On Thursday, President Trump is set to unveil a new immigration plan created by his listless son-in-law Jared Kushner—who once auctioned his position in the White House to international investors for green cards—that will lean more toward what migrants will bring to the country, like “genius” Melania Trump, while moving away from immigration based on family already in the country.
The plan, much like many things having to do with this administration, is a fucking disaster as it doesn’t include any language on what exactly will be done with the up to 2 million younger immigrants, known as “dreamers,” who have lived in the country, many without documentation, since they were brought in as children.
According to the Washington Post, Trump wants to prove he’s on board with endorsing legal immigration because he needs to look human before the 2020 election, but many Congress members on both sides of the aisle have looked over the proposal and said, “This ain’t it, chief.”
“This is his proposal,” a senior administration official who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post. “He’s been intimately involved in crafting it. We’ve shown him kind of where some of the criticism might come from on the right, and his response is, ‘I’m happy to talk to them and I’ll convince them of why this is the right thing.’ ”
The Post notes that when it comes to immigration, Trump has proven that he flip flops more than a fish out of water. In past debates, Trump has taken a liberal stance on immigration only to revert back to his “Mexican rapists” stance once chided by conservatives.
From the Post:
That has led to skepticism over just how far Trump will go to build support for a plan that White House aides said does not curtail the overall number of immigration green cards, a major goal of many border hawks.
In a memorial service for slain law enforcement officers Wednesday, Trump showed no signs that he would shift his tone about immigrants to build more moderate support. The president highlighted the case of Cpl. Ronil Singh of Newman, Calif., a police officer who authorities said was killed by an unauthorized immigrant from Mexico during a traffic stop in December.
Trump called the perpetrator a “vicious killer” who could have been kept out of the country by a border wall or “whatever the hell it takes.”
“People are trying to come into our country because our country’s doing well,” Trump said. “They can’t come in like this killer came in.”
Despite four immigration proposals in 2018, “Congress has not passed a major immigration bill in three decades, and efforts at comprehensive reform failed under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both of whom emphasized the need to balance efforts to beef up enforcement with the need to expand legal pathways into the United States,” the Post reports.
This new proposal would issue points to immigrants in which they are ranked on a scale with such criteria like “professional skills, education levels, age and English ability,” White House aides told the Post.
In what might be the goofiest part of the entire proposal, there is a loophole that could also allow for immigration called “patriotic assimilation,” which would favor those who have shown an active interest in incorporating the nation’s culture and way of life.
Maybe there will be an exam in which the immigrants will have to steal something that isn’t theirs and then show how they would make it their own by renaming it something new, since American culture is just stealing from other cultures and acting like it was theirs all along.
“One administration official offered an example in which green-card applicants would be required to pass an exam based on a reading of George Washington’s farewell address or Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association,” the Post reports.
Can any natural-born citizen do this? To paraphrase comedian Jerrod Carmichael, I love Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but I can only recite like a half a bar of his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Several GOP senators are expected to attend the Rose Garden speech Thursday, while many see the proposal as just a jumping off point for a larger conversation about immigration.
“This is not a legislative vehicle,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Post. “Obviously, it isn’t going anywhere. It’s more of a campaign statement and an outline of what they like and what they don’t.”