On Immigration, Trump Needs to Focus on the Numbers
By Steven Camarota
February 19, 2019 6:30 AM
For all the fuss about the border, we're missing the big question.
It is understandable that a successful businessman such as President Trump would think about immigration from the standpoint of employers and their need for workers. To his credit, he rejected Republican orthodoxy in 2016 and argued for stopping illegal immigration, and he met with victims of illegal-alien crime. It is one of the main reasons he won. Equally impressive have been the administration’s attempts to fix the “public charge†rules and address the fact that 63 percent of households headed by a non-citizen access welfare.
But for all the talk about the border, the biggest issue when it comes to immigration is not welfare or illegal immigration per se; it is the total number of immigrants settling in the country, legally or illegally. While Democrats focus on amnesty, business associations endlessly push for ever more guest workers — and the media happily support both. But the president should always bring the discussion back to the numbers. Both the national interest and his political future depend on it.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/immigration-total-amount-must-be-reduced-not-just-illegals/
