The August 23 GOP Presidential candidates’ debate was half-full or half-empty on immigration, depending how you look at it: everyone was against the treasonous Biden Rush at the southern border and (unlike the 2016 debates) no one dared propose Amnesty.
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But neither did anyone propose reducing legal immigration, much less an immigration moratorium. And of course the Fox moderators did not raise the issue at all, despite Ann Coulter’s express instructions. This leaves Donald Trump’s immigration platform [Scoop: Inside Trump’s new plan to limit immigration, by Stef W. Knight, Axios, August 21, 2023] as the best in the GOP field—with DeSantis second-best. This impression is reinforced by the candidates’ responses to Breitbart’s Immigration Questionnaire [2024 GOP Candidate Immigration Questionnaire: Hopefuls Explain Vision for Migration Policy Ahead of Debate, by Matthew Boyle and Neil Munro, August 22, 2023]. Let’s hope they dare campaign on their immigration patriot positions—unlike Trump in 2020.
The August 23 GOP Presidential candidates’ debate was half-full or half-empty on immigration, depending how you look at it: everyone was against the treasonous Biden Rush at the southern border and (unlike the 2016 debates) no one dared propose Amnesty.
Can't load tweet https://twitter.com/vdare/status/1694860894075859229: Unknown MIME type: text/html
But neither did anyone propose reducing legal immigration, much less an immigration moratorium. And of course the Fox moderators did not raise the issue at all, despite Ann Coulter’s express instructions. This leaves Donald Trump’s immigration platform [Scoop: Inside Trump’s new plan to limit immigration, by Stef W. Knight, Axios, August 21, 2023] as the best in the GOP field—with DeSantis second-best. This impression is reinforced by the candidates’ responses to Breitbart’s Immigration Questionnaire [2024 GOP Candidate Immigration Questionnaire: Hopefuls Explain Vision for Migration Policy Ahead of Debate, by Matthew Boyle and Neil Munro, August 22, 2023]. Let’s hope they dare campaign on their immigration patriot positions—unlike Trump in 2020.
Trump’s plan would militarize the border, ramp up deportations, end Birthright Citizenship, and (by administrative changes) make it much harder to immigrate legally to America. Only Ron DeSantis comes close. The other Republicans can’t compare—as evinced by the first primary debate. Trump’s proposal should direct the party to a more serious grasp of the National Question.
Axios’ summary of the Trump plan’s tenets:
- Ramp up ideological screening for people legally
Trump’s plan would militarize the border, ramp up deportations, end Birthright Citizenship, and (by administrative changes) make it much harder to immigrate legally to America. Only Ron DeSantis comes close. The other Republicans can’t compare—as evinced by the first primary debate. Trump’s proposal should direct the party to a more serious grasp of the National Question.
Axios’ summary of the Trump plan’s tenets:
- Ramp up ideological screening for people legally applying to come into the country. U.S. law has blocked Communists from entering for decades; it just hasn’t been enforced. Trump wants to enforce it and reject applicants who are deemed ”Marxists.”
- Send the Coast Guard and the Navy to form a blockade in the waters off the U.S. and Latin America to stop drug smuggling boats. This would be a significant step up from Trump’s show of force in 2020, when he sent warships to the Caribbean as a warning to cartels.
- Expand Trump’s ”Muslim ban” idea to block more people from certain countries from entering the U.S. As president, Trump banned immigration from more than a dozen countries that are mostly Muslim or in Africa; President Biden rescinded that executive order.
- Designate drug cartels as ”unlawful enemy combatants” to allow the U.S. military to target them in Mexico. The U.S. has used that designation to justify long-term detentions of 9/11 suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
- Seek to end Birthright Citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. Trump considered this as president, but today’s conservative-leaning Supreme Court has given his team more confidence about taking on the inevitable legal fight.
- Extend Texas’ controversial floating barriers in the Rio Grande.
- Quickly deport migrant gang members, smugglers and other criminals, using an obscure section of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.
- Complete his Border Wall. Trump spent billions to put 452 miles of new fencing along the 1,954-mile southern border. Biden halted the project. [Links added by Axios]
Trump’s plan will also limit legal immigration, albeit not explicitly. Axios claims the plan will “severely curtail legal immigration” because of these provisions:
- His enhanced screening of immigration applicants’ ideologies would involve searching their social media accounts, a source familiar with Trump’s plan said. Visa applicants already have to provide their social media handles, a practice that began under Trump.
- He plans to cut access to the U.S. immigration system for countries whose citizens have high rates of staying in the U.S. illegally after their visas expire.
- Trump also wants to require prospective immigrants to prove they can afford health insurance, and force some travelers to pay hefty bonds to enter the U.S.
And Trump also plans to bring back Title 42 due to the health risks that may come from south of the border, insisting he will use it to deport “unaccompanied minors.”
It’s a strong plan that may outmatch DeSantis’s commendable platform, which the governor released last month. The plan promised to:
Daringly, DeSantis has also promised repeatedly to authorize lethal force at the border to deter illegal migrants—as he repeated in the August 23 candidates’ debate, to no visible opposition.
On illegal immigration, Trump and DeSantis stand as virtual allies. But Trump edges him out on legal immigration. The former president’s apparent pledge to make it harder to legally immigrate sets him above the rest.
Only one candidate refused to answer Breitbart’s Questionnaire—long-time immigration booster Chris Christie. This paradoxical Trump ally knows his immigration views won’t sit well with the base, so that’s probably why he ignored it.
The others answered the questionnaire and tried their best to sound tough on immigration. All of them pledged to get tougher on illegal immigrants, secure the border, and increase deportations. Many of them–—including squishes like Mike Pence—questioned H-1B visas and acknowledged they undermined American workers. “We need to fix our work visa programs so that they serve American workers. Companies relying on foreign labor must invest in job training for American laborers. We should prioritize work visas on that basis,” Pence told Breitbart.
But when it came to the question of reducing legal immigration, only Trump and DeSantis came out in the Affirmative.
Here’s how Breitbart worded the question:
Americans are getting poorer in large part due to inflation. Why import new workers to compete with them? Will you support cutting legal immigration levels into the United States until wages stabilize for middle and working class Americans? What do you believe are the criteria to become a legal immigrant?
Here’s how Trump responded:
Yes. We will immediately restore the full suite of policies we had in 2020, which includes the Public Charge regulation, the sponsor vetting and repayment policies (implementing the curbs from the 1996 law), the Travel Ban (which will be expanded further), and the Healthcare 212 Act (barring the entry of new residents who will depend on the state for healthcare). We will also be directing the State Department to implement new ideological screening as well as completing the transformation of USCIS into an agency whose mission is to protect Americans. We will also restore and expand our efforts to ensure integrity and defeat fraud in the naturalization process.
Here’s how DeSantis campaign spokesman Brian Griffin responded:
DeSantis will seek to reduce immigration that undercuts American jobs and wages. The immigration system should provide a net benefit to Americans, our economy, and our country. DeSantis will also seek to ensure that immigrants are encouraged to support our values and assimilate into the American way of life.
Pence didn’t give a direct answer, and his stance was up to the reader’s interpretation. However, Pence is a born-again donor-driven immigration booster. It’s unlikely he would want to reduce immigration at all.
Neither Tim Scott nor Nikki Haley explicitly said they oppose reducing immigration, but they both talked about how great it is that America brings in so many migrants. They clearly don’t want to reduce immigration either.
Vivek Ramaswamy was his own peculiar case. The Indian-descended businessman recently endorsed more immigration in a Twitter Space with Elon Musk [Vivek Ramaswamy Touts Pacific Trade Deal, Urges More Migration, by Neil Munro, Breitbart, July 29, 2023]. But he obviously knows that position doesn’t sit well with the base. So his response to Breitbart’s questionnaire tried to make him sound like an immigration patriot—he even came out for Official English:
When it comes to legal immigration, we need to significantly decrease the number of asylum based applications that are granted. We need to gut the H1-B system, which is bad for everyone involved. The lottery system needs to be replaced by actual meritocratic admission. It’s a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company that sponsored an H1-B immigrant. I’ll gut it. We need to eliminate chain-based migration which is anti-meritocratic because the people who come as family members are not the meritocratic immigrants who can make skills-based contributions to this country. Merit-based immigration has to include an element of national identity. Which is to say even if you’re getting a visa, you have to pass the same civics test that is required on the backend of citizenship. In the context of any immigration at all, we need to officially make English the national language of the United States of America. We are a nation founded on ideals. That means nothing unless we have a common language to express those ideals to one another. We need to weed out ingrates like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib who come to this country and complain about it. [Emphasis, links added]
That sounds decent and is certainly better than what Scott and Haley spew. But, unlike Trump and DeSantis, Ramaswamy, as reported by Breitbart above, also endorsed more immigration just a few weeks ago. So it’s hard to trust him on the issue—but it does say something that Ramaswamy wants to appear as an immigration patriot.
Bottom line: Every Republican hopeful knows the base wants immigration patriotism and expect their candidates to espouse it. Thus the debate and the Breitbart Questionnaire represents a significant improvement on the part of Republican pols.
Both Trump and DeSantis stand atop the hill when it comes to immigration. Trump gets the slight edge on DeSantis thanks to his detailed platform that addresses illegal and legal immigration.
But the Florida governor still has an opportunity to surpass the former president. If for example he endorsed the RAISE Act—or (we can dream!) committed to an immigration moratorium—he could still gain the upper hand.
And, although there’s still room for improvement, what the GOP candidates are saying now is far better than in the pre-Trump era.
But is it too late?
Washington Watcher II [Email him] is an anonymous DC insider.
