Trump Immigration Policy

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Aug 2016

Most Americans have no idea how bad U.S. immigration law is.  Canadian ex-pat Mark Steyn has written often of disgraceful episodes of the capricious application of U.S. law.  The law is so bad, it amounts to the bureaucracy making it up as they go along.

Here is one particularly choice episode concerning a British woman named Deena Gilbey:

Her husband Paul was a trader with EuroBrokers on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center and that Tuesday morning he stayed behind to help evacuate people. He was a hero on a day when America sorely needed them, having been thoroughly let down by those to whom the defence of the nation was officially entrusted. Mr. Gilbey was a British subject on a long-term work visa that allowed his dependents to live in America but not to work. The Gilbeys bought a house in Chatham Township and had two children, born in New Jersey and thus U.S. citizens. All perfectly legal and valid.

But then came September 11th. And a few days afterwards Mrs. Gilbey received a form letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service informing her that, upon her husband's death, his visa had also expired and with it her right to remain in the country. She was now, they informed her, an illegal alien and liable to be "arrested and deported."

Think about that. On the morning of Wednesday, September 12th, some INS departmental head calls the staff into his office and says, "Wow, that was a wild ride yesterday. But the priority of the United States Government right now is to find out how many legally resident foreigners have been widowed and see how quickly we can traumatize them further."

“The point is, as I said to Sean, that US immigration has no qualms about deporting "anchor babies" who are the children of legal immigrants if it happens to suit their perverse priorities. All this talk about amending the Constitution and that could take ONE HUNDRED YEARS (said in scary Doctor Evil voice) is ridiculous. US judges dispose of minor children every day of the week: it's called "family court". The other day, in a custody dispute between a US mother and a German father resident in Monte Carlo, a New York judge ordered the kids - both US citizens - to be dispatched to live with dad in Monaco. When two illegal immigrants are deported back to Guatemala, their six-year-old kid does not have the right to decide he wants to remain in Cedar Rapids. The judge will order that he accompany mom and pop.”

With this as background, let’s turn to the immigration issue of Trump’s campaign.  Trump wants to deal with the 11 million illegal Hispanic immigrants living in the United States, and restore law and order in that sphere of American life.

First, Trump is going to stop the problem from getting worse by building a wall.  The wall will have some big, beautiful gates in it, to allow for immigration that is orderly.  Then, he has to deal with the 11 million illegals.

Amnesty is not possible.  That has been tried once, and failed.  In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed an immigration bill that granted amnesty to 3.5 million illegals then living in the U.S. in return for promises from the Democrat-controlled Congress for legislation to halt further illegal immigration.  Of course, the Democrats lied to Reagan, nothing was done, and now the problem is three times worse.

The remedy of forcing deportation of 11 million people is seen as either inhumane or physically impossible.  Let’s agree with those characterizations for a moment, and look at what can be done to eliminate the inhumanity and the extreme effort required to forcibly deport so many people.

The way to regularize the presence of 11 million people and uphold respect for the rule of law is to create an incentive for those 11 million to leave the country and then apply for regular entry, and landed immigrant status.  Trump and the Republican Congress have to amend U.S. immigration law to set up this special program.  People who have lived in America for, say, twenty years, and can prove it, should be allowed to cross the Mexico border, have a coffee in Tijuana, and then apply for landed immigrant status upon their return to the U.S.  For convenience, the legal paperwork for landed immigrant entry can be prepared before the immigrant departs the U.S.  They would have to stop at the border station and deal with immigration officials to be sure, but preventing re-entry altogether cannot be in the cards, or the incentive is lost.

Yes, that landed immigrant status is on the path to citizenship, but they start at the back of line like every new entrant.  It has to be this way, for if the plan is to fine and allow to them remain without a path to citizenship, then there is no incentive for the illegal to enter the program.  He isn’t going to be chucked out, he keeps his money, and he has no U.S. citizenship.  Just like he is living now, and the crisis is not resolved.

What cannot be part of the new immigration policy is to require the payment of fines and back taxes.  For the most part, illegal immigrants are poor.  They don’t have the tens of thousands of dollars that would be required to get their presence regularized under that sort of scheme.  The incentive to enter the program would not be there.  And unless the U.S. does create a deportation force, their status would remain quo and the immigration crisis remains.

A deportation force of some type will be required, because there are so many felons among the illegals, and they would not enter the program because they would not be allowed back.  The question is how big does it need to be.

The arrangement proposed here is a variation of the “touch-back” plan.  In my view, touch-back is the only workable solution that avoids the forced deportation of 11 million unwilling illegals, with all the dislocation, disruption, and the outcry of inhumanity that would ensue.  That said, a deportation force will be required because of the presence of felons, and because it usually requires both carrot and stick to get a donkey moving.

So, there we are.  Build a wall first.  Then work with Congress to develop a special program to deal with this crisis.  The plan has to ensure that the rule of law is upheld.  There will need to be stepped-up and vigorous deportation activities to incentivize self-deportation and return.

U.S. immigration law is pretty bad, and because it is so bad this crisis was allowed to develop.  The Democrats look upon the 11 million as potential Democrat votes, while the Chamber of Commerce Republicans look upon them as cheap labor.  That’s why the problem was allowed to fester.

But they are already in America, and the economic consequences are already fully in play.  If they were few in number, or did not have the political repercussions favorable to one party, they would have been deported as Deena Gilbey nearly was.

Yes, there is an element of racism here, and it is anti-white.  But this is the only way I see to resolving the crisis in a humane way without a whole lot of disruption.  (Besides, whites were stupid enough to let it happen, and so this is condign punishment for being stupid.) 

Then Congress has to get to work fixing the rest of U.S. immigration policy, and it can start by repealing the Act of 1965, sponsored by the notorious Ted Kennedy.

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