Sunday, January 28, 2018

Republicans Who Think Trump Has Gone Soft Have a Plan: Criminalize Dreamers, Slash Legal Immigration, and Invade Americans' Privacy

The White House outlined a proposal yesterday that would crack down on unauthorized immigrants and cut legal immigration in exchange for giving 1.5 million or so Dreamers—some of whom are beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—an eventual pathway to citizenship. It is a restrictionist effort masquerading as a fix. But for the nativists at the Center for Immigration Studies such as Mark Krikorian, it isn't mean enough. They are accusing the president of choking!
They much prefer Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte's Securing America's Future Act, a 414-page wish list of far-right demands with virtually no concessions on the other side. This bill, which has 77 cosponsors, has many similarities with the White House plan.
It would ban 38 percent of all legal immigrants coming to the country. In 2019 alone, it would exclude 423,000 legal immigrants—the largest single-year cut since the 1920s when Congress decided that Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Jews were destroying America.
By 2028, nearly half as many legal immigrants would be entering the United States as now, if Krikorian and his fellow congressional nativists have their way.

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