Trump's Cruel Assault on Legal Immigration

The new administration is seeking to gut much of the legal immigration system, which will do great harm to immigrants and natives alike.

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Most of the media coverage and public debate over Trump's new immigration policies focus on his efforts to ramp up mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. But it is also important to emphasize  how the new administration has sought to gut much of the legal immigration system. If they succeed, it is likely to cause great harm and injustice to both immigrants and US citizens. My Cato Institute colleague David Bier has a helpful summary of Trump's actions against legal migration so far:

- Suspending indefinitely all US refugee entries, canceling 10,000 previously scheduled flights, and stranding 22,000 refugees who were approved to travel. A report on a potential limited restart is due in 90 days (Apr. 20).

• Suspending all case processing for refugees, which means that no progress will be made toward restarting entries.
• Closing Safe Mobility Offices in Latin America that allowed some people to apply for lawful entry to the United States.
• Requiring refugees undergo "stringent identification verification beyond that required of any other alien seeking admission," which may invalidate all prior vetting approvals….

- Removing the ability to schedule appointments for lawful entry at the US-Mexico border using the CBP One phone app, which had permitted 1,450 people per day (529,250 per year) to enter the United States legally. About 270,000 people waiting for appointments are stranded in Mexico.

- Canceling 30,000 scheduled appointments for people stuck in Mexico. There is a lawsuit on behalf of one asylum seeker and her child who "depleted their life savings and survived kidnapping, robbery, and threats of sexual abuse" while waiting for an appointment….

Ending the parole sponsorship processes for new arrivals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Ukraine.

- Ending the family reunification parole programs for some Cuban, Guatemalan, Haitian, Colombian, and Salvadoran immigrant visa applicants who seek to reunite with their families when green cards are not immediately available under the caps.

- Ending the Central American Minors program, which allowed children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to reunite legally with parents in the United States.

- Allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to invalidate anyone's parole. Trump is reportedly going to strip all Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans of parole en masse.

- Rescinding the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) redesignation for 600,000 Venezuelans, including many who entered the country legally via the parole processes and CBP One. This means that their status will expire sooner than it would otherwise.

- Terminating TPS completely for 300,000 Venezuelans: These Venezuelans will lose their status in 60 days (April 1).

- Canceling visa interviews for hundreds of Colombians in response to their government's temporary refusal to accept deportations on military planes.

- Promising to quickly cancel student visas for and deport all "Hamas sympathizers," which some analysts interpret as a threat to anyone critical of Israel's government. It is possible this could affect future visa issuances.

- Denying birthright citizenship to American children born in the United States to mothers who are here illegally or in a temporary status, unless the father is a permanent resident or US citizen, starting no later than February 19, 2025. This has been temporarily blocked by a court.

Elsewhere, I have written about Trump's "invasion" executive order that relies on a dangerous legal theory to block nearly all legal migration pathways across the southern border.

In combination, this entails a massive gutting of legal migration. It will predictably consign many thousands of migrants and would-be migrants to a lifetime of poverty and oppression. Particularly egregious are the actions stripping legal status from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing a brutally oppressive socialist regime. Trump's actions are far from the first unjust immigration restrictions in American history. But never before has the US tried to deport so many people fleeing a regime we ourselves condemn as horrifically oppressive, after those immigrants had entered completely legally.

Trump's actions also include blocking the admission of 1700 previously vetted Afghan refugees, including some who had risked their lives supporting US forces in the Afghan war. This kind of betrayal is both wrong in itself, and likely to be damaging to national security, deterring potential future allies from working with the US to combat terrorism.

In addition to the harm inflicted on immigrants, these actions will also severely damage the US economy, as immigrants contribute disproportionately to entrepreneurship and innovation, and promote economic growth. Cutting immigration will also worsen the federal government's already dire fiscal situation, as most immigrants .are net contributors to the public fisc. And, obviously, making legal migration more difficult is a major factor in incentivizing more of the illegal kind, and causing disorder at the border.

Bier also notes additional actions against legal immigration, that are likely in the offing, including severely curbing visas for legal entry, and ideological litmus tests for immigrants, barring those who "bear hostile attitudes toward [US] citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles." If you are skeptical of government censorship in the domestic context, you should be equally so when it comes to migration. The government should not have the power to restrict freedom of movement based on its subjective assessment of what views qualify as "hostile" to US citizens, culture, or government.

Trump has proposed to make legal migration easier for one group: white Afrikaner South Africans, who are to be prioritized for refugee status.  I am all in favor of letting white South Africans immigrate freely. But the idea that they are somehow more threatened by oppression or more worthy of refugee status than, say, Cubans, Venezuelans, and Afghans, is ridiculous and perverse.

Bier concludes that Trump's efforts to throttle legal migration are likely to lead to "four years of indescribable lawlessness, waste, chaos, and economic uncertainty that will leave America smaller, poorer, and less free." I can't disagree.

 

Comments

[agarrett]

You say "Bier concludes that Trump's efforts to throttle legal migration are likely to lead to "four years of indescribable lawlessness, waste, chaos, and economic uncertainty that will leave America smaller, poorer, and less free." I can't disagree."

So, in four years, what conditions would you expect to apply that would verify this assertion? More to the point, what conditions, if they exist, would convince you that you were incorrect?

[Satchmo_Lives]

Ilya is an open borders expert. He has no moral obligation to lay out in legal terms his hysteria. He can't quite grasp that "legal" immigration is an entirely nebulous term that has wide-ranging definitions. Biden legalized millions by handing them a piece of paper and free cell phone because they promise to show up in seven years to their asylum plea.

Trump said "no more" so it is an assault on legal immigration.

[Roger S]

Somin is not an expert on anything. Almost everything he says is wrong. He is just a Marxist propagandist.

[Vryedni]

That you could label one of the most virulent anti-communists on this anti-communist site a Marxist calls into bright relief your anti-anti-Trump derangement.

[Roger S]

Calling Somin an anti-communist is like calling a Trotskyist an anti-communist.

[MollyGodiva]

Anyone want to explain that Trump has nothing against legal immigration and all immigrants have to do is follow the laws and come here legally?

[Brett Bellmore]

Say I have nothing against my bank making financially prudent loans. But the bank president went mad and started loaning money to random vagrants off the street.

When he's relieved of his job thanks to that, must his replacement refrain from cancelling the imprudent loans?

I am highly in favor of legal immigration, but I believe the government is morally obligated to pick who gets to immigrate based purely on maximizing the benefit to existing citizens.. Any benefit to the immigrants themselves is nothing but an incidental bonus.

So I am utterly unmoved by claims someone would benefit by immigrating here. About 7.8 billion people would! But I don't want the entire population of the Earth living in the US.

[Malika the Maiz]

“Any benefit to the immigrants themselves is nothing but an incidental bonus”

Seems contrary to our asylum laws.

[Brett Bellmore]

See that word "morally", up there? Spoiler: It's not a synonym for "legally".

[Malika the Maiz]

You don’t think there’s a no moral motive and basis behind asylum laws other than “maximizing benefit to existing citizens?”

[damikesc]

There is not.

Especially since, unless they are Mexican or Canadian, they had to forum shop for their asylum as is.

[Malika the Maiz]

You think a law that lets people in if the people are facing specific oppressions is not based on any moral motive or purpose other than maximizing benefits to existing citizens?

[Brett Bellmore]

Like I said, it's an agent/principal problem. Citizens are entitled to be charitable, the government is not, because citizens are charitable with their own resources, the government is charitable with the citizens' resources.

Charity is something you do with your own stuff, not somebody else's. And the government doesn't HAVE 'its own stuff.'

[Malika the Maiz]

Charity isn’t about maximizing benefit to oneself, is it?

[Brett Bellmore]

And, he totally ignores the point about it being an agent/principal problem. With the government only being an agent, not the principals, who are the citizenry.

It's not about the purpose of charity, it's about who is entitled to engage in it.

[Sarcastr0]

People ignore the point because that's not how government has ever been set up. Including in our republic.

Which you seemed to understand right up until Trump was elected.

[Lee Moore]

Aside from the point that you're entirely missing Brett's point - it kinda is about maximising benefit to yourself.

If you think you personally are going to be "better off" by donating to charity you'll do that, whereas if you think you're going to be "worse off" you won't.

The question is what do "better off" and "worse off" mean ? And it obviously doesn't mean materially better or worse off otherwise you'd never give your kids birthday presents.

So once you bundle in the intangibles, such as :

Your feeling of religious or moral obligation and the corresponding fear in failing at either of these
Your feeling of guilt or shame at your selfishness or materialism
Your feeling of self worth at your selflessness or lack of materialism
Your basking in kudos if the world sees you giving*

and so on till eventually you get to the dollars and cents....

.... if you give it's because you expect to finish up ahead under the aggregate of tangibles and intangibles.

* a very large proportion - though not all - of big ticket charitable giving is motivated by this one, as the good Lord happened to mention

[mike petrik]

I understand and respect your point of view; indeed it used to be mine in my more dogmatic youth. But I'm afraid it simply is not as axiomatic as you seem to think or wish. Our citizens exercise charity through intermediaries all the time, both through non-profits as well as government. There is simply no legal or constitutional encumbrance on Americans choosing to exercise their moral and charitable values through government. The best we can hope is that the normal political and legal processes yield reasonably prudent results, and when they don't those same processes offer options for correction and remediation.

[Lee Moore]

You're failing to spot the axiom.

Of course people exercise charity through intermediaries, and it remains just as charitable as if they did it directly.

But those who "exercise their ..... charitable values through government" aren't exercising charitable values. Charity is by defintion voluntary. Government is by definition compulsory. Entirely different sports. Even if the end result for the beneficiaries is similar.

[Sarcastr0]

government is morally obligated to pick who gets to immigrate based purely on maximizing the benefit to existing citizens

For a libertarian you trust the government to be good at some crazy stuff.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's a fundamental principal/agent issue, Sarcastr0: The citizenry are the principal, the government the agent.

Principals are entitled to engage in charity with their own assets.

Agents are not entitled to engage in charity with the principal's assets, unless directed to by the principal.

[Sarcastr0]

Lets assume there is no utility to asylum. Wrong for a number of reasons, but lets go along with that. Your comment is still terrible.

1. You have a theme these days where, you say because it's voted for it's moral and smart. Trump's opinion is all that matters these days.
That's not just wrong, it's an attempt to short-circuit discussion via an appeal to pure authoritarianism.
I remember not so long ago you talked about how Democracy was orthogonal to preserving freedom...what a turn.

2. You UTTERLY missed the point of my comment above. It was about how you want the impossible.
"pick who gets to immigrate based purely on maximizing the benefit to existing citizens" is HARD. Maybe impossible.
You suddenly think the government can do anything it sets it's mind to. Zooming past the liberals to some statist utopia.

3. Agents are not entitled to engage in charity with the principal's assets
An utterly incorrect way to see our republic from the founding era till today. Your newfound populism is a setup the founders spent a LOT of time worrying about and making sure wasn't America's setup, due to it's distributed powers. Yet again, you want something more authoritarian than we've ever been.

4. Welfare is indeed one of the responsibilities of government, so you're already proving too much.
If you want to stick to foreign policy, then you're doing that thing again where disagreeing with you isn't just wrong, it's illegitimate.
Just because YOU are a self-oriented asshole doesn't mean everyone's gotta go along. We get to be mad when Trump does immoral stuff in our name.

[Brett Bellmore]

"1. You have a theme these days where, you say because it's voted for it's moral and smart."

No, it's more a matter of because the people voted for it, they're entitled to get it regardless of whether it's moral or smart, so long as it's minimally constitutional. Again, agent vs principal. Doesn't matter whether the agent thinks what the principal wants is smart, the agent can either do it, or resign from being an agent.

"2. You UTTERLY missed the point of my comment above. It was about how you want the impossible.
"pick who gets to immigrate based purely on maximizing the benefit to existing citizens" is HARD. Maybe impossible."

Especially when you don't want to do it.

It's not humanly possible to do something like that to perfection, it is quite possible to strive to do it, and approximate it better than you will if you're deliberately trying to do something else.

"3. Agents are not entitled to engage in charity with the principal's assets
An utterly incorrect way to see our republic from the founding era till today."

We have a fundamentally incompatible view of the relationship between citizen and government. That much is obvious.

"4. Welfare is indeed one of the responsibilities of government, so you're already proving too much."

Not the welfare of non-citizens!

[Mr. Bumble]

"...is HARD. Maybe impossible."
"Especially when you don't want to do it."
Which is the left's position on immigration, the tax code and spending among others.

[Sarcastr0]

Bad faith bad faith bad faith.

Bare accusations to short circuit conversation are boring.

[Sarcastr0]

because the people voted for it, they're entitled to get it regardless of whether it's moral or smart
So in response to a post calling something cruel, your response is 'hey, it's legal!'
You are making a very revealing category error.

Especially when you don't want to do it.
Telepathy again. I made an argument. Your response is to say I'm lying to make it and say nothing further.
Again, a telling lack of ability to engage.
Anticipating future labor needs of our society AND the future potential of an individual is extremely hard.
And yet you have faith the government can do it, if only they wanted to.
Again and again your faith in government outstrips anyone else's here.

We have a fundamentally incompatible view of the relationship between citizen and government
I have the founders, enlightenment philosophy, and our current civics on my side. The government is not a mere agent of the people. Start with Hobbes, and work your way forwards.

Not the welfare of non-citizens!
Answered directly below. This is a moral blindspot YOU have. You don't get to insist everyone else share your nativism.
And to anticipate your rejoinder, it isn't a binary, it's a continuum - a quality of mercy about the rest of the world doesn't require utterly deprioritizing your own people. We've managed to do both for a long time and America's done quite well for itself during.

[Brett Bellmore]

"So in response to a post calling something cruel,"

No, my response to saying that something is cruel, is to point out that it isn't cruel when my bank doesn't empty my account to give to charity.

Likewise, it isn't cruel when the government focuses solely on benefiting citizens.

YOU are the one with the moral blind spot. You can't accept that government and citizens are differently situated when it comes to outward directed charity.

[Sarcastr0]

it isn't cruel when my bank doesn't empty my account to give to charity.
IOW it isn't cruel if you ignore everything but yourself.

This is an awful way to be.

You can't accept that government and citizens are differently situated when it comes to outward directed charity.
1. It's not charity, as I said at the very top of my post.

2. Even assuming this, you have not established this, just invoked a principle you only recently started bringing up, and which you believe so axiomatically you get mad when people don't already agree with you about it.

[Lee Moore]

Brett : it isn't cruel when my bank doesn't empty my account to give to charity.

Sarcastro : IOW it isn't cruel if you ignore everything but yourself.
This is an awful way to be.

Er, wow !

Your mask must be in the laundry.

[bernard11]

When he's relieved of his job thanks to that, must his replacement refrain from cancelling the imprudent loans?

Well, that depends on the loan contract, doesn't it?

And who is going to decide that some legal immigrants are "imprudent?" You? Trump? No thanks. You're both immigrant haters, your standard disclaimer notwithstanding, and both of your opinions are worthless.

[Commenter_XY]

Elections have consequences. So yes, POTUS Trump and his team get to decide who is imprudent. Keep hate alive, though; and your eyes closed.

[Drewski]

"I am highly in favor of legal immigration, but I believe the government is morally obligated to pick who gets to immigrate based purely on maximizing the benefit to existing citizens."

Well, that's just because you're a psychopath who doesn't understand, and can never understand, humanitarian concerns.

[Frank Drackman]

Fuck humanitarian concerns, do I need to draw you one of those Diaphragms for Gaza?

[Commenter_XY]

This is exactly correct.

...the government is morally obligated to pick who gets to immigrate [into America] based purely on maximizing the benefit to existing citizens...

[David Nieporent]

I believe the government is morally obligated to pick who gets to immigrate based purely on maximizing the benefit to existing citizens.

Once again, Brett comes out in favor of centralized government planning of the economy.

[Roger S]

Trump 45 reduced both legal and illegal immigration. He now has a mandate for greater reductions.

There are some who want to solve illegal immigration by making them all legal. That is not Trump's position.

[Satchmo_Lives]

Along Brent's line of thought, Biden waved a magic wand and allowed millions to enter the country as "legal" when the prior said they have no legal standing to enter.

People like you and Ilya think Trump breaking Biden's magic wand means he hated illegal immigration.

Not very convincing

Why the hell do you think Biden was touting a decrease in illegal border crossings two years age while millions were pouring in? He simply changed the rules of what an illegal border crosser was.

[Bruce Hayden]

Trump has been married to two (legal) immigrants. The first, Ivana, was born in (the former) Czechoslovakia, later acquired Canadian citizenship, before meeting and marrying Trump. Melania was the first naturalized First Lady. She was born in the (former) Yugoslavia. Marla Maples, his other wife, was US born.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

For those who can't read the paywalled Washington Post article entitled "Afghan refugees feel abandoned after Trump executive order halts flights."

We have a moral duty here:

Tens of thousands of men and women who had worked for the U.S. military, American diplomats or government-funded organizations were left behind.

Specific details:

president of AfghanEvac, a volunteer organization formed during the U.S. withdrawal that has helped Afghans flee the country. About 1,700 people were expected to be moved out of Afghanistan over the next four months, he added.

“These are folks who for one reason or another are at risk because of their association with the United States — and they’re hiding because they’re scared,” VanDiver said. They include family members of Afghans serving in the U.S. military, as well as women and minorities who fear persecution under the Taliban.

One victim:

“This is so disheartening,” said Spesali Zazai, a 52-year-old Afghan woman. She has been stuck in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, for almost three years, waiting for resettlement in the United States with three of her daughters. Poland, another NATO member, took in her fourth daughter.

“Going back is not an option,” she said. “For women, there’s nothing left to live for in Afghanistan.”

A case-by-case exemption is left open but it's unclear who would qualify. It's not unreasonable to doubt this small opening will be applied adequately by this administration.

This is yet another case of the problems with blunderbuss policy on the fly, even to the degree you support it in part.

See also, a blanket pardon/commutation of all 1/6 people even those who attacked police officers, etc.

Finale:

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned that a sustained halt to U.S. assistance would have severe ripple effects in Afghanistan, worsening the country’s economic crisis and probably forcing aid groups to lay off female workers.

“Women and girls in Afghanistan would further suffer, and lives will be lost,” he said.

As noted by the OP, this is just one of the at-risk people -- not the stereotypes often referenced using inhumane language -- involved here. Venezuela (particularly ironic given the disdain "socialist" and "leftist" is tossed around) is but one other case.

Granted the OP and others have a more open-ended idea about who should enter the "land of the free" including into the shores which Lady Liberty oversees. Nonetheless, the scope of the problem here goes far beyond that more libertarian viewpoint.

[Roger S]

If conditions are bad in Afghanistan, then we should let the Afghans stay there and do something about it.

[Malika the Maiz]

Even the ones who risked their (and their families) lives to help us fight the Taliban?

[Roger S]

Those people do not exist. It is all a scam.

[Frank Drackman]

They exist, and they'd just as soon sell us out to the Ham-Ass if it was in their favor.

[Malika the Maiz]

You’re crazy/stupid.

[David Nieporent]

You omit the most prominent explanation: he's evil.

[MollyGodiva]

Go tell any US service member who was in Afghanistan it is all a scam. I dare you.

[Satchmo_Lives]

Even if true, Biden had three and half years get the job done after the disaster of his withdrawal. But it is now Trump's fault they can't get out. Got it.

[Malika the Maiz]

Biden made efforts to get and let them get here, Trump wants to reverse them, so yeah, the latter would be Trump’s fault.

[bernard11]

Fuck you.

[Frank Drackman]

Well Fuck YOU too, effective put down, isn't it?

[ReaderY]

You think Trump gives a shit about morality? Duty? Totally foreign concepts to this country as he envisions it. Very leftish, pinkoish concepts he wants nothing to do with. This country is all about looking out for #1.

You seriously think trying to shake down Denmark for Greenland has anything to do with morality or duty?

[Satchmo_Lives]

The better question is why you think acquiring Greenland should be a moral question or some prerequisite for showing cognizance of duty.

Not everything is moral question, cupcake. Acquiring Greenland embodies logical self-defense parameters. I don't see a moral question unless we invade and take by force resulting in casualties.

I guess you think it is a moral question. More power to ya.

[ReaderY]

Easy. Anybody who has the slightest moral sense would recognize that turning on a amall country one has recognized as an ally for decades and whose territory we have solemnly promised to protect and shaking it down and demanding provinces from it and threatening it if it doesnmt give us what we want like an enemy bully stinks morally every bit as strongly as anybody with a the slightest sense of smell would be able to recognize that the crematoria of Auschwitz of Dachau stink physically.

Only people with no moral sense whatsoever would fail to perceive it as presenting a strong and obvious moral question. Only a complete sociopath would think otherwise.

And as a practical matter, perhaps turning on our former allies, demanding territory and tribute from them, and turning them into enemies that we prey on and who raise armies and seek new allies to defend themselves against us may improve our leadership’s narcissistic sense of personal grandiosity at having an empire and conquering or shaking down small countries for territory. But doesn’t improve our physical security in the slightest. It endangers it. As a logical matter, the fewer friends and more enemies we have, the less secure we are.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

It is a moral question because there are about 57,000 native Greenlanders, and they determine the question, not King Donald Trump. Colonialism is immoral. I hope you agree with that, but I wouldn't be surprised if you don't.

[Roger S]

No, the Greenlanders cannot cope with managing Greenland. Neither can Denmark. Nobody cares what those 57,000 people think. They only even occupy 0.000001% of the land, and they cannot even control that. Everyone should just admit what will inevitably happen.

[Social Justice is neither]

Where was all this concern for this moral obligation while Biden was keeping them out? Sorry, I can't give a shit about your crocodile tears and selective principles and morals.

[Malika the Maiz]

“Operation Allies Refuge was an evacuation effort carried out by the United States during the 2021 Taliban offensive. It took place in the final weeks of the War in Afghanistan and saw the airlifting of certain at-risk Afghan civilians (particularly coalition-allied interpreters), employees of the American embassy in Kabul, and other prospective applicants for the U.S. Special Immigrant Visa”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Allies_Refuge

[Michael P]

That was for six weeks, 3.5 years ago. It's telling that you and Gaslight0 both think that justifies Somin's hypocrisy on the topic.

[Malika the Maiz]

You can’t (or used to couldn’t) put more than two links in a post or I would also have put https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/afghans-who-recently-arrived-in-u-s-get-temporary-legal-status-from-biden-administration

[Malika the Maiz]

Also these:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/special-immg-visa-afghans-employed-us-gov/afghan-siv-references.html#:~:text=This%20law%2C%20signed%20on%20March,program%20through%20December%2031%2C%202025.&text=This%20law%2C%20signed%20on%20December,program%20through%20December%2031%2C%202024.

So, lets see what Mikie switches too now.

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.dhs.gov/archive/operation-allies-welcome

You still haven't addressed the substance, deflecting to yelling wrong things about Biden.

[Sarcastr0]

Beyond the fact that as Malika noted below you're ignorance betrayed you, even if it hadn't you never got at the actual issue, just attacked the poster.

Kinda telling of where your principles lie.

[Satchmo_Lives]

You do know Biden had three and half years to do something about it, right?

He let millions through our southern border in four years, but he couldn't extricate a few dozen thousand after his withdrawal screw-up?

Must be Trump's fault.

[hobie]

Afgazastan: Two cease fires and withdrawals negotiated by Trump end in humiliation when the terrorists get right back in charge. Parading hostages around like animals. Is all this Trump's fault? I don't know, but it appears so

[damikesc]

Did we leave when Trump agreed to leave? No.

Did Trump tell Biden to evacuate the military air base FIRST and not tell anybody? Nope.

This is a classic Biden fuckup. One of his near infinite.

[hobie]

Biden pulled the trigger, yes. I doubt he's a tactician though. Whoever is in charge of coordinating the operation (most likely the military) is the culprit.

But Gaza is a disaster as well. You have your boot on their necks then withdraw and hand everything right back to the terrorists. Netanhayu said at the beginning of the conflict the goal was to eradicate Hamas so it couldn't reconstitute and fire missiles again. What in the absolute fuck happened to that?

[Mr. Bumble]

"...(most likely the military) is the culprit."
And according to Milley Vanilly they told him not to proceed as he did.

[hobie]

I think we should try and blame Biden for the Gaza withdrawal. There must be a way

[Satchmo_Lives]

I think we should blame Trump for pulling out in the dead of night, leaving billions in military hardware, not telling our allies, stranding tens of thousands of Afghans, British, French et al, and Americans who aided in our cause while not getting them out for over three and half years.

Sounds reasonable.

[Dr. Ed 2]

American feminists caused this.

[Bob from Ohio]

"were left behind" by which president?

[Careless]

I see we're upset about the CBP app being killed off. Lol.

[DWB]

Then perhaps you shouldn't have abused the system and American's good will????

[Roger S]

We will know that the policies might be cruel when people stop coming here.

[Sarcastr0]

Who is the 'you' in this situation?

[Satchmo_Lives]

I am smart enough to realize he is talking about the type of immigrants to which Ilya is referring.

I figured you, sacstro, to be at least as intelligent. I apologize for my overestimation.

Of course you could just be playing dumb. I believe you do so often so you can subtly be a grammar Nazi.

[Magister]

It's kind of funny to see Sarcastr0 called a grammar Nazi, subtle or otherwise, given the frequency of typos, misspellings and grammatical errors in his comments. (Although Sarcastr0 is doing really well so far here, except for "you're" instead of "your".)

[Frank Drackman]

OK, I've got a BS in Poultry Science, an M.D. and skillfully administer highly potent Anesthetic gases and stick needles in peoples spines,
But Engrish is my 2d language, and man, is it a fucked up one, That whole "Your/You're" "Who/Whom" Theres "Wound" like when somebody gets shot, and "Wound" like you used to do with a wrist watch, German has these nice little dots they put over vowels to tell you how to pronounce them, and oh yeah, English vowels? what a joke, it's like someone from Baw-ston and Charleston are speaking 2 different languages. OK, German does have hundreds of different endings for adjectives and nouns, , Mein, Meiner/Meinem/Meinen/Meines but you can just sort of mumble and nobody knows which one you used.

Frank

[ReaderY]

White Africaaner South Africans are exactly the kind of people Trump wants in this country, good quality white people, not loser/shithole “lesser breeds without the law.”

I think immigration preferences based on the kind of people our government wants to have here, whatever their policy merits, are legal, and Congress’ decision to abdicate its authority and delegate such decisions to the President are also legal. But Professor Somin is also absolutely entitled to call a spade a spade and call racist policies racist.

I’m surprised he hasn’t. Why not use your best argument?

I understand Trump and his followers are basically proud of it, so I’m not saying this argument will persuade anyone in the current administration.

[Milhouse]

The "lesser breeds without the law" were the Germans. It had nothing to do with skin color.

[Lee Moore]

White Africaaner South Africans are exactly the kind of people Trump wants in this country

Likely Republican voters.

Turnabout is fair play, eh ?

[шинка]

When you say "legal immigration system" are you referring to the swaptactical bureaucracy we have in place today? Or some other ethical and expedited system?

Waiting here with popcorn and Vegas stubs.

[Kleppe]

I voted for this.

[Sarcastr0]

Well, aren't you a moral horrorshow.

[Satchmo_Lives]

Not voting for open bordars makes you morally corrupt. Good to know.

[Michael P]

Gaslight0 firmly opposes the United States and recognizes the rule of law as evil. That's why he thinks support for these policies represent a "moral horrorshow" -- he's afraid of people with real morals.

[Sarcastr0]

Gaslight0 firmly opposes the United States and recognizes the rule of law as evil

WOWZERS

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Go gadget, go!

[Frank Drackman]

Says the guy to whom millions of dead unborn babies are "Women's Health"

[Frank Drackman]

So did the peoples in every "Swing State" (Remember how Kamala thought she could carry Florida? lost by over a million votes) Every Texas county along the Rio Grande went red for the first time since Reconstruction.

[Malika the Maiz]

This is the same Trump that wants Egypt and Jordan to take in hundreds of thousands of migrants from Gaza?

[Lee Moore]

Gaza is 0 miles from Egypt and about 50 mies from Jordan. People from Gaza speak the same language as is spoken in Egypt and Jordan, and are overwhelmingly of the same religion.

The people crowding in Mexico trying to get into the United States are economic migrants.

[bernard11]

I don't think their motives can be reduced to only economic ones, but that surely plays a big part.

But don't we want ambitious, risk-taking people, even if they are not electrical engineers?

But even if you think immigration is a major problem, the immigrants should be regarded as human beings, not vermin, and treated accordingly, and not made the subject of all sorts of lies and insults. (Note. I'm not accusing you of this, just the Trumpists and all the moral cretins, many on this site, who cheer this
disgusting behavior on.)

It is my firm belief that thirty or fifty years from now this whole business will be regarded as a completely disgraceful, shameful, episode in our country's history.

[Satchmo_Lives]

Sure. When we see million of military-aged men, many with gang tattoos, we should accept their word they are fleeing persecution.

I love how you think denying entry or shipping out law breakers is a moral no-no. Funny how I, and a majority of Americans. don't agree with your moral imperatives.

Morality is a losing argument in America since Clinton. Good luck resurrecting a moral minority populous.

[Lee Moore]

the immigrants should be regarded as human beings, not vermin

Of course. They should just carry on being human beings somewhere else.

We have a system for granting visas to economic migrants. It has a number of tiresome and longwinded hoops to leap through. I know this because Mrs Moore leapt through them, long ago. Amongst the most vehement "anti-immigrant" folk I know, are actual legal immigrants who went to the trouble of leapng through the hoops, and waiting with baited breath to see if they would be accepted .... and now watch an uncontrolled flood of fake "asylum seekers" jumping the queue.

Simply because the Democratic Party thinks abandoning immigration control is its electoral interests. Why should Trump continue to play that game ? He's simply turning off the faucets that the Democrats opened full blast. It's called a change of policy, resulting from a change of government.

I do not doubt that there are, in the world, plenty of people who could justly be called genuine asylum seekers. It's just that none of them are from Mexico or Canada. They have all passed through somewhere they could live safely, to arrive at the US border.

Maybe in law they remain valid "asylum seekers" after they leave a safe refuge and carry on to other greener pastures like the US. But that law is (a) an ass and (b) completely irrelevant to the moral argument that Somin and Malika are trying to sell - that it is wicked to deny them entry because they are oppressed.

But they're not. They had already escaped from oppression long before they got to our borders.

[Sarcastr0]

Simply because the Democratic Party thinks abandoning immigration control is its electoral interests. Why should Trump continue to play that game?

The need to tell yourselves lies to stay angry enough to endorse what's happening.

Not what Dems are doing
Not their motives
Not Trump's motives

[Lee Moore]

🙂

Right back atcha

Don’t be dying on that hill. Even loyal Democrats will be bayoneting you.

[Commenter_XY]

You don't understand....for Sarcastr0, it is Different!

[Malika the Maiz]

I’m simply talking about Afghan refugees, but I get unnuanced lumping is what your screed is about.

[bernard11]

Lee,

I understand we disagree about immigration in general. I was not intending to debate the matter, but to complain about language, attitudes, false accusations, and so on directed at immigrants by so many.

To me they signify not policy concerns but bigotry.

[Lee Moore]

Fairy nuff

[Dr. Ed 2]

They ARE vermin, and if not stopped will be viewed the same way that Roman history views the Vandals.

[David Nieporent]

They ARE vermin,

Dr. Ed going full Nazi.

[Josh R]

Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Ukrainians are not economic migrants. The only political refugees Trump wants are the Afrikaners. Any guess why?

[Satchmo_Lives]

You don't know why they fleeing anymore than I do, except Ukraine. Maybe they aren't economic refugees directly, but fleeing a country because an immigrant doesn't like the government that ran the economy into the ground is pretty damn close and isn't a valid reason for asylum.

What percentage of the 10-12 million Biden let in do you think have valid claims of asylum of persecution based on race, gender, religion, or political ideology?

[Michael P]

Have the CNVH or Ukrainian governments passed laws dispossessing large classes of people of their real property and been unable or unwilling to protect them from race-based violence?

Afrikaners have a very good case for refuge status under the original meaning of the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Maybe Ukrainians do as well. Central Americans, South Americans and Cuban don't.

[Malika the Maiz]

Yeah one thing Communist governments like Venezuela and Cuban government hasn’t done is passed laws dispossessing large classes of people of their real property!

[David Nieporent]

Except for the Ukrainians — for whom the Russian government is the malefactor — yes. Duh.

[Malika the Maiz]

“are overwhelmingly of the same religion.”

Going to start going on about Roman popery?

[Malika the Maiz]

And Mexico is 0 miles from the US…

[damikesc]

Do you know how few Mexicans are seeking asylum?

[Malika the Maiz]

I know they make up the largest country of origin for illegal migrants. I also know this conversation isn’t limited to asylum seekers.

[Frank Drackman]

its more like 2 million, or 2000 Thousand, and the fact that no A-rab country wants 2 million Terrorists shouldn't be surprising.

[David Nieporent]

No. It's the same Trump who wants to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and force the inhabitants into Egypt and Jordan.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ilya, NO MAS -- "cruelty" would be to simply shoot them.

[Frank Drackman]

Haitians really do eat Cats, they have a whole holiday where "Cat" is the traditional meal, December 24, "Reveyon", it's sort of like Hannukah, except instead of 8 crazy nights, it's one day where you eat a Cat.

[Michael P]

This seems to be based entirely on https://www.haitianreport.com/2019/03/does-haitian-eat-cats.html . That site has a grand total of nine stories on its front page, including "How a nasty fart under the sheet almost destroys this Haitian family" and, dated December 2022, "Here are the 10 main problems of Haiti in 2025". If it said the sun will rise in the east tomorrow, I would want a second source.

[Brett Bellmore]

Now, on terminating TPS: Hey, Somin, here's a flash quiz:

What does the "T" in "TPS" stand for?

Anyone got a clue? I think it's something relevant to Trump's action.

[Josh R]

The status is supposed to be revoked when the reason for giving it no longer applies. Past example include Rwanda and Kosovo. Have things changed in Haiti, Cuba, Afghanistan, Venezuela or Ukraine to justify revoking the status?

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't think Ilya gets to decide that.

[Josh R]

SFW. Somin isn't the issue. The issue us whether Trump is justified in ending the status for those countries.

[SRG2]

"Trump's racism exposed, racist Trump supporters unhappy"

[David Nieporent]

…that there isn't more of it.

[mikeybates]

Prof. Somin's two posts on immigration here illustrate why a government might want to limit legal immigration. If you grant citizenship to anyone who comes here and has a child, you give any person on the planet (who may or may not have come here legally and may or may not become a citizen) the authority to grant citizenship by having a child. Any government would want to limit the number of people to whom it grants this power. This is why very few modern countries have birthright citizenship.

For a country like the United States that is apparently stuck with this policy, the law must change the incentives. Because birthright citizenship creates a massive incentive for people to come here to have children, the government must create massive disincentives through aggressive enforcement of immigration laws and the introduction of further immigration controls. (This means, for example, ensuring that the illegal immigrant parents of children born here are not granted lawful status and do not become citizens.) An entirely reasonable response to regrettable situation.

[bernard11]

Mikey,

Birthright citizenship does not make the parent a citizen, only the newborn child.

[John Rohan]

Your point?

It's still a major incentive to get US citizenship for the child. It allows the family to collect welfare benefits on behalf of the child, and creates an anchor, making it more complicated to deport them. Then when the kid is 18, he/she can sponsor the rest of the family to get legal residency and eventually citizenship.

[David Nieporent]

Then when the kid is 18, he/she can sponsor the rest of the family to get legal residency and eventually citizenship.

Incorrect, in every respect. Perhaps the reason so many people are outraged is that they don't know what the law is, and mistakenly think it's far more generous than it is.

1) One must be 21, not 18, to sponsor a family member.
2) Only parents, unmarried minor children, and spouses can be immediately sponsored, not "the rest of the family." (Siblings and adult and/or married children can also be sponsored but must get in a long line.)
3) Unless you're talking about the hypothetical in which the parents come here, give birth (to a child who is therefore a U.S. citizen) and then leave the country right away, one cannot sponsor them. People illegally in the country can't be sponsored here; they must leave the U.S. and then the child can petition for them. But if they lived here illegally for more than 6 months, they are barred for 3 years. If they lived here illegally for more than a year, they are barred for 10 years. (And all of that assumes they didn't get arrested or ordered removed at any point in the intervening 21 years.)

[BillyG]

See headline calling Trump "cruel". That article was written by Somin wasn't it. Checks, yep.

It's easy to spot Somin's propaganda. No actual legal or reasoned take, just "Trump Mean".

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

No attempt to engage with the argument laid out in the post, just "Somin wrong." Lame.

[Nyarlathotep]

It's because Somin has been posting open borders garbage for literally years and people here are tired of it

[John Rohan]

It will predictably consign many thousands of migrants and would-be migrants to a lifetime of poverty and oppression.

And there only hope of escaping that poverty is to live in the USA?

There's a subtle racism here, as if Latin Americans or others are incapable of building prosperous societies. What happens then when the US is majority Latin American?

[Bob from Ohio]

Trump and his people have been busy executing the mandate the people gave him. Good Trump!

[Roger S]

Yes. All those who have been crying Democracy for four years should be cheering.

Huge majorities favor reducing immigration, and have for a long time.

[David Nieporent]

The small minority of the American population who voted for him (roughly 25% of U.S. citizens) gave him a massive mandate! (Even if one limits the denominator to people who actually voted, he got <50% of the vote. That's like an anti-mandate!)

[Nyarlathotep]

The only immigration policy Ilya Somin would ever be happy with is complete open borders and automatic citizenship for anyone with a pulse, as well as lifetime government benefits.

Dude sucks.

[Ama Valde Intellectum]

Cruel to you because you bought Biden's lie about what his faith required hlm to do. But you are as guiltty for not checking . you would have seen what a fool he was

CCC 2241 states that while nations should welcome foreigners "to the extent they are able," "political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions." Additionally, immigrants must "obey its laws and assist in carrying civic burdens."

CCC 1897-1910 affirms that the state exists to serve the common good and must enact laws that secure justice, peace, and the well-being of its people. Unchecked immigration policies that enable crime, drug smuggling, and human trafficking undermine this purpose.

CCC 1909 states that "the common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order." Without border enforcement, there is no just order—only chaos and suffering.

CCC 2411 affirms that justice in social and economic matters requires respecting rightful ownership and distribution of goods. It is not just to siphon resources from citizens in favor of an unrestricted influx of migrants, especially when doing so fosters human exploitation.