Trump to "Dramatically Scale Back Legal Immigration"

Back in March, I noted that the Trump administration was signalling they would soon come after documented immigrants. The first step in that plan is, of course, to start restricting legal immigration to the United States. Three months later, here we are:

Donald Trump and his aides are quietly working with two conservative senators to dramatically scale back legal immigration — a move that would mark a fulfillment of one of the president's biggest campaign promises.

Trump plans to get behind a bill being introduced later this summer by GOP Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia that, if signed into law, would, by 2027, slash in half the number of legal immigrants entering the country each year, according to four people familiar with the conversations. Currently, about 1 million legal immigrants enter the country annually; that number would fall to 500,000 over the next decade.

The senators have been working closely with Stephen Miller, a senior White House official known for his hawkish stance on immigration. The issue is also a central priority for Steve Bannon, the president's chief strategist, who has several promises to limit immigration scribbled on the walls of his office.

As you may recall, it was a quote from Bannon that raised the hairs on the back of my neck in the first place: "Don't we have a problem with legal immigration? Twenty percent of this country is immigrants. Is that not the beating heart of this problem?"

Naturally, the reasons they are giving for what a senior White House official describes as "part of a broader reorganization of the immigration system" are mendacious garbage:

The official said the White House particularly wanted to target welfare programs and limit citizenship and migration to those who pay taxes and earn higher wages.

"In order to be eligible for citizenship, you'll have to demonstrate you are self-sufficient and you don't receive welfare," the senior administration official said.

That is already the case. Not only do documented immigrants (like my husband) have to demonstrate self-sufficiency; they also have to have a sponsor who will agree to support them if they cannot be self-sufficient and they have to sign a waiver stating they cannot collect welfare for a number of years.

The Trump administration is simply betting on the fact that most people won't know how the immigration system currently works, and thus will be able to use solving a problem that doesn't exist as justification for a crackdown on legal immigration.

That they don't have a legitimate reason to defend this legislation should make us all very concerned indeed about what the real reason is.