“The first man, first senator, first major, major politician. Let me tell you, he is highly respected in Washington because he is as smart as you get. Senator Jeff Sessions. Where is Jeff? A great man.”Below, Senator Sessions responds to Donald Trump’s recognition.
Here’s President-Elect Trump’s victory speech:
Hopefully, this attention signals that improved immigration enforcement remains high on the Presidential to-do list. Fortunately the candidate Trump’s website contains a thorough section about how immigration can be fixed to serve the American interest. Obama has been mucking up enforcement for eight years, so the list is rather long with all the policies that must be repaired.
However, the central issue of how many immigrants is not addressed, but decades of ceaseless foreigner inflow have made the public care about the number. A CIS poll from earlier this month found that 54 percent of likely voters want legal immigration reduced by at least half to 500,000 or less. The Trump statement mentions the immigration number only obliquely, saying he would, “Reform legal immigration. . . keeping immigration levels within historic norms.”
That declaration sounds reasonable, but historic norms of immigration numbers are now too high, because robots, automation and advanced software are increasingly performing jobs that were once done by humans, both citizens and immigrants.
But other than that rather central deficiency, the list has many good points.
IMMIGRATION: Donald J. Trump’s Vision
- Prioritize the jobs, wages and security of the American people.
- Establish new immigration controls to boost wages and to ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first.
Donald J. Trump’s 10 Point Plan to Put America First
- Protect the economic well-being of the lawful immigrants already living here by curbing uncontrolled foreign worker admissions
- Select immigrants based on their likelihood of success in the U.S. and their ability to be financially self-sufficient.
- Vet applicants to ensure they support America’s values, institutions and people, and temporarily suspend immigration from regions that export terrorism and where safe vetting cannot presently be ensured.
- Enforce the immigration laws of the United States and restore the Constitutional rule of law upon which America’s prosperity and security depend.
1. Begin working on an impenetrable physical wall on the southern border, on day one. Mexico will pay for the wall.
2. End catch-and-release. Under a Trump administration, anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained until they are removed out of our country.
3. Move criminal aliens out day one, in joint operations with local, state, and federal law enforcement. We will terminate the Obama administration’s deadly, non-enforcement policies that allow thousands of criminal aliens to freely roam our streets.
4. End sanctuary cities.
5. Immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties. All immigration laws will be enforced – we will triple the number of ICE agents. Anyone who enters the U.S. illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have laws and to have a country.
6. Suspend the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur, until proven and effective vetting mechanisms can be put into place.
7. Ensure that other countries take their people back when we order them deported.
8. Ensure that a biometric entry-exit visa tracking system is fully implemented at all land, air, and sea ports.
9. Turn off the jobs and benefits magnet. Many immigrants come to the U.S. illegally in search of jobs, even though federal law prohibits the employment of illegal immigrants.
10. Reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers, keeping immigration levels within historic norms.
Read More on Donald J. Trump’s 10 Point Plan to Put America First, here.
Read Mr. Trump’s Remarks in Phoenix, Arizona, in Mexico City, and at the Remembrance Project Luncheon.
KEY ISSUES
- Illegal immigrants and other non-citizens in our prisons and jails together had around 25,000 homicide arrests to their names. [United States Government Accountability Office, March 2011]
- Current immigration policy costs taxpayers $300 billion a year [National Review, Sept. 22, 2016]
- There are at least 2 million convicted criminal aliens now inside the country. [Center for Immigration Studies, Oct. 2013]
- Since 2013 alone, the Obama Administration has allowed 300,000 criminal aliens to return back into U.S. communities.
- Between 9/11 and the end of 2014, at least 380 foreign-born individuals were convicted in terror cases inside the United States. [U.S. Senate Immigration Subcommittee, June 22, 2016]
- In the last five years, we’ve admitted nearly 100,000 immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan – in these two countries, according to Pew research, a majority of residents say that the barbaric practice of honor killings against women are often or sometimes justified. [U.S. Department of Homeland Security, August 2016], [Pew Research Center, July 22, 2016]
- From the year 2008 through 2014, nearly 13,000 criminal aliens were released back into U.S. communities because their home countries would not take them back. [The Boston Globe, June 4, 2016]
- 62 percent of households headed by illegal immigrants used some form of cash or non-cash welfare programs, like food stamps or housing assistance. [Center for Immigration Studies, Sept. 2015]
- Nearly 1 million illegal immigrants, including nearly 200,000 with criminal convictions, had been ordered deported but remain at large. [Washington Examiner, July 1, 2015]
- Between 2013 and 2015, the Obama Administration released over 86,000 criminal aliens from custody. In 2015 alone, ICE freed 19,723 criminal aliens, who had 64,197 convictions among them. These included 8,234 violent convictions and 208 homicide convictions. [Homeland Security Committee, Nov. 19, 2015]
