Looks like an easy win on DACA just got harder. Rubio may have internalized the message that he won't be winning any future Presidential nominations until he gets right with the base on immigration.
I wonder if the Republicans will stand firm on all the things they've now tied to a DACA fix? The wall, e-verify, an end to chain migration and also an end to the visa lottery program -- that's a lot of weight to pull. It could just be the Trump technique of making a 'big ask,' and then settling for less. I won't be surprised if e-verify is discarded, as that would be the part that would actually make it hard for corporations to hire illegals. That would drive up their labor costs, and they can't be happy about the idea.
5 comments:
I liked Rubio on the basis of the power of his speeches and the things he said in them. Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like he's just an orator, without any firm convictions.
Eric Hines
I would so like to see an immigration quota that closely matched the number of jobs available in a context of negligible welfare assistance after a short period of adjustment. To have an unrealistically low immigration quota practically begs for illegal immigration in which most citizens cheerfully collude. To have no immigration limits at all might work fine, but only in the absence of a safety net. People will migrate to jobs naturally. Let's just make sure they're not pulled in by anything else.
As to 'corporations hiring illegals,' the sizeable increase in "skilled" visa proposal is just what Intel/Google/Microsoft wants. That seriously diminishes the value of a STEM degree, of course, which is a curious way to demonstrate "foresight."
Conservative thought has a problem on education policy, I think. On the one hand, the current approach doesn't work: gov't issued student debt not only cripples the student's lives, it also leads to runaway inflation in education costs. So that won't work. But 'free college' -- the progressive approach -- looks like it entrenches a protected class of government workers in education whose devotion to socialism will be practical as well as ideological, and who will train our children. The third approach, letting STEM and other important fields be trained outside America, damages our national culture in several ways (even though these highly-educated immigrants are surely the best case for immigration being good for America).
A comprehensive answer on that point is lacking.
On the matter of immigration generally, I'm fully in favor of very tight borders, whether via a real wall or a metaphorical one, and pretty draconian measures for dealing with those who enter illegally. This, though, should be coupled with entry points every mile along that wall to facilitate easy legal entry.
I'm also opposed to quotas; come one, come all, so long as they pass vetting against criminals, terrorists, and others who would be our enemies on entry. Coupled with this should be no access to welfare programs until they've had a paying job for some significant period (welfare reform is itself a separate question), and all government communication should be done in English.
And they must assimilate and embrace American culture, not hold out or hide out in their Old Country culture.
Of course, the devil is in the details of making this work.
Eric Hines
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