Should American citizens lose representation in Congress and lose out on billions of dollars in federal funding to their communities, and have that representation and funding awarded to people who are illegally present in the United States?
In a more rational time, the answer to that question would be obvious. But we’re not living in rational times. So President Donald Trump’s memorandum, signed on Tuesday, which attempts to at least minimize the harmful effect of including people who are here illegally in the Census—for the purpose of reapportioning congressional representation—was predictably met with howls of protest and lawsuits filed.
Check out what Preston wrote for the Daily Caller:
Foreign guest worker programs and outsourcing are two heads of the same monster decimating the working class and blue collar workers — the same people that propelled Donald Trump to victory in 2016. These policies harm Americans by robbing them of the opportunity to earn a fair wage at a decent job. This reality underscores the importance of President Trump’s recent executive orderthat protects these workers by mandating that all federal agencies focus on hiring citizens for federal contracts, among other measures.
The order is a direct reaction to the news that the federally-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) planned to export as much as 20 percent of their work overseas while slashing 120 American jobs, with plans to cut another 100. This sort of action would be cause for uproar at a private company. At a government-owned corporation, it is outrageous. The TVA is a large employer across parts of the rural South, a region that lags behind the nation in economic development, where the company provides electricity and jobs for residents.
The German theologian Martin Niemöller famously summed up how dangerous social pathologies begin incrementally before snowballing into full-blown assaults on the core of civilized societies. Recounting how Nazi doctrine tightened its grip on Germany, he observed, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.” The trade unionists and the Jews were next until finally they came for him, “and there was no on left to speak for me,” he lamented.
The subversion of laws that exist to serve the welfare of society, by those who want to undermine that society, always begins slowly. People have to become inured to the erosion of the society’s foundational principles through relentless campaigns that make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Congress established Temporary Protected Status (TPS) more than 30 years ago to address exactly the sort of situation that is playing out in Ukraine today. An estimated 30,000 Ukrainian citizens are believed to be in the United States on some sort of temporary visa, or here illegally. A percentage of those Ukrainians may want to get home right now to join the resistance to Russia’s military invasion and subjugation of their homeland, or to be with their families in a time of crisis.
Congress established Temporary Protected Status (TPS) more than 30 years ago to address exactly the sort of situation that is playing out in Ukraine today. An estimated 30,000 Ukrainian citizens are believed to be in the United States on some sort of temporary visa, or here illegally. A percentage of those Ukrainians may want to get home right now to join the resistance to Russia’s military invasion and subjugation of their homeland, or to be with their families in a time of crisis.
Tucked away near the end of his long, rambling State of the Union address, President Joe Biden spoke of the “need to secure the border” and added a few vague remarks about “fix[ing] the immigration system.” It is probably a topic he would have preferred to avoid altogether, because talking about it only reminded the American public (momentarily distracted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and raging inflation) of how disastrous his border and immigration policies have been.
The $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill that will fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year was approved with bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress and then signed by President Joe Biden. With a war raging in Europe and inflation raging at home, the American public can take some reassurance in the fact that Democrats and Republicans managed to approve the spending package without even the threat of a government shutdown.
The Biden administration is reportedly planning to end a Trump-era rule that used COVID-19 as a means to curb illegal immigration. Title 42 is a little-known public health provision invoked by the Trump administration in March 2020 which allowed the U.S. to promptly remove migrants caught crossing the border illegally to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In February, 55 percent of the 164,973 migrants apprehended by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were removed under Title 42.