Aging Unskilled Man Only Wants Young, Educated, Wealthy Immigrants In His Failing Country

Trump's latest attempt to solve immigration by making no one want to come here.

Donald Trump unveiled his new policy for legal immigrants today. We know that Trump plans to stop illegal immigrants with a wall that will someday become the backdrop for a famous “tear down this wall” speech. But most immigrants are here legally and, well, we can’t have that. Sure, restricting access to legal immigration will only create additional motivation for undocumented migration, but we’ll have that 2,000 mile wall built in no time… and since only skilled immigrants attempt to cross over the whiter Northern border, it’ll all work out. Bigly.

Flanked by Senators Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas, codename: The next problem) and David Perdue (R-Georgia, except Atlanta), Trump unveiled a plan to reduce legal immigration by 41% in its first year, and 50% over the next ten years.

Trump wants to limit immigration to skilled workers, and has devised as “skill point system” to determine who can get into the country on this round of American Survivor:

  • Education
  • English speaking ability
  • High-paying job offers
  • Age
  • Record of achievement
  • Entrepreneurial initiative

You’ll notice that the list doubles as a list of “things Trump thinks he is but really isn’t.”

It’s also a list of things that a person from Western Europe or Canada is going to be most likely to show, but things that a person from the developing world is going to have a hard time illustrating to Trump’s satisfaction. But, you know, that’s the point, isn’t it.

While the skill point system will certainly stop some legal immigration, most of the human suffering will be limited to people who are here because they have family here. From the New York Times:

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Under the current system, most legal immigrants are admitted to the United States based on family ties. American citizens can sponsor spouses, parents and minor children for visas that are not subject to any numerical caps, while siblings and adult children get preferences for a limited number of visas available to them. Legal permanent residents holding green cards can also sponsor spouses and children.

In 2014, 64 percent of more than one million immigrants admitted with legal residency were immediate relatives of American citizens or sponsored by family members. Just 15 percent entered on the basis of employment-based preferences, according to the Migration Policy Institute, an independent research organization.

Trump’s plan would limit immigration to spouses (thanks, Melania?) and young children, but exclude older children and siblings. The Trump family adage “don’t try to establish your adult daughter in America unless you are willing to marry her,” seems applicable here.

Noted liberal and open-borders advocate, Lindsey Graham (R-Old School), criticized the plan:

But Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, criticized the measure, noting that agriculture is his state’s No. 1 industry and tourism is No. 2. “If this proposal were to become law, it would be devastating to our state’s economy, which relies on this immigrant work force,” he said.

“Hotels, restaurants, golf courses and farmers,” he added, “will tell you this proposal to cut legal immigration in half would put their business in peril.”

To be honest, of the Trump things I need to be outraged about, this gets a low score. This just makes me vomit in my mouth, not light myself on fire.

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Because Lindsey Graham is right [*pukes*]. The effects of this would be so obviously disastrous to the American economy, I can only assume that the next president reverses course on day one. Unless the next president is Tom Cotton, at which point we’ll be so well ensconced in our post-apocalyptic dystopia that nobody will want to come here anyway.

White House Xenophobia Czar Stephen Miller actually directly addressed this country’s commitment to the whole “give me your tired, your poor” thing and, I s**t you not, DISTANCED the White House from such language. From the HuffPost:

“I don’t want to get off into a whole thing about history here, but the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty and lighting in the world; it’s a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you’re referring to was added later. It’s not actually part of the Statue of Liberty,” Miller argued.

I do wonder though, if you are one of these young, skilled, Germans who are the only people who can still get into this country without being mail-ordered, why would you want to come? Google doesn’t have an office in Frankfurt? When the Transylvanian office of tourism brochure says “Fresh Blood Needed,” it’s more of a warning than an opportunity.

Honestly, at this point, I don’t understand people from other Western democracies who actually want to live here. If you can speak English and need a skilled labor force to implement your ideas, go to India. Hindu Nationalism has to be better than American Idiocracy, right? Food’s better there too.

Trump Supports Bill That Would Cut Legal Immigration by Half [New York Times]


Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.