Third, in some industries they do result in lower wages across the board (janitorial services for one). All jobs should pay a living wage, and they won't if they can get immigrants (especially undocumented ones) who will work for cheap and not dare to complain about unpaid overtime, shorted checks, or lousy working conditions.
34
@Nikki
Funny how tightening restrictions on immigrants doesn't seem to be accompanied by a corresponding interest in strengthening our nation's poverty programs.
In fact, just the opposite is true: reduce immigration as much as possible while also
shredding the safety net.
With Trump, it's a war against the poor no matter where they're from.
10
@Nikki
Funny how the drive to restrict immigration as much as possible isn’t also accompanied by the strengthening of poverty programs that help disadvantaged Americans.
In fact with this administration just the opposite is true: Let’s do away with immigrants AND also shred the safety net.
With Trump it’s a war on the poor no matter where they’re from.
@ag
A smaller worker pool causes wages to rise. Increased employment reduces the need to government services. You need to look at your logic again.
5
This is a difficult article to read. I will probably not vote this election for President because I despise Trump but also think that the Democratic candidates positions on immigration are at least as harmful as Trump. I support drastically decreased immigration because I am an environmentalist and believe that the large increase in our population, driven by immigration, is having and will have disastrous environmental effects. If there is one issue which will give the election to Trump, it is this.
26
Right now Stephen Miller is in India trying to cook up a scheme and figure out how that country's new citizenship registry can be adapted to the US. If you can't prove your're a citizen, you go on the registry and to a deportation gulag. You don't think Trump wants everyone to prove they're a citizen? He put Obama on a forerunner the registry long ago by being the original birther.
6
@Mark
The original birther was the Clinton campaign; look it up. Since Obama's mother was a US citizen Obama was also a citizen from birth. We have other ways of proving citizenship, usually called a birth certificate.
2
Great, I don't care if it was the wall, Trump, or ANY other reason. Immigrants are not the problem.... it is the social redistribution the consume that is the problem. I would love to have more immigrants as many as is economically viable so long as they do not rely on entitlements. We already have enough citizens of our nation who are reliant upon my hard earned dollars... Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money.
7
@Mystery Lits well then you better stop using streets, libraries, fire departments, hospitals etc. because we all pay for those. Socialism y'know.
2
The Dems still don't get this one. I'm a Democrat myself and as much as I ate to say it, my party is wrong on this topic. Coming to the US cannot be the solution to world poverty and violence. We have a working class that is dying on the vine and they are the ones who need our investment and help.
I come from an area of the country where work is drying up and what work there is hasn't seen a pay increase in years. These legal US citizens need help first.
49
"Around two-thirds of the immigrants who obtained permanent legal status from 2012 to 2016 could be blocked from doing so under the new so-called public charge rule, which denies green cards to those who are likely to need public assistance, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute."
The operative words are "likely to" need public assistance. That is speculation.
All of the immigrants I have ever met have come to the United States to work for a better life for themselves and their families. They are more likely to have a job, start a small business, and become a success than the average native born American.
If any person - native or immigrant - is working 40 hours a week and still needs public assistance, that points to a much bigger problem in the United States that is wholly unrelated to immigration. Wages are too low.
15
And this is a good thing. I'd have no problems with employers paying American and legal workers higher wages even if it means I pay more for goods and services.
23
You can call Trump any name you want, but there is an objective truth that with him in the WH, the economy is stronger, unemployment lower, etc. There is no such a human right to immigrate to America. It is a privilege, not right, and you as immigrant should not be a burden for Americans, but an asset. We need additional diversity, indeed, but not additional poverty, which is quite plentiful in this country already.
33
@Marat K - Why does the profit belong to American citizens - especially to those who are incapable of supporting their own base desires, but violate our laws to achieve those goals?
When we start kicking out the criminal and drug-loaded American citizens in order to really clean-up our nation... then I will support restricting immigration. In the meantime, let them eat cake and choke on it.
All Democrats running for office need to oppose these changes and express their support for open borders.
9
@William McCain I'm guessing that you're hoping Democrats will lose..
12
i wonder if this will lead to no one wanting to immigrate here and then more US citizens emigrating elsewhere. That would be interesting.
3
One of my favorite signs at a demonstration was held by a 9 year old "If you build a wall, my generation will grow up and tear it down."
Trumpers, gusanos, and others who, for their own unhealthy reasons, believe Pres. Trump's incredibly racist lies about immigrants, should put themselves in the shoes of one of these people fleeing danger they face every, single day. I'm assuming that they still have an ounce of empathy in their being.
I know from first hand experience the horrors they are fleeing. Since Trump and Barr are attempting to build a white America and Barr is part of the ultra-right-wing Christian movement, as he said in a speech we all heard him give, that seeks to eliminate all secularists, don't believe either of them.
I do not believe that that is Christianity. But take a look at the 13 countries Trump has banned. It is a lie that he seeks to ban illegal immigration. He is attempting to ban all non-white immigration.
9
@Caryl Towner
The proposed point based emmigration system would mostly benefit people from Asia who aren't generally considered to be white. The countries banned are due to inability or refusal to adequately cooperate in background checks of potential immigrants.
5
From time to time, I pass by the US embassy here in Ottawa in my routine. Without exception over the years, all the people I’ve seen lining up for visas are not white. That, right there, tells me a lot.
It tells me that the objections of Americans, especially in the comments here, are racist or racially insensitive. One highly recommended commenter here in this thread talks about how Trump is right to keep out unskilled people.
Really? What were your forebear’s skills? Likely a dirt farmer, or factory droid. Also, will you, who wants to keep out the unskilled and illegals, pick the fruit? Harvest the vegetables? Clean toilets? Doubt it.
The embassy line up also tells me that except for the dubious H1 visas, that no average white person in a decent country wants to come to America. Why? To lose their healthcare? To own guns?
Finally, it tells me that in a generation or two, hopefully less, Fox News will have to be broadcast in the crypt, because their audience will be dead and gone, replaced by Americans of colour.
10
@Special K as an American who lives in Ontario, brutal, but true. As I said don't find people from the Nordic countries wanting to get in. Americans for the most part are insulated and yes, they love that food be cheap including meat and that is the reason they have always like the labor from immigrants. Funny how the Trumpster present wife and family got in under some rather dubious reasons, but then she has skills just need to be told what they are. Jim Trautman
6
Why are all non-white countries allowed to be nation-states, such as Japan and Turkey and Argentina, but when it comes to a historically white country, that’s not allowed?
8
The laws are on the books, Congress put them there. It's previous administrations who have betrayed the public trust by not enforcing them. We had immigration reform back in 1986. 34 years later we're getting some enforcement of those laws.
28
Dear Open Borders Advocates,
Most of you want to defend the biosphere, as do I. With eight billion humans that is too many, however the populations of the prosperous nations must decline if the biosphere is to be saved. The way to do that is to severely restrict immigration. When a human immigrates from a poor country to a rich country, their carbons and resource footprint exponentially increase, putting ever more pressure on the environment and destroying more habitat for non-humans. You have to chose between the flooding affluent nations with the six and half billion humans from undesirable countries or the saving biosphere.
23
@Enough Humans Why do so many people who view themselves as environmentalists not see this?
7
If we helped nations be dependent and harness their natural resources, rather than destabilize and strip them of resources, immigration would decline.
3
Blame Nixon. If he had not opened up trade with China, a lot more would be manufactured in Central and South America and in Africa. But those areas don’t have nuclear weapons.
4
In the 19th Century, the British economist Thomas Malthus predicted that exponentially growing population would be checked by a combination of three factors: 1) famine; 2) disease; and 3) war.
He was wrong.
Instead, a curious thing happened along the way. Fertility rates in developed prosperous nations dropped. In fact, fertility rates in Western Europe, Japan, and the United States (among native-born populations) are now at or below replacement levels. In other words, peace and prosperity appear to act as a natural sociological governor on population growth.
In other words, the best way to stabilize human population growth and resource consumption is to lift people out of poverty.
I have long suspected that this observation was an unstated motivation behind the Gates Foundations' efforts across the globe to eradicate disease, educate women, and lift the poorest people of the world out of poverty.
It is alarming to me to read the many neo-Malthusian comments on this article. You don't have to be a misanthrope to be an environmentalist or to do something about climate change. People are not the problem. Rather, poverty (and the geopolitical forces that reinforce it, and squandering of valuable human lives) is the problem.
3
@Chilakegirl
"People are very much the problem."
You are a misanthrope. It sounds like you subscribe to the discredited views of Thomas Malthus from the 19th century.
Americans consume twice the resources per capita as compared to citizens of Europe, Japan, and other developed nations.
Are you sure you are not just trying to rationalize your SUV, 3000sf house, and other wasteful and environmental damaging choices? Do you value those material things more than your fellow man?
3
For all the blathering Trump, Mitch and the base do about jobs. No Americans will work in the fields picking fruit, vegetables, nor do alot of other dirty jobs. Want an example check out the meat packing plants Americans don't want nor work those jobs. For decades it was Hispanics and then the people you know the ones that would not do those jobs, to many Hispanic restaurants and shops and the parks were filled with them on picnics, playing Mexican songs, and eating that type of food. Well, their kids moved on and then and now guess what it is Somilias and the complaints are still the same they have their own stores, food, churches. if you check the comments when Brexit was ongoing it was oh, those people come from Poland and open shops and don't carry real English food, but Polish food, gee what a surprise and go to different churches, different holidays. Now, the tune is different attacks because in one town one young Polish woman who had opened several small food stores and employed 25 in the community had enough closed the stores and moved back to Poland in the EU where she opened stores. Now the same people are attacking her for putting 25 people out of work. Guess what you can't have it both ways and guess what people don't have to put up with your racist, nasty views and this is exactly what America in the Red States has become look for scapegoats. Here is a clue look in the mirror. Jim Trautman
5
@trautman
It is simply not true that Americans don't want the "dirty jobs." In Mississippi, American citizens jumped in their cars/trucks and hightailed it to the chicken processing plants for jobs in the wake of the ICE raids and removal of illegal aliens. Many employers refuse to hire American citizens, choosing to hire illegal aliens instead because it is far easier to exploit them with low wages and no benefits. The EEOC is going after employers in the hospitality and other industries for the wholesale firing of their American workforce and replacement by illegal aliens. So miss us with lies ginned up to support open borders.
11
Please write an article on the 500,000 American jobs occupied by H1b Visa workers, mostly from India? The result has been lower wages and unicorn job “opportunities”. There is not a shortage of talent in America. There’s a shortage of opportunity and higher wages as well as affordable healthcare.
51
Exactly....the entire H1B program is a massive fraud that’s destroyed middle class American jobs!
3
I am pretty solidly Democratic Party. Always have been. But the immigration system is one leaky sieve. Persons from around the world want to get here. And for good reason. We have the greatest country in the world with one of the fairest judicial systems. The American dream is still out there. But it is being overwhelmed by those who think they can get here and blend in with fellow countrymen and find work. There are plenty of opportunities to be fleeced also and grey-mailed. By those same countrymen. Sensible immigration reform is necessary if we could only understand what is the game that is being played. Buying your way in? Chain migration like the First Lady and her parents? Sanctuary cities? Just seems like a big scam and fleece job for the middle class and African Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.
25
@TruthingT If you believe you have the greatest country in the world can tell you have never traveled outside the US try the Nordic countries, New Zealand, even Canada. On all measures of quality of life studies the US is not even in the top 15. But, hey, keep believing you know like Boris Johnson and his followers who still believe the sun never sets on the British Empire. Jim Trautman
3
@trautman
And yet the US is the number 1 preferred destination for people around the world. Perhaps that means something...
1
Dear readers,
When did your ancestors come to America?
My mother's family came here in the late 19th century from eastern Europe. Does that make me more of an American that you?
My direct ancestor on my father's side, Thomas Stone of Maryland, signed the Declaration of Independence. Does that make me more of an American than you?
My wife is one-quarter Cherokee. Does that make her more of an American than you?
Many of the comments here reek of ethnic NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard). It is just like the family that buys a house at the end of the road, and then fights the next development that is proposed in the woods beyond them. I got mine. Now I'm pulling up the rope ladder. The rest of you can just get lost.
Meanwhile fertility rates in the developed world among native-born populations are at or below replacement rates. This includes Western Europe, Japan, and the United States. We Americans had an advantage over our peers due to legal immigration. Demographics are the main factor that explains the low, but positive, economic growth in America in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, as compared to the economic stagnation in Europe and Japan.
Legal immigration is a net positive for the United States. Let's fix it, and not throw it away.
8
Most other first world countries ban access to public funds until you become a citizen and have used a points based immigration system to determine eligibility for the equivalent to "green cards". Why this is now outrageous in the US is unfathomable.
In any case, the real tragedy is that Congress has abdicated it's authority and responsibility to the Executive branch. All problems and outrage, such as they may be, can and should be attributed solely to them. In these types of cases the vacuum is always filled by something, and is usually not the best solution.
The media shoud be hounding and shaming Congress for it's abject failure. Until this is fixed we will continue to have these wild and crazy gyrations.
22
The average nurse's salary in Chicago is $81,000 a year, per salary.com. Why is Ms Battle earning so little?
16
Some people are not nurses but call themselves that. They don’t have all of the needed education and training.
9
This is a shame, on us. This is not going to make American richer, not monetarily, not culturally, not spiritually.
Trump has to do this, though, to underscore his credibility as a demagogue fomenting fear and hatred of the "other."
The thing about a demagogue is this -- just the fact of their demagoguery illustrates that they are willing to say and do anything to gain and hold power. And this is why sensible people were against Trump from the get-go. And now, look at all the things he has done to take the teeth out of the Justice Department, hollow out the State Department, undermine the press, go after his political opponents. This is just the beginning, and history shows that propping up a demagogue never ends well.
2
Illegal immigrants grow the Democrat voting base and justify the expansion of government social programs. The political establishment( who are residing safely in their gated communities and affluent suburbs) remains unscathed by this( in fact, they like the cheap domestic help). However, US citizens in working class cities are impacted as they have to compete for the entry level jobs with illegals who will work for below-market compensation and also for scarce public services such as education, law enforcement etc.
To those who contend that the illegals are just doing the jobs US citizens won't do, I would argue that the latter will do those jobs if( by not having to compete with illegals in the labor pool), the compensation levels for those jobs are bid upwards. I would rather pay more for my apples than to have to finance through taxes a permanent underclass.
24
@pete
Hello! The article is about restricting LEGAL immigrants, not illegal ones.
1
@downeast60 : illegals must all be deported.
LEGAL immigration should be curtailed until we solve the health care and homeless problems.
2
Immigration policy is just about the only thing I think the Trump administration has gotten right. I wish the current Democratic presidential nominees would pull back from their essentially open-border positions.
32
@Thomas Fellow Democrat here who passionately agrees. Instead, we are handing him the election on this one issue.
4
These changes are decades overdue. I spent years living and working in Mexico whose lack of respect for the United States legal system was appalling and legendary.
The first President in 60 years to challenge the Mexican Government and get affirmative, positive results.
Because of Trump's pressure, Mexico has for the first time started offering asylum to these people. Where is it written they have to come to the United States?
NAFTA has been a good thing for the Mexican economy with jobs being created in the golden manufacturing triangle Mexico City-Guadalajara-Monterrey. Let them settle in Mexico and no language barriers for the Central Americans.
Common sense at last. It is gets Trump re-elected 2020.
27
Illegal immigration distorted labor practices and created an economic addiction for exploitable migrants being taken advantage of across the board in hospitality, restaurants, cleaning, processing and many others.
This addiction prevents honest hard working Americans from being employed in such industries because wages are a joke. Pay them well and you will see them working in any industry and job level, it is as simple as that.
Illegal immigration IS a socio-economic and security problem that needs to be resolved immediately. This may be the only administration in recent memory that is serious about solving it. I dislike Trump personally but am a supporter of his consistent policies in this issue.
26
@Socrates
Once again - this article addresses the fact that the Trump administration is limiting LEGAL IMMIGRATION. It's not talking about illegal aliens.
Either your ancestors were Native Americans or they immigrated here legally from somwhere. Did they arrive here with highly trained skills & suitcases full of cash? Unlikely. Mine didn't either, yet they stayed, assimilated & became successful.
Legal immigrants are a net plus for our country. I'm glad my ancestors & your ancestors were allowed to stay.
I understand the concerns about immigration and recognize it is not a self-evident "plus" for the economy. But it's terribly frustrating to read these articles and observe these discussions without any recognition of the role American industry and foreign policy has played in the creation of poverty and despair in Central America (and several other parts of the world) ranging from exploitation of labor to the arming and support of brutal regimes, coupled with a disastrous "war on drugs" creating countless social ills exceeding the ravage of the drugs themselves.
Any immigration policy that fails to address our own responsibility for the crisis south of the border and begin reigning in our own abuses will not only fail, but testifies to our own perverse value system. Chickens come home to roost, people. Colonial and neocolonial exploitation has a face...a face that's staring at us from the border hoping to escape the mess we've played a major role in making.
4
@CraiginKC A desire for Apple products forced Chinese companies to put nets outside the windows of worker dormitories to catch would-be jumpers.
Do we bear responsibility for that?
11
@CraiginKC We are NOT responsible for the doubling and tripling of populations in Central America.
14
More evidence that trump and his evangelical hypocrites are proving that the United States is not a Christian country! The value a person has is based entirely upon their wealth.
2
Dear aging Trump supporters,
The fertility rate of native-born Americans is barely at replacement rates. Our population is stagnant. Legal immigration has been the one factor keeping U.S. economic growth rates above the flat-line levels of Europe and Japan. Even Mick Mulvaney said, “We are desperate, desperate for more people.”
So who's going to pay for your social security check?
6
@MidtownATL You are proposing a ponzi scheme. When the new immigrants get older, who takes care of them. The idea of continuous growth of population is destroying the biosphere.
19
@Enough Humans
"You are proposing a ponzi scheme."
Social Security is a ponzi scheme. Western capitalism itself is a ponzi scheme. Our entire economic system is based on the assumption of boundless growth.
So what do you propose we do about that?
===
Hint: more people does not have to equal more consumption and more environmental destruction. People in developing nations have more children than those in developed nations, and create more environmental damage per capita. But among developed nations, Americans are the prime offenders per capita in burning down our planet, compared to Europeans and others.
3
@MidtownATL
Humans in the rich nations do much more damage to the environment worldwide per person than someone in in poor country. We export our destruction to places where there are few or even no humans such as the oceans and the polar regions. We pay poor countries to extract resources that cause environmental and habitat destruction there that we would not allow here. Each unit decrease of humans in the rich nations will have a much bigger positive impact on the biosphere than a unit decrease in the human population of a poor nation. How is that for a hint ?
7
Gotta love people that somehow can take a vacation to Gamibia on one hand, and then on the other hand complain they don't have enough money.
16
@Larry Thiel That $35k salary can only go so far. Someone "struggling" to support herself and family on $35k/year could take a foreign vacation like that? Amazing budgeting skills.
6
@Larry Thiel
She must have a "side hustle," probably an online hair/lifestyle vlog. Whenever I mention this in the comments, someone jumps in to say these businesses don't pay well but that is simply not true.
5
Imagine being indefinitely separated from your spouse just because of what country they are from. That should be outrageous, every bit as much as the old law that banned interracial couples from living in Virginia. This should be the number one voting issue in 2020. Frankly, no one can predict who will be best for the stock market or the economy or healthcare costs or world peace, but you can be pretty certain that no Democrat whether Bloomberg or Sanders would enact this kind of essentially anti-miscegenation law. Vote blue no matter who.
3
NYTimes: Can you find and publish how many US residents have chosen to move out of the US in the last three years? Has it increased and by how much?
5
Immigration = land development = ruination of habitat for non-human species. The reduction in immigration is the only good thing to come out of the Trump administration, but it's a big one. "Economic growth" is the cause of blighted landscapes and increased CO2 emissions, and is the last thing the country and world needs.
20
“Peculiar” is the kindest description I can offer for this comment. Immigration is not a cause of the growth you are opposed to.
1
@Stewart Desmond Kim is absolutely correct. Immigration has been the driver of population growth in our country since the 1970's. And the "economic growth" has resulted in the paving over of our country and the destruction of our natural world. It is the reason that our bird and insect populations have plummeted, and that so many other species are either extinct or endangered. Liberal Democrat here who will not vote for any of the present candidates because of the immigration issue.
9
The bottom line is that a bad economy or an economy on the brink is the number one reason for immigration both legal and illegal to fall.
Right now there is a faux boom. Everybody is borrowing from consumer to corporate to gov't to student and employment is high and less need for any immigrants. As soon as it crashes, the economy will go south and will continue less needs for any immigrants.
Then the cycle will start again, slow increase in the economy and the need for both types of immigration.
Meanwhile bigots and demagogues like Trump will take advantage of the issue.
2
For those of us who helped elect President Trump, this is music to our ears.
18
Blind ignorance;
China has more than 1.4 billion people
India has more than 1.3 billion people
United States has more than 330 million people
Nigeria has over 200 million people
Brazil has over 200 million people
Mexico has over 100 million people
Egypt has over 100 million people
Vietnam has almost 100 million people
The world may have over10 billion people by 2050 with most of the population growth coming from desperately poor areas in Africa.
What is the first thing some may think we they see these population numbers? The world has far too many people? What about those that cry that the United States needs to import even more people?
How about encouraging population control?
How about encouraging investments in automation?
Why not have countries like Mexico or Nigeria take responsibility for the actions of its populous?
What is the United States going to do with all these millions of people? The lightning quick changes that are taking place with the use of automation/robotics/3D printing. These ideas that will end the need for the use of a work force population that is unskilled/unprepared for the job requirements of the mid 21st century?
Sadly, I am not talking about the millions of poor, uneducated immigrates...
I am talking about you and your job.
26
It's so easy to be cruel to people who don't have a vote.
3
Two-thirds of the cheap labor we import to make middle-class lives possible in a stagnating-wage environment will need public assistance?
Time to cut our addiction to unskilled, low-paid labor and fix our own house.
217
@Clotario With college costs higher than ever, plummeting fertility rates, and crippling student loan debt for working-age adults, that's not a feasible plan.
7
@Grace
I think the problems you list would be in the category of problems falling squarely under those to "fix [in] our own house"
17
@Clotario
Good luck with that! And when you're in the assisted living or skilled nursing facility, good luck finding Americans willing to take care of you.
31
San DIego's strength is its strong binational border with strong flow of people and goods from both sides. Several international corporations manufacture most of the big screen televisions sold in the United States and other items for the American market.
Living on the busiest part of the border, you see the human toll of families separated. This area already had a wall until steep mountains make construction impossible.
Every few months, the local media reports another tunnel discovered under the border or another fishing boat landing somewhere along the coast. Trump doesn't realize that migrants will go under, over, or around his unneeded wall. He flies every year to have his picture taken here, and uses a helicopter to avoid protesters for what is about a 20-minute drive to the border.
@Joseph Wilson If you have lived in San Diego, you know that before a substantial wall was built there, illegal immigrants flooded across the border and disappeared into the city. No policy or barrier will stop 100% of the illegal crossing but it has probably reduced by a factor of 100.
18
@Enough Humans Where are your facts and what statistics do you use? From some right-wing think tank set up by billionaires to push their extremist agenda? Yes and Mexico is going to pay for that wall.
The fact that we only took in 18,000 refugees last year is heartless. It’s important to know that many of these refugees, for example from Syria, are professionals—doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc. Immigrants from Nigeria are some of the most educated. Yes, we need a sensible immigration plan, not trump’s. And our refugee/asylum plan needs to have a heart.
4
“In an administration that’s been perceived to be haphazard, on immigration they’ve been extremely consistent and barreling forward.”
Which translates into a huge plus come November, across the boad, with the 'liberals' excepted, of course.
And which is almost undeniably good for USA. Finally some one seriously trying to tackle the question of immigration!
9
Promises kept. Add it to the list.
14
How about you show some concern and empathy for American citizens whose wages have tanked because they’re competing with cheap illegal labor. Got any compassion for the carpenter, plasterer, or landscaper who used to earn a living wage before millions of migrants jumped our borders?
What about your fellow citizens...some of them veterans languishing on the streets, homeless and jobless?...the ones you avoid on your way to work, maybe drug-addled, mentally ill. Or the millions of elders stuck in sub-standard nursing homes. When are you going to rally on their behalf?
Millions of your own fellow citizens are suffering, destitute. Are they not exotic enough for you?
29
@Susanna My sister-in-law lives in New Mexico and wanted some home repairs done. A US citizen offered to work for $ 15 per hour whereas an illegal offered to work for $ 7. Guess who she hired? If illegal hadn't been around, she would have paid $ 15. More cost to her but then the US citizen and the illegal wouldn't both have to be on the dole.
12
@pete Your sister-in-law is a part of the problem.
10
Good -- I'm happy illegal immigration is down especially if Sanders gets elected (which he will thanks to the hispanic vote. Who can blame immigrants for wanting free health care, a free education, and an open border? I am not rich enough to be wealthy, but I have struggled to get where I am and now at 70 my taxes will go through the roof to support the entitled newly minted citizens.
47
@Mary Rivkatot
So now you're 70 years old! When you're ready for the retirement home, assisted living or skilled nursing facilities, who do you think will take care of you? There are already not enough Americans willing to do these jobs.
Mic Mulvaney is right. Here in Maine we desperately need immigrants.
13
@Mary Rivkatot To his is about people admitted with a Green Card, authorizing permanent residency, not citizenship. Citizenship comes later.
3
@Mary Rivkatot, and what about legal immigration being down? People that use government services still pay taxes, they aren't getting anything for free!
4
Until the pro immigration crowd - including Bernie Sanders - can explain how uneducated migrants from Central America and Africa contribute to the health of this country, This is the one issue Trump has gotten unequivocally correct. And they can’t... they conflate they statistics between educated immigrants and the masses of uneducated to claim a net benefit, but when you focus on the immigrants Trump is addressing through his policies, even the nonpartisan National Science Foundation determined that each and every immigrant to with less than a high school education costs America on average $650,000 over the course of their lifetime. Each of their first generation children costs similar, and it does not become a positive even after 3 generations. No sane 1st world nation can ignore these numbers, or the overpopulation which drives the flow of immigrants and which is the root cause of climate change and food shortages. Time to help our own homeless and underprivileged, and turn that money to where it’s needed here at home.
268
@LA Realist no one seems to realize that a lot of job growth is in the low paying service economy, which forces people to have more than one job to keep their family above water. Part time jobs often do not provide health care.Ask farmers how many locals are showing up to help with the farm work, or how many ‘native’ Americans are applying for menial jobs in hospitals,housecleaning,restaurant work.
26
@LA Realist, I see your point, and agree that statistics should not be ignored. At the same time, I am just not cynical enough to accept that an immigrant's only value is measured in their net dollar amount impact to the country. Human beings have so much more to offer than what can be monetized.
18
@LA Realist the author leaves out that immigration has gone down and wages have gone up by the highest percentage of a decade. This is according to an article in the Economist today.
We are all trying to raise the living standards of America’s working class. Its simple supply and demand. We need a tight labor market and to get foreigners off our tax-payer funded social net.
It’s articles like this that are forcing me to wonder if democrats are competent to run this country.
18
Good - this country has many issues that it must first sort out before it takes on the burdens of millions of others. I am all for limited immigration of carefully vetted applicants; but there must be some sort of LIMIT.
173
@AW
Gratitude does not require that you check your critical thinking skills at the door.
The Industrial Age is OVER, and it’s not coming back. Our country no longer benefits from the mass influx of low-skilled foreign laborers who were once required to move industry forward. Today, they and their offspring are likely to require welfare subsidies... an unacceptable financial burden to our own citizenry.
Merit-based immigration is the only sensible way forward.
75
@Susanna The thing about merit is that it's so, well, subjective. I happen to think that a really skilled Mexican cook has a lot of merit, as compared to say, Russian oligarchs buying up Manhattan. I also like artists, writers, musicians, poets, caring healthcare workers, talented gardeners, and hard workers who aren't killing off their brain cells in Appalachia and the Rust Belt. Does your merit-based system have room for them?
29
Doing family histories shows how many of our ancestors came to the US with next to nothing and then worked hard and added wealth not just to themselves but to the country. One young boy worked in tin in Serbia, (former Hungary), arrived in NY in 1905 with $10 to his name, and then went on to work in sheet metal for Ford Motor co in Texas and became a manager of the company. He had yellow fever for a while and relied on charity, but so what? He was worth it. It was his mind and his work that made him an asset, not his $10, or his occasional need for charity. He became a country club Republican but today’s Republican Party would have denied him healthcare and let him die. It is ridiculously short-sighted to put such limits on immigrants; they are the rejuvenation, strength, and lifeblood of our country.
5
The numbers I have read suggest illegal immigration has been reduced by at least 25%, not 11%. Of course, it is due to changes in protocol, not the physical barriers because they have largely not been built in part due to obstruction by democrats. With relatively complete physical barriers, hopefully there will be further impediment of illegal immigration.
7
The gains from immigration are divided very unequally. Immigrants reap most of them. Wealthy Americans claim much of the rest, in the form of the lower prices they pay for immigrant-produced services. Low-income Americans receive comparatively little benefit, and may well be made worse off, depending on who’s counting and what method they use.
24
Any new comprehensive immigration policy will need to include people who are willing and able to do entry level jobs in the rural areas of the USA which desperately need people to apply for a range of jobs available in the small communities which need "more people".
Currently many of these jobs are filled by those who come to the USA to escape the damage done to their home countries by natural events such as earthquakes or by long lasting civil wars or other violence. The Trump actions which eliminate temporary asylum for those from countries in extreme danger have disrupted the lives of those whose lives have been contributing to their communities in the USA through entry level jobs which may not pay well enough to keep them off safety net programs like SNAP (similar to Walmart and other places which do not pay well enough for employees to work and earn enough to pay for housing, utilities, transportation and food.)
Much like Trump's foolish tariff actions, he is not taking into account the economic impact on rural regions of the legal immigrant employees who work as school aides, crossing guards, CNA's in nursing homes or hospitals and other low wage service occupations. Eventually these are the people who will found new businesses in the rural communities as holders of green cards. Limiting their access to safety nets will limit their future contributions to the the economy of the USA.
1
Mr Trump is using every means possible to stop legal immigration short of closing the borders entirely. There is no logic to his policies, his motives are a cynical effort to cement his base’s political support by pandering to them. The Trump administration has increased fees for legal immigrants to pay for the red tape they use to obstruct applications, slow walks those applications, and resorts to picky tricks to deny applications; for example insisting that every space in a form must be filled out even if it doesn’t apply. Applications have even been rejected if the applicant signed “John Doe” on one form and “John R. Doe” on another.
All this and more, when we need more immigrants to grow the economy. Trump’s immigration policies are insanity inspired by political expediency.
2
And yet, despite Russian meddling in our elections, both primary and general, Trump and his administration have not barred Russians from visiting or immigrating to the US. I wonder why not?
7
@Andy Hain
For the same reason that visitation and immigration has not been barred for the other 150 same countries in the world; those countries cooperate with US officials on background checks.
Honestly, the Russia thing was over when the Mueller report dropped. Some people just won't let it go.
1
@Locke_ - You have conveniently overlooked those Russian or Soviet couples who were discovered living as if Americans in this country for more than 20 years, but who were actively spying against us. As I recall, they were tried and convicted.
1
Immigrants and the children of immigrants founded 45% of U.S. Fortune 500 companies.
We are your professors, your lawyers, your health care providers, your servicemen and women.
Americans today inherited a goose that lay golden eggs-- a society and an economy so attractive that the brightest and most ambitious people all over the world wanted to come here to live and work and raise their children, giving us the gifts of their energy and effort rather than their native land.
And thanks to Trump, we've thrown that priceless treasure away.
5
Maybe if people who want to immigrate here no longer are told that housing, healthcare, and food are all free when they get here, the attraction to come here as our ancestors did 100 years ago, will be purely for the chance to succeed on one's own without the support of the state. Not all asylum seekers need asylum and permitting them entry before proving that they are in real danger invites lawlessness. Any country that fails to secure its borders ceases to be a country.
22
I'm a so called "liberal" and I certainly don't want open borders etc. I want practical, pragmatic, common sense reform. We need people to help with agriculture? Then distribute the visas etc to make that happen.
Other skilled labor, same thing.
I think it makes sense that there is some criteria to allow people to enter the country, and frankly, having the money to pay for themselves doesn't seem like a horrible idea. It isn't the 1800's where you can travel out to the middle of the country and claim some land and build yourself up with grit and determination.
Regarding the southern border problem and other refugee situations, a sane and empathetic approach is needed, including helping to address the problems that are making the people come in the first place. What is horrible is cages and children separated from parents. Cruelty isn't the answer.
I place a lot of blame on both sides of Congress/Senate for not taking care of this problem long ago. We need to start electing people who can actually accomplish things rather than those who only seem interested in tribal posturing and enriching themselves. And #1 to start that process, get rid of McConnell.
19
Whatever the reason, illegal immigration is down, and we are vetting those legal immigrants who do enter the U.s. on a much tougher set of rules. Good jump, President Trump. It's about time we stopped the flow of low skill and outright illegal immigrants into our country.
13
@paul
Please reread this article. It has nothing to do with illegal immigration. It's about how the Trump administration is limiting LEGAL immigration.... you know, the kind of immigration that allowed your ancestors to come to America.
I am willing to bet money that the vast majority of Americans have zero problem with Trump's immigration policy. And yes, that includes Bernie Sanders supporters.
18
@CacaMera Bernie Sanders is for open borders. This fact needs to be pointed out as often as possible to his supporters, and to the entire sane left.
5
Can someone explain how Immigration,
let alone Un-Documented Immigration helps the
Poor Citizens of America ?
Why should a Boss hire you if he has to
abide by State and Federal Employment Laws
when he can hire someone to work 80 hours a week
to be paid in cash ? The un-documented immigrant
can't complain about the work conditions and if he
does not show up, another un-documented immigrant is
then hired.
This shortage of Workers is a plain lie.
Employers say there is a shortage hoping to be
able to hire immigrants documented or not
instead of Americans.
Create a National Employment Base.
When it can be demonstrably shown that no
American will take the job, issue a work visa
for one year to the documented Immigrant.
Let that working in America add up to points
for American Citizenship.
Meanwhile, will the New York Times do an in-depth
investigation of Un-Documented Immigrants and why
they are actually seeking entry into America, instead of
Spain, Chile, Canada - after all if all they want is asylum
why not apply there ?
11
The problem with these policies is that the USA has always benefitted as a result of cheap or free labor i.e. slavery, chinese labor, Irish labor, mexican and other central American labor. During the recession construction companies could not find enough workers to build our buildings dig our ditches. Americans, mainly white male Americans preferred to sit on the couch and watch Jerry Springer rather than get out and do the job that illegal immigrants are willing to do. Americans are lazy when it comes to doing work such as digging ditches, roofing, painting, cleaning hotel rooms, washing dishes in a restaurant. So, if our country is to continue moving forward we need a cheap source of labor. Our country will not continue to grow or prosper without immigrants.
@Weiler "white male Americans" built the country to which all non-white immigrants aspire to move. That should tell you something.
6
What about the professional legal immigrants?
nothing is being done to get them green card when they are waiting for over 10 years to get it. If you want doctors and nurses in this country make it easy for them.
2
@Dean The vast majority of employment-based green card applicants are Indian and Chinese H1B visa holders, many/most of whom displaced US STEM workers. They want to push their way through using SB386, which would grant all employment-based green cards to people from those two countries alone for the next 10-20 years, at least. Some small adjustment to the bill was made to assist nurses, but the queue for green cards is choked with a huge backlog due to the abuse of the H1b visa. The best way around this is to apply per-country limits to the H1b visa consistent with the per-country limits on green cards. And make employers consider hiring US workers instead.
4
"Around two-thirds of the immigrants who obtained permanent legal status from 2012 to 2016 could be blocked from doing so under the new so-called public charge rule, which denies green cards to those who are likely to need public assistance..."
And that is a problem how? Are you saying that we should let in or give permanent residence status to roughly 700,000 people so we can burden our social welfare system even more? How about taking care of people who are already here?
Yesterday a man was found hung from a tree in Central Park. Last I read he was a homeless person. Every Manhattan block has several homeless sleeping in the winter cold. Why don't you worry about those people instead of adding new people who need public assistance?
Let's get something straight. Billions, yes, billions of people are in need of assistance across the globe and they all would want to come here. At the rate of close to a million per year, how long before we are overwhelmed, if we aren't already.
11
Trump's wall won't keep people out as long as agribusiness and other employers want cheap labor they can exploit and dump if a worker gets injured. No sick pay, no vacation pay, no benefits. All the wall does is enrich certain favored contractors.
5
What part of "do not give away other people's money" does the NYTimes not get. Allowing public charges an immigrant visa is exactly that. It is reasonable for any country to impose a set of rules on the types of people it will accept. Nothing to see here, just false outrage.
13
LOL. This country really loves to shoot itself in the foot these days.
Put aside for a minute the fact that native-born Americans are still largely not filling the low-skill jobs that our society counts on to function.
But we now live in an age where the country's population is rapidly aging. People are living longer, and Americans of reproductive age are having less babies. Who is going to fill the labor force? Who is going to pay the taxes that pay for Medicare, SSN, etc? This is literally the time when we should be encouraging immigration into this country; instead we continue down this xenophobic path to idiocracy.
3
Given Trump’s jingoistic rhetoric, hate rallies and our increasing acts of mass violence, would you come here?
Your missing a key factor: Trump is destroying the promise of The Land of Plenty.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll have some wine and cheese and return to my language lessons. Ring me when it’s over.
I thought the stated trump goal was to lower illegal immigration, not legal immigration.
2
I was wondering why our roads are clogged and ever more need for affordable housing at taxpayers expense. The answer is found in yearly one million green card immigrants and additional two million illegals. Our housing will never catch up and homeless street-people like in LA and SF will be our norm.
8
Too bad this issue has been demagogued - both by Trump as well as my Hispanic immigration advocates. There's nothing wrong with legal immigration. In fact, I say the more, the merrier. If folks want to build their lives here, welcome. But please, don't game the system and come here without permission. Follow the legal process for documentation. The US has the right to decide who it allows to apply for residency and citizenship.
Now, that should be a sensible way to approach this issue, no?
37
@del It would be, if legal immigration were a sensible process to begin with. As someone who is intimately involved in the legal immigration process, the ignorance of most individuals who spout this kind of rhetoric is obvious. Do you know what the legal process for documentation is? Do you know how much of a logistical nightmare it is, and the fact that it is a mess on purpose? People even with English fluency are lucky to understand the forms that they have to fill out without an immigration attorney. You can get denied for not checking a box. The rules are notoriously hard to follow, and the timelines for receipt of notice are vague. Support in any form, whether it's a question to the customer support line or from an attorney, is unreliable at best.
If the legal immigration procedure was even remotely transparent, I'm sure more people would do what you suggest.
4
There’s an implicit assumption in this article and the comments that immigrants are entirely from countries like Mexico and displace native U.S. workers at the low end of the wage scale.
In the small (and somewhat expensive) town in New Jersey where I used to live, at least ten percent of our neighbors were immigrants, typically on employer-sponsored visas, or Green Card holders through employment. They were mostly managers and professionals in technology, finance, or media. Their salaries had to be in the six figure range. New York employers are not limited to the local talent pool, and (to be blunt) the local talent pool is not what it once was.
It’s not impossible for a high wage worker to need public assistance, especially in risky areas like new technology, where layoffs are common, and where the outplacement consultants (if you’re lucky enough to get them) advise you to apply for unemployment insurance as soon as you can.
The new income requirement for immigrants is not likely to affect this group of people. Professional-level salaries in the New York region are very high. However, the questions about receiving public assistance are disquieting, since they will inevitably be applied in the most ridiculous and vindictive way, and against people who are not in a financial position to fight back.
3
@Global Charm According to Pew Research, the top country providing immigrants to the US is Mexico (11.2 million) followed by China (2.9 million), India (2.6 million), the Philippines (2 million) and El Salvador (1.4 million).
In other words, there are more immigrants from Mexico than the other top 4 countries combined.
54% of immigrants from Mexico did not graduate from high school, and 26% are high school graduates. That's vs 15% didn't graduate from HS, 16% high school graduate for East/Southeast Asia.
10
@Talbot 11.2 million is large, and their lack of education is appalling, but it is not 100%. My issue is with people who think and act as if it were 100%.
Slashing legal immigration, creating uncertainty for foreign students and workers, and generally creating a hostile environment: all of these things are doing longterm economic damage to the United States.
Even if everyone of these policies are reversed next year (if Trump is defeated), 20 years from now it will still be a little harder to pay for Social Security, our labor force will be a little older, and American a little poorer. If the policies continue beyond this year, the effects will be far worse.
9
@Mark R Hmm. Is it better for a foreign worker to be uncertain about a job - or the American worker? For Obama and Clinton it was all about increasing the number of the badly abused H1b visas and to heck with US worker stability. I would prefer to NOT be discriminated by country of origin in my own country, thank you very much.
2
@Margo To put it bluntly, the legal and other costs of a temporary worker are so great that any employer that "discriminated" against you much have thought that the foreign worker could do the job much better than you. And every other person in America is BETTER off when the best person gets the job.
But temporary foreign workers are a tiny part of what we are talking about. We are talking about slashing labor force growth so much that Social Security will be in even more peril. We are talking about creating a smaller and poorer America. An America in a decline of Trump's making.
From an environmental sustainability standpoint, this is great news.
32
@Dan Great comment. Most people don't consider this, unfortunately.
1
The key point is that it's not just illegal immigration Trump is against but ALL immigration. And even if the next administration after Trump's reverses these policies, it may be a long time before immigration ticks up again, if ever. Who would want to come to a country that is openly hostile to outsiders?
8
@Michael Gallagher
You could ask that question to the (literally) millions of people at our borders.
9
What is the composition of the current legal immigration population? Not necessarily ethnicity but financial status. We’ve seen wealthy immigrants buying Trump condos. We’ve seen oligarchs ripping off their countries and shifting money overseas.
3
As many of us have been saying for years, the US economy depends on a steady supply of immigrants at both the high end and low skilled. Cut this off and at a minimum the US goes into a slowdown. Trump's Acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney admitted as much at a private function in London last week, "We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we've had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants." - WaPo.
Unfortunately, that truth hasn't made it past Trump's hairspray. He is in fact going the other way. Trump has purposely fueled an anti-immigrant fever among his supporters in an effort to shore up his base. Unfortunately for him that is going to negatively effect the economy and undercut his own reelection chances.
Rather than wasting $ Billions on a Swiss Cheese wall, we need a comprehensive immigration policy. This has been kicked down the road by both Democratic and Republican administrations for years. It appears that the bill has now come due.
6
A refugee and legal immigrant myself I am sympathetic to plight of people in refugees camps or just trying to come to America.
Their advocates are however doing them no favors by arguing to eliminate distinctions between legal and illegal immigration, teaching applicants to game the system or outright lie, and worse of all, continuously presenting ungrateful people with colossal sense of entitlement who are boasting of their illegal status while attacking this country as faces of immigration. Arguing that illegal immigrant on welfare who committed “only” burglary or two should not be deported because nobody was home when he did his crimes is not a big selling point either.
When I came to US John Lennon fought deportation for smoking pot and I would bolt if any drugs were present at a party and to take government money in any form was unimaginable to me. My life, including my US citizenship, unfolded beyond my wildest dreams. Actually, my imagination was not big enough to dream of things that came to me. This is the greatest country and greatest people. Yes, exceptional. Little appreciation would help the cause of those arguing for immigration.
34
At least there's less H1-B's. They are destroying the tech workplace and driving down wages, not to mention that most of them are horrible at their jobs.
39
Still almost a million and even more illegally. Let us know when it gets down close to zero.
13
@Robert, that'll be never. Unless the economy collapses.
We will regret that shameful, ugly wall for the entire rest of our country's history. I hope future generations will be more compassionate than we seem to be, and wonder how we ever let it rise.
3
Great. We should scale back all immigration, so America can be an aging, stagnating, dying country like Japan.
10
@Donna Chang
You make it sound like there are zero legal immigrants coming into the country.
Please. Sensationalistic.
6
@Donna Chang But it'll be an aging, stagnant, dying *white* country, you see?
/sarcasm
2
@Donna Chang And meanwhile, Canada will be cheerfully admitting all the professionals the US appears not to want. We win, you lose.
1
Many these laws are reasonable and will help.However the issue also is that we need millions of low skill jobs to keep economy growing.The immigrants are the best hope.
Also remember that 30% of small business in USA are developed by uneducated low skill immigrants.Young immigrants pay billions in SS for the USA elders.
Immigration is vital to our well being.
13
@Richard Head
This financial argument continues to crop up multiple times in reference to the need to keep letting more and more people to immigrate to the USA. The thought that the economy must grow bigger and bigger and the GDP is our only purpose to exist is sad. Life is more than a worship and devotion to the almighty Excel spreadsheet. Regarding the social security program, what else can it be called other than a Ponzi scheme? That is what it looks like if it requires millions more participants to survive. With less people allowed in that will not be a financial burden, this will alleviate the pressures on many of the programs in place designed to help citizens.
7
@ArthurinCali, a Ponzi scheme that has saved millions of Americans from destitution. How about we lift the unnecessary cap on SS payments for high-income earners?
2
This is THE ISSUE that the Republicans will use to woo the low information voter.
It has long been known that it is easier to get voters to vote against than to vote for an issue.
I do not say this with joy or pleasure; however, Democrats really need to get figure this out as regards illegal immigrants.
It is also true that a substantial number of these folks, along with many American citizens, game the system by working for cash and not reporting their income. I realize that this holds true for their 'employers' as well.
18
Previous administrations have been ignoring their constitutionally mandated duty to faithfully enforce the public charge law by ignoring Medicaid and food stamps. It was a swindle of the American worker, the government’s version of forcing you to train your lower wage replacement prior to firing you.
The rule properly applying the public charge law is new. The law is old.
32
With Trump as president what qualified immigrant would want to settle in the US? Most other western countries now have a much better quality of life and, of course, superior universal health care.
12
@Jack Noon - "I wouldn't want to join any club that would have me as a member." -- Mark Twain ... maybe Will Rogers
1
@Jack Noon And all those countries have much stricter immigration laws than the US. If you can't get into the US you won't get into any of those other countries either.
5
This can only have negative consequences for our diverse country. I didn’t see Stephen Miller mentioned in the article, but surely, he is leading us down a path America will regret if this administration has another four years.
9
The US is not alone in implementing changes to its immigration system. Britain has just implemented a points-based system. Among the requirements the visa applicant must speak English and there is an income eligibility criteria set at approximately $33,300. Essentially low-skilled workers would not qualify. (NYT article-link)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/world/europe/uk-immigration-low-skilled-workers.html
47
I'm not sure I understand the title of the article. The border wall was meant to keep out folks who try to cross the border in violation if our laws not legal immigration.
14
@James the wall has likely had no effect whatsoever. The article is about changes in immigration policy which are reducing legal immigration. Usually when legal immigration is restricted, illegal immigration rises.
1
@Shawn Willden
Since the two are apples and oranges, I'm not sure why they even bring it up other than gratuitous Trump bashing.
1
@Shawn Willden
Since the two are apples and oranges, I'm not sure why they even bring it up other than gratuitous Trump bashing.
So employers could be having trouble finding employees? Now they need to start hiring and training less experienced workers - why not? My heart bleeds.
36
@Margo it is not so easy when the real demand is in tech area. Not everyone will learn to code, or learn algebra calculus.
2
@Margo it is not so easy when the real demand is in tech area. Not everyone will learn to code, or learn algebra calculus.
@Margo it is not so easy when the real demand is in tech area. Not everyone will learn to code, or learn algebra calculus.
If these policies are continued, they will eventually have a negative effect on the U.S. economy. Trump's immigration policies seem to be targeted to keep out brown-skinned people, in keeping with the racial animosities of Trump's base. Let's work to enable a Democratic win in November's election, so we can turn to more humane and sensible immigration policies.
9
I am no Trump supporter or fan (hate the man) but he is right about immigration. This is the Left's fatal miscalculation. There are many people who want tighter controls on the flow of unskilled workers. The Trades have been decimated by the influx of people willing to work for less and that is a big driver for the uprising among the working class.
Over the last 20 years this influx of workers has undermined the Trades and reduced the quality of workmanship along the way. Now the unskilled charge as much as the Journeyman but produce work that isnt worthy of min-wage. This is the result of unfettered immigration. The more the Left ignores the cries, the worse it becomes for their candidates.
In the end, its very simple. Cheaters should never be rewarded.
135
@Keen Observer, the trades were undercut by outsourcing labor overseas.
1
@Keen Observer - Your comment brings to mind one I read from a women in Arizona or Texas who said that her grandson, who was looking to work in construction for the summer, was told he did not speak Spanish. He was not hired.
18
@Leonard You can't outsource plumbing or fixing a roof. If you are a contractor and can pick up a handful of workers for 50 bucks in a Home Depot parking lot, you substantially increase your profit margins. It's not just trades, it's factories, fast food and other jobs. My teenagers were often denied part time work, because they didn't speak enough Spanish. And with the Coronavirus we're starting to see what outsourcing does.
4
Everyone cheering the decrease in immigration should take a look at how many Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants.
Then maybe check out the falling rates of new business creation in America.
Then take a look at our demographics and how they're trending. Everyone focuses on the race/ethnicity aspect--and for sure that's why white nationalists like Miller primarily want to slow the influx--but I'm talking about age. And think about how senior entitlements (Social Security, Medicare) are sustained.
From our founding, immigrants have fueled the American economy and energized our culture. The genius of our country was the ability to assimilate them--to make them, within the span of a generation at most, as American as the Pilgrims.
Kill that, and you kill our future.
14
@Fred DiChavis So just discard the marginalized American workers? They don't count?
23
@Fred DiChavis
None of the Fortune 500 countries founded by immigrants were founded by immigrants who would have been excluded under the new policy.
Examine all of their biographies. They all came from wealthy families and perceived that their opportunities in the US were superior to those had they remained in their countries of birth. they did not need Medicaid, food stamps or housing subsidies in order to immigrate to the US. Their prospects were better here because in America we live under the rule of law. The Constitution respects property rights.
The poor huddled masses hoping to get $15/hour instead of $2/hour for service jobs do not start Fortune 500 companies.
Facts matter.
13
Although one has to give credit to the President for following through on his campaign pledge, the irony is that the legal immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, southeastern Europe and Central America believe in the American concept of self-empowerment more than many native born U.S. citizens. They believe in working hard and reaping the success of their efforts as much as the most rock-ribbed Republican. So, President Trump may be winning the battle here, but the Republicans in the end may lose the war if they keep restricting legal immigration as outlined in this article.
13
The cheap lettuce argument only goes so far. Our entire immigration policy cannot be centered on cheap farm labor.
93
@Talbot - Ummm ... cheap engineers from China and India? Cheap line workers in the chicken (and other?) slaughterhouses? There are whole towns in the red areas of the US (who complain about immigration the loudest!) that are being sustained by immigrant communities. It has always been so. Immigrants (e.g. Bohemians) were the foundational workers in for the steel industry.
5
@Steve I know. My great-grandmother came here from Hungary in the 1890s and went to Pittsburgh. She had 8 kids. She also went to night school and learned to read and write English.
4
Mulvaney can always convince the Fox/Sinclair cult to
do the work the immigrants had always done for this
country.
Add Barron, Ivanka, Don, Eric and Melanie
and they'll do really well in the fields because they're
such great deal makers. They asked for it. Give it
to them.
8
Seems to be a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of statistics by the journalist:
1. Achieving lawful permanent residence (LPR) and entering the United States are not the same thing. At least half of the people who receive LPR in a given year entered the United States years previously under other visas of one type or other.
2. Hundreds of thousands of people migrate to the United States legally every year (not counting tourists or people here on business for a short time) who do not intend to ever claim LPR status. The journalist presents statistics on some of those people from the DoS but not from DHS and also misrepresents the statistics by cherry picking the highest year on the DoS report
3. Two thirds of the LPRs between 2012 and 2016 could only have been blocked by the finally written public charge rule that goes into effect this week (it had never been finalized since the current related law passed in 1996) if they somehow retroactively time warped themselves back in time and took public assistance that they did not take. (in fact, it differs substantially from another piece of propaganda on the NYT web site appearing today supposedly from the same very suspect source)
But whichever way you cut the statistics, the hate-filled United States no matter who the president still accepts -- for more than 50 years now (as long as there have been such statistics) -- more legal migrants than the rest of the world COMBINED. And that's not counting the boom in criminal aliens
19
@Dennis Byron I am not hate filled, but charity belongs at home. Immigration must be controlled, and not because they are axe murderers or rapists. But because we are a sovereign country and need to know who is here. We should only admit the skills we need. As for the farm industry, bring back the programs where the farmers import laborers for the growing season, pay them decent wages, room and board and them let them return to their families until the next season. We cannot have wide open borders, and if so, this is why Trump will be reelected. Most people feel like I do.
12
@Dennis Byron
Under your item 3., fully two thirds of the individuals who achieved LPRs between 2012 and 2016 received at least one year of food stamps, non emergency Medicaid, housing subsidies during a three year period and would hypothetically not been admitted, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
If the policy had been in place in 2012, they would not have accepted the welfare benefits, their wealthy families back home would have provided for their needs.
Sixty percent of legal non citizens receive welfare, a higher proportion than the native born.
The only change that will result from the clarification of who constitutes a public charge is that the legal immigrants will acknowledge more of their assets which will make them ineligible for welfare.
3
@Dennis Byron Look at the OECD statistics and you will learn that relative to the size of its population, the US is not among the most generous immigration nations but only about average.
1
Knee jerk racism pure and simple. The moral aspect of immigration seems absent from recent Republican arguments. That fallacious drumbeat of how "aliens" take meaningful jobs and how we have to look out for "our own" crop up like strangling weeds. There was a time immigration was enthusiastically endorsed, especially here in America, for the most part a nation of immigrants. How come Nigerians are being singled out? Could it be because they're black?
6
Please rethink your choice of words. Nationality is not the same as "race".
A claim of "racism" is wrong.
23
@Margo
Living in this great melting pot as I do, I am well aware nationality and race are not the same thing. But this current administration hardly seeks justice for all. From gross gerrymandering, to silence when black people are gunned down in their own homes, to attempts to dismantle the Voting RIghts Act and now this. Perhaps. you could enlighten me. What exactly is it about Nigerian people which makes them currently unacceptable as American citizens?
1
There was a time when we also rode horses instead of driving cars. Things change.
5
The American citizenry is under NO obligation to offer up our country as a pressure release valve for the world’s overpopulated, impoverished millions. We can barely take care of our own.
Meanwhile, we already have over 20 million foreign nationals residing in our country illegally....exploiting our porous borders, our schools, hospitals, welfare system, job market, and birthright citizenship laws....costing American taxpayers $Bilions year after year after year. Not to mention the grossly negative environmental impact...
The situation is completely unacceptable. That Democrats can’t seem to grasp this is beyond my comprehension...which is why this Democrat will be voting the other side for the very first time come November.
96
@Susanna "We can barely take care of our own." Not true. The United States is the wealthiest country in the world, and has ample resources to take care of every man, woman and child living here. But we CHOOSE not to. We make this choice when we allocate over 50% of our annual budget to defense spending, much of it pork. We make this choice when we enact huge tax cuts for the wealthy, creating massive deficits, and then cry poverty when it comes to funding things that help ordinary Americans. We make this choice when we refuse to enact health care policies that don't bankrupt thousands of Americans every year. We make this choice when student loans cripple entire generations of young people. We make this choice with tax subsidies that favor property-owners over renters. And we make this choice when we willfully shut our eyes to the fact that immigrants are what will sustain our (your) lifestyle in the years/decades to come. Who do you think is going to pay for Social Security and Medicare? Your 1.7 kids?
So go ahead, vote for Trump if you want. But while you're at it, just remember: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." Because trust me, the Republicans will come for you eventually.
18
We have become monsters.
9
@dortress
115 years ago, we shipped people back from Ellis Island because they had trouble on a flight of stairs. They went back on the same ship they came on, no hearings, no appeals.
The steam ship company had to absorb the cost of bringing the rejects back to their port of origin. Finally, the steam ship companies wised up, and health checked their steerage passengers before they were even allowed to board.
The Statue of Liberty poem was a fantasy. While you might not be rich, if you were too tired you got sent back home.
41
I thought Stephen Miller might slow down his quest to close all American borders for at least a few weeks so he and his new wife could spend some time to enjoy connubial bliss.
But you would be wrong! His new wife performs the exact same job function for Pence. Clearly, they are a match made in heaven.
Let us hope they will not reproduce ...
12
The first thing I want Bloomberg and Buttigieg to do when they get elected is give money to Mexico to tear down that wall.
2
@A. Stanton Exactly! Tear down that wall. And then Bloomberg/ Buttigieg might proclaim "The Unites States of America and Mexico".
6
@A. Stanton Why would that be appropriate under any administration? We're paying good money for it and it should be maintained.
1
So for the rest of 2020 we will hear Trump and his stooges extolling the virtues of keeping Americans white.
3
Nice to see a President actually do what he said he would. Protecting our borders is important. Immigration isn't curtailed. Illegal immigration is. Thanks, Mr. President.
60
@Duane Mathias This whole article is about how immigration IS curtailed. The vital, legal immigration that our economy relies on.
17
You should read the article. LEGAL immigration is being curtailed.
12
@Duane Mathias
"Immigration isn't curtailed. Illegal immigration is."
The entire article is literally about how that isn't true.
10
it seems we are making sure that people who immigrate into the country can verifiably support themselves and are a net positive to the country. I am afraid I don't see an issue with this.
95
@Michael Their net positive is coming here to do the work no one in this country wants to do. They do it at great risk to their lives now.
That's the issue. I don't want or need to live in a whitewashed-evil country. I want diversity and it's needed or the oligarchs will just have to create a slave class (it's there and continues to be in the making).
5
Mick Mulvaney says we need more people because we need more workers.
What we need is much more investment in our own people in terms of education and training. A mind is terrible thing to waste and we seem willing to waste millions of our own citizens' minds.
39
The argument often posed against undocumented immigrants is, "Why don't they do it the legal way? Why don't they wait in line until it's their turn?" The answer is simple. There are hardly any legals ways of doing so; of migrating 'legally'. This article addresses the increasing restrictions against people seeking asylum and fighting for a better life. These policies are a most damaging example of the xenophobic attitudes and ideas of this current Administration.
15
@Dr. Q Look at the demographics of illegal immigrants and compare with the statistics on those who receive Green Cards.
Hint: Google is easy to use.
The largest numbers are from the Americas, led by Mexico.
Why - WHY - do you think we need to admit the reported 30% or more of those countries who say they would like to move to the US? Can you consider what it would be like for us?
The legal way allows US to manage diversity.
12
@DrQ I don’t say this to be cruel, but if you don’t have a legal avenue to come to the US or you don’t qualify for asylum that is just too bad for you. We can’t take in everyone who desires to be here. We must have criteria and limits for entry that best serves US citizens.
11
@Margo If by diversity you mean more people from countries where people are lighter skinned than from countries where people are darker skinned, then yes, you are proving the point that xenophobia is the illness that afflicts our country. Save your snarky remarks about google if you want a real conversation about immigration.
1
Just for clarification, Trump hasn't built anything even close to 100 miles of border fencing in a border that stretches for 2000 miles. Repairs to existing fencing has been the lions share of work completed, while new fencing is actually only a few dozen miles. Repeating the President's lies doesn't make it so.
20
@Michael Gilbert My understanding is that it is expensive to apply legally--certainly for many of the impoverished people who are fleeing their countries due to violence in their countries.
Mexico is deploying police and military force at its southern border to impede the flow of undocumented migrants from nations to its south, headed for the USA
This is a "pre-wall" wall. And Mexico is paying for it.
51
@RM
And this affects legal immigration in what way?
The article these comments pertain to have to do with legal immigration and the challenges those people face in our country today.
Please explore the difference between the definitions of legal and illegal.
3
Paul Krugman on Immigration :
First, the benefits of immigration to the population already here are small. The reason is that immigrant workers are, at least roughly speaking, paid their “marginal product”
My second negative point is that immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That’s just supply and demand: we’re talking about large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production, so it’s inevitable that this means a fall in wages
Finally, the fiscal burden of low-wage immigrants is also pretty clear. Mr. Hanson uses some estimates from the National Research Council to get a specific number, around 0.25 percent of G.D.P. Again, I think that you’d be hard pressed to find any set of assumptions under which Mexican immigrants are a net fiscal plus
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/notes-on-immigration/
87
@LArs I think that you need to do some more research and not look at something written almost 15 years ago to bolster your point of view. I suggest that you start HERE
https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2017/does-immigration-reduce-wages and see what you think.
Rgrds-Ross
6
I always find it confounding that the majority of comments on articles of this type come from a perspective of people that believe that they are not going to eventually be on the OTHER side of the fence. Maybe they’re right...but as you’ve heard before, life can come at you fast.
Best of luck people, I hope in your hour of need you are welcomed and supported by compassionate people.
53
@Minskyite There are 8 billion people and six and half live in undesirable countries. If they are allowed to come to the prosperous nations, all of us we be on the other side of the fence.
56
America will be able to resume our role as the beacon to legal immigrants as soon as the rule of law is re-established and the nation is no longer swamped with people breaking the law to enter the country.
One of the several casualties of the 22 million (and counting) illegals in America: Our ability to have a humane, productive legal immigration policy.
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@Philboyd The latest numbers I can find show 1/2 of that number (2015) so I think that you're getting bad information. Illegal entries have fallen so the best guess is that the number is fewer than it was 5 years ago, not twice as much.
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@Philboyd I am not sure where you got your information on the 22 million illegal aliens currently living in the US. Based on your number almost 7% of the population is illegal. Regardless of that, the lack of humanity being shown by the current administration will ensure that even qualified people might have second thoughts about coming here.
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@Philboyd
You failed to mention the law-breakers who employ undocumented workers, a group which included the Trump companies until about six months ago.
Let's start there.
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How can residents of Blue states ‘barricade’ the dollars we pay in Federal taxes so they aren’t used to subsidize the Red states? For every $1 of federal taxes paid by CA residents, we only get 85 cents back. Many Red states pay $1 and get more than $1.50 in return. Shouldn’t those Red states be able to pull themselves up by their boot straps and the Trump economic policies? That’s the blockade WDC needs to work on.
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@Bascom Hill If we "lose" the election this year while winning the popular vote--probably the most likely outcome--I fully expect this to be the next front in the Cold Civil War. Right now, we're subsidizing people who despise us, while the minority-elected politicians they send into office craft legislation to punish us.
The American Revolution itself started over less.
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We don’t need illegal immigration to sustain population growth or economic growth. Today, most immigrants visa are family-reunification visas. This encourages chain-migration from poor countries. It creates a non-diverse flow of immigrants who tend to lack the education and skills necessary to succeed in an economy in which low-skill jobs are disappearing. We can attract the sort of immigrants we need to fill hard-to-fill positions by eliminating country quotas and switching to merit-based immigration. This would produce a more diverse flow of immigrants equipped to succeed in the U.S. economy.
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@William Case - Thank you, William. As a practicing Immigration lawyer, it is heartening to know you are so completely aware of how most people come to the US.
If I hadn't ready your take on this, I'd have thought people were coming here on a myriad of other visas, that thousands of people were getting Green Cards through an I-140 process, that the concept of PERM was heavily embraced by employers and universities, and that our immigration courts were something more than your implication of mere way-stations for people taking unfair advantage of our system. In particular, thanks to your knowledgeable dissertation, I know understand all that H1B work being done by thousands of Immigration lawyers on behalf of thousands of employers is just a show. Know I understand: chain migration from poor countries involving family reunification visas is what's dominating immigration (you're right: no one should be in favor of families remaining together, of coming here from poor countries, of becoming successful here on their - from your perspective, inappropriate - arrival, inasmuch as pulling up the ladder from behind ought to be our national policy; how dastardly of my grandparents to have the affrontery to have actually been among those people whose children and grandchildren moved from poverty to becoming solid, contributing citizens who got educations, got jobs, fought in wars for us, and still do all those things).
Thank you again, William, for setting me straight.
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@William Case
Mr. Case --
There would be few people left to pick our crops, cook our foods or bus our tables without immigrants. These are jobs that most Americans won't take. After Katrina, Mexican day workers formed the bulk of those crews rebuilding the Gulf Coast.
Immigrants are pretty much the only people who believe in the American Dream anymore. Nobody I know does. Immigrants are willing to do whatever it takes to be American; they believe that with hard work and perseverance they will succeed. Many Americans born in this country don't even bother.
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@William Case Tell me why anyone would want to come here under these policies - when even your spouse isn't allowed to join you. These policies are monstrous and anti-American.
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Bernie isn't "pro immigration." As a pro-Labor, pro-Union social democrat he is against creating a two-tier society, where corporations exploit people here illegally and drive down wages and increase burdens on the working poor and those with few education credentials by flooding the market with cheap, captive, docile labor.
He is also, however, pro-humane treatment of vulnerable people who come to the border. He is not anti-immigrant in this sense. People do not need to be hunted, jailed and their children kept in cages, when more judges and a better system of adjudication would allow faster, better processing of claims.
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@Parapraxis An open border policy is exactly what corporate America wants. Do you think Tyson Foods is hiring American workers to slaughter CAFO-raised chickens that set sell for $6 at Wal-Mart? No, they have illegal immigrants who are paid in cash, get no benefits, and work for next to nothing. They last thing they want is to pay minimum wage and benefits to legal workers.
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These striking policy changes raise the question: shouldn’t immigration law be up to Congress?
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@Ron Bashford
It is - and the laws they created that are on the book contain the public charge provision.
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I do not understand, is the Wall being built yes or not? It was reported that the Democrats and later the courts had blocked the construction. In addition I have never seen a headline in the NYT saying Trump is building the Wall. Somebody, especially The NYT please care to explain?
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@KingDavid Geez, did you read the article?
It touches on this subject and the NYT addresses it in more detail in other recent articles as well.
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I find this statistic shocking. I suppose I’m naive. How is THIS not the headline of a front page NYT article? 2/3 of all new citizens needed some form of public assistance???
“Around two-thirds of the immigrants who obtained permanent legal status from 2012 to 2016 could be blocked from doing so under the new so-called public charge rule, which denies green cards to those who are likely to need public assistance, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute.”
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@Virginia
That’s not the headline because that’s not what is stated in this article. 2/3 of applicants will likely be denied because under the new criteria they will be found to be at risk of needing public assistance at some point, even though that’s just a guess from the immigration officers based on some arbitrary numbers.
I agree though that it would be worth having a journalist dig up the actual data to clarify. However, applying for a green card already requires showing proof of income from the applicant (if already in the US) or from a financial sponsor who becomes legally responsible for the public costs. The minimum allowable income (previously 125% above poverty line) is what is being increased by this policy change, and it seems much more discretionary (and potentially discriminatory)
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No, that doesn’t say anything about how much public assistance those people actually used.
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@Virginia this is why I support a complete overhaul of our immigration and to move to a point system. I want my children to have universal healthcare and I am pragmatic enough to know that we cannot have uneducated migration and healthcare. It’s not possible.
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“In an administration that’s been perceived to be haphazard, on immigration they’ve been extremely consistent and barreling forward.”
There is no secret to this consistent focus on immigration. The continued presence of Stephen Miller explains it. This administration has been a revolving door of personnel, with the notable exception of Mr. Miller. Clearly, severely restricting immigration is his life's work. The implications of this policy will eventually be felt, as more and more jobs at the low end of the wage scale go unfilled. The strategy isn't sustainable in the long-term, but I suppose it buys Mr. Miller and his fellow travelers some time.
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@Julie W. Wages will increase for blue collar work and citizens will take those jobs. A tight labor market is necessary to keep those wages increasing as they have been for lower income work. If we flood the market with unskilled, uneducated imported labor that will kill the wage gains.
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@Enough Humans The labor market is already tight, yet wages are barely budging. Even in a tight market, individual workers have virtually no bargaining power. Employers expect and have learned to live with high rates of turnover. They have structured jobs to be part-time so that they don't have to provide benefits. Most of the recent wage increase has occurred at the low end of the market, due largely to state-mandated increases in the minimum wage. There will always be work such as farm labor that will never be filled by American-born workers. The American population is aging. The shortage of native-born workers to fill many low-skilled positions will only get worse in the future.
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@Julie W. The farm worker argument is a red herring. Only 5% of illegal immigrants take those jobs. The other 95% are working construction, restaurant, warehousing, landscaping, and janitorial jobs. Citizens will take all those jobs especially if the wages rise. The U6 unemployment rate which covers people that have part time work and want full time work is the lowest it has ever been, 6.8% since they started measuring that statistic in 1993. It also covers people that want work but have given up looking. Wages have been increasing and they going going up at a faster rate for blue collar work than for white collar jobs. One more thing, when will people realize that the desire for continuous growth in population and GDP is annihilating the biosphere.
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Any reduction in immigration, which is driving ecologically untenable population growth in the U.S., is good news. However, what we really need is for Congress to pass laws that reduce immigration by 90%, mandate E-Verify for all employers, and eliminate guest worker programs. Building a wall along the border of an important strategic ally, and restricting the number of refugees (who are a low proportion of our immigrant population), are not going to reduce immigration very much.
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@James Bowen
"Any reduction in immigration, which is driving ecologically untenable population growth in the U.S."
So you are saying that if the same people stay in other countries, it is good for the environment. And if they come to the United States, it is bad for the environment.
That is a non sequitur. The impact on the environment is global, and knows no borders.
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@MidtownATL The impact on the environment most certainly knows borders and locales. Population growth and urban sprawl in Florida, for example, has a far bigger impact on the dwindling habitat of the Florida panther than population growth in Nigeria does. Whatever the population growth elsewhere, population growth in the American Southwest is going to take more out of the already overtaxed Colorado River basin. Also, take a look at photos of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic and tell me again that borders don't make a difference when it comes to environmental impact.
America's ecological health, while not unimpacted by what happens elsewhere, absolutely depends on our ability to stabilize our population. Stabilizing our population means reducing immigration, since U.S. native fertility has been sub-replacement since 1972.
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@James Bowen
In terms of environmental impact, I am most concerned about climate change. And you cannot argue that climate change respects borders.
If we Americans really want to do something about climate change, and the other environmental issues you rightly point out, then we need to quite consuming beyond our quota as humans.
Live in a smaller house. Where you can walk, bike, or take transit. Drive less.
And the way to stabilize population growth outside of the U.S. is to eradicate global poverty. Educate girls, and value them as humans. Eradicate preventable diseases. Then people will have fewer children everywhere.
Developed nations have fertility rates at or below replacement levels.
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As much as Trump is bombastic, I admit that in the Hispanic communities, his support (by way of anecdotal evidence) is growing, in no small part because of his immigration policies.
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That is not true. I am Hispanic too, and I can assure you the majority of Hispanics dislikes Trump. Now what's the lesson from these comments: Speak for yourself, not for others.
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I’m Hispanic and know a lot other Latinos who support Trump’s immigration policies. The difference between Latinos that support versus don’t is our own immigration story. If we come from families that had to wait through a lengthy and arduous process to legally immigrate, meaning we didn’t just show up to the border one day and in the moment proclaim asylum and demand entry or otherwise we’d sneak in, then it’s most likely that out of respect to our host county and its rule of laws, we believe others should also properly wait in line. The US needs immigration reform, but cutting in line simply because you want immediate access to better economic opportunities is unacceptable. The problem with most Democrats is they lump all Latinos into one demographic group and assume we’re all pro-illegal immigration or even pro-amnesty. That’s simply not true.
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@KingDavid You are violating your own rule by speaking for others. You claim the majority of Hispanics dislike Trump. Why is your opinion any more valid than the comment from Juan Martinez ?
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One Word: GOOD.
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@Ray
So you're going to cut your own lawn & prune your own shrubs now?
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What about Melania and her family? Here on chain migration. I say they should go.
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In addition, it appears that Melania lied at her initial entry. She was admitted on a tourist visa, but almost immediately began working illegally without having first been granted a change of status.
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@Larry thanks for the in-depth analysis.
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@Larry Are we considering retroactive review now? Under what concern specifically would you do that?
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“Data suggest that millions of people, including U.S. citizens, have already pulled out of safety net programs they’re legally entitled to, based on fear of the public charge rule — even though it doesn’t apply to them and never will,” said Doug Rand, a founder of Boundless Immigration, a technology company in Seattle that helps immigrants obtain green cards and citizenship.
Once again, we have hyperbole masquerading as news. One man's statement is quoted without the facts being checked.
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@Vivian facts get in the way of generating sympathy.
As much as I dislike Trump, these actions are clearly improving the lives of Americans: the economy is stronger, unemployment is down, crime is down and love for country is up.
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@No Crime inLos Angeles plummeted long before Trump became president. Interestingly, though, many more federal indictments were handed down to Trump associates than in any past presidency.
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Ha. Where is your evidence to show that drops in crime and unemployment have anything to do with legal immigration? Sound like prejudice pure and simple. We all love our country. But a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump.
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@No. Um, exactly - no. "The economy" is more than just the market - which is projected to fall because of global concerns, including Corona virus. Indicators point to a flattening trend at best, and a likely downturn. Unemployment? Yup, it's down, but more households than ever have multiple wage earners, with some of them working multiple jobs, thanks to still stagnated wages. So if that's "good", we've simply normalized a poor situation. And love of country? Some of us never stopped loving it, warts and all. If you mean the nativism sweeping the country, you can keep your xenophobic wistfulness for the 1850s to yourself, thanks.
There's a simple majority of Americans - amazingly marginalized by the disproportionate allocation of Electoral college electors - that don't share your sentiments.
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