In 2019, people working outside their homelands sent $554 billion of their earnings back to their native countries. Nearly all of this cash flowed from developed nations to less developed ones. The $554 billion in remittances eclipsed the total of all foreign investment in these receiving nations, and three times the amount these nations received in foreign aid.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. The global health crisis touched off a global economic crisis, resulting in millions of lost jobs and restrictions on travel that make it difficult for foreign workers to get to a job in another country, even if one is available.
Check out what Preston wrote for the Daily Caller.
House Democrats recently voted to strip the president of one of the most important tools at his disposal to protect America from foreign threats: the ability to suspend travel to the United States. The Democrats voted 233-183 to pass the NO BAN Act. Had this bill been law in early 2020, President Trump would have been unable to ban travel from China and Europe, which saved American lives according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Under current law, the president can react in real time to national security threats by restricting the entry of aliens under the authority laid out in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
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.
Immigration policy, which was a defining issue in the 2016 campaign, finally got a mention in the final 2020 presidential debate. In that debate, much of the time devoted to discussion of immigration centered on the 545 minors who remain separated from their parents as a result of a 2018 policy intended to discourage people from using their kids to gain entry to the United States.
While the 2020 election result is not yet final due to pending litigation and recounts, most signs point to an eventual defeat for President Donald Trump.
If he is defeated, then many things likely contributed to the president’s 2020 loss. But one thing is clear: his views on immigration along with the very policies his administration implemented have nothing to do with it.
Joe Biden was elected to be the steady, competent hand to guide the nation through COVID-19 health and economic crises, and perhaps heal social divisions. The president-elect has yet to reveal his plan for getting the pandemic under control, but sources close to him have indicated that it could entail a lengthy national lockdown in addition to other stringent measures.
I am an immigrant and a naturalized citizen. I came to this country at the age of ten, grew up in a blue-collar immigrant household, was raised around primarily Central-Eastern European and Hispanic working-class immigrants, and ultimately married another immigrant. So, according to the left, I represent a demographic that should support open borders and unchecked mass immigration (both legal and illegal), both out of self-interest and for moral reasons. I see things differently, however, and opt for national sovereignty, secure borders and common-sense immigration policies that benefit the United States and its people.
During the last big wave of unaccompanied alien minors (UAMs) in 2019, a Border Patrol agent said something to me that shook me to my core. He said that he was “sick and tired of having to administer rape kits to nine-year olds.”