Earlier this week, the Trump administration received a huge green light on its immigration crackdown initiatives. Essentially, the Supreme Court will allow the President to enforce a new policy that will impose difficulties on low-income immigrants seeking green cards or visas.
At first, this immigration crackdown reeks of classism. According to Yahoo News reporter Caitlin Dickson:
The administration’s new, expanded “public charge” rule, which makes it easier for officials to bar immigrants who use, or are deemed likely to use, non-cash government benefits such as Medicaid or food stamps, is one of the most consequential policy changes by the Trump administration to date in its efforts to curtail legal immigration. (Under previous practice, the public charge rule was only applied to immigrants who were considered likely to receive cash welfare payments.)
However, in another angle, Trump’s immigration crackdown makes perfect sense. Currently, the country is slowly coming to grips with a widening wealth gap crisis. With fewer substantive opportunities and relatively stagnant wages, this dynamic has gutted the middle class.
Moreover, homelessness has exploded in the U.S., and the problem is most prevalent in wealthy states like New York and California. The former has 46.4 homeless persons per 10,000 residents, while the latter has 38.3 homeless persons per 10,000 residents.
In other words, we have our own “domestic immigration” problem. We’re not in a position to help the international community’s poverty crises. Yet the persistent narrative is that President Trump is unreasonably cold and racist. Why?
Irrationality Has Clouded the Immigration Crackdown
One of the most oft-cited mantras – even among Republicans – is that illegal immigration is wrong. If people want to come into this country, they should do so through legal channels.
But at what point do we say that enough is enough with legal immigration? One of the oddities of U.S. immigration policy – and that of the west – is the assumption of acceptance. As the old saying goes, we’re a nation of immigrants. Therefore, we should continue accepting more and more immigrants.
This of course is a logical fallacy: just because some dynamic existed in the past does not mean it should apply in modernity. Otherwise, the government would have the right to stop allowing women and minorities to vote. Obviously, such a measure would be outrageous.
in the same spirit, we need to look at our immigration policy as it relates today. Frankly, we have more than enough people to run our economy. Accepting more immigrants will only flood our social services network, hurting both native-born citizens and ironically, other immigrants.
I may not always agree with our President. But I’m grateful that with the immigration crackdown, he has the guts to cut through the political correctness BS.