Americans woke up to dual headlines last Thursday: 4.4 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims, bringing the five-week job loss total to 26 million, and President Trump signed an Executive Order temporarily halting immigration to the United States.
One headline was true, while the other one wasn’t. Sadly, the epic job losses resulting from the coronavirus crisis continues unabated. And, regrettably, the Executive Order that President Trump signed late Wednesday which, in the president’s words, is intended to “ensure that American workers of all backgrounds will be first in line for jobs as our economy reopens,” does nothing of the kind.
It’s no secret that the Social Security program faces a very real threat of running out of money. Thanks to impressive advancements in the medical world, the ratio of workers to retirees is now decreasing too quickly, and the future availability of retirement funds for millions of Americans is in serious doubt. Internal agency assessments predict that the program’s trust fund reserves will be completely depleted by 2034 unless significant reforms are enacted before then.
Of course, many open-border advocates use this as an opportunity to call for more mass-immigration, including amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, to immediately boost the number of workers in the United States.
Only in the stagnant swamps of Washington, DC, could a public policy with the word “temporary” in its title gain a sense of permanence, but that is exactly what has happened to Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
TPS was a benevolent policy enacted in 1990 to provide temporary safe haven to those who were visiting or temporarily living in the United States – such as tourists or students – when civil strife or a natural disaster suddenly struck back home, making their immediate return either very difficult or dangerous.
Candidate Joe Biden was harshly critical of Donald Trump’s handling of immigration policy and border enforcement. He was even critical and apologetic about the Obama administration’s record on immigration, in which he served as vice president, even though President Obama’s supposed toughness on immigration was vastly hyped.
Rather than address any element of the ongoing Biden border crisis, House Democrats spent their time moving legislation that only worsens the already grave situation at our southern border. The NO BAN Act jeopardizes our national security and public health, while the Access to Counsel Act further overwhelms our immigration courts and creates unnecessary burdens to already strained immigration authorities. Passage of both bills reveal how detached House Democrats are from properly addressing the nation’s most pressing immigration matters.
Two weeks ago in this space, FAIR boldly claimed that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had effectively abolished the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
We now must confess that we were premature in that declaration. Mayorkas was not finished. He still had more to do to make sure that our immigration laws are never enforced.
Open borders non-governmental organizations (NGOs) significantly influence the Biden administration’s immigration policies and priorities.
Recently, top administration officials met with dozens of immigration activists who have ties to NGOs such as Pueblo Sin Fronteras — a group that orchestrated the several thousand-person caravans in 2018 and 2019.
Grizzled political veterans like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have learned that the best way to sell unpopular policies is to convince us that everyone else is as unhappy about it as we are. In the sometimes surreal world that exists inside the Beltway, a good piece of legislation is one that leaves everyone feeling like they got a raw deal.
Occasionally, on matters where public opinion is pretty evenly divided, a compromise that gives everyone a little of what they want in exchange for a little of what they don’t want has some merit.
When presidential candidate Joe Biden was on the campaign trail in 2020, he touted that his immigration agenda would “direct enforcement efforts toward threats to public safety and national security, while ensuring that individuals are treated with the due process to which they are entitled and their human rights are protected.”
An unprecedented 88% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. And, no matter how many times President Joe Biden might say it, it’s not all Vladimir Putin’s fault. Putin’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine has certainly added to the woes faced by Americans and people all across the globe, but most of the mess we’re in is self-inflicted, much of it by Biden himself.