Scott has already written about President Trump’s national address on the shooting of National Guardsmen in D.C. as well as his Thanksgiving Day tweet promising to do something about the country’s immigration mess. I want to offer additional thoughts on the measures that Trump says he intends to take with regard to immigration.
First, this is the portion of Trump’s tweet where he describes what he intends to do:
I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.
Can Trump actually do those things? The most significant is the first: Trump’s pledge to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries….” It is reasonably clear, I think, that Trump can do this. 8 U. S. C. §1182(f) says:
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
That grant of authority is obviously very broad. In Trump v. Hawaii, the case that arose out of an order suspending certain immigration during the first Trump term, the Supreme Court said:
By its terms, §1182(f) exudes deference to the President in every clause. It entrusts to the President the decisions whether and when to suspend entry (“[w]henever [he] finds that the entry” of aliens “would be detrimental” to the national interest); whose entry to suspend (“all aliens or any class of aliens”); for how long (“for such period as he shall deem necessary”); and on what conditions (“any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate”). It is therefore unsurprising that we have previously observed that §1182(f) vests the President with “ample power” to impose entry restrictions in addition to those elsewhere enumerated in the INA.
Can the president make any such suspension of immigration permanent? Clearly, the president’s action need not be time-bound. In Hawaii, the Court noted, with respect to the dozens of orders suspending immigration in various ways prior to the Trump administration, “not one of the 43 suspension orders issued prior to this litigation has specified a precise end date.”
As a practical matter, no president can guarantee that an executive order will survive his term in office, but it seems to me that Trump’s order suspending Third World immigration can properly last at least through his presidential term.
An important question, of course, is what counts as the “Third World.” Presumably a country like India, which was “Third World” not too long ago, no longer would get that designation. How about China? How about Nigeria, which sends us quite a few valuable immigrants? The issue of what is considered Third World will need to be addressed carefully.
As for the rest, Trump’s pledge to “terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions” doesn’t mean much. Since they are illegal, they don’t need to be terminated. The law just needs to be enforced by deporting such illegal aliens, which the administration is in the process of doing. Likewise with Trump’s promise to “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country.” Presumably the President isn’t serious about conducting an inquiry–among legal residents–of who is or is not a “net asset,” or who does or does not love our country.
How about “end[ing] all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country”? Trump certainly can’t do this by executive order, since many benefits are, by law, available to legal residents, and discrimination on the basis of (legal) alien status is, I believe, presumptively unconstitutional. But clearly, efforts need to be made to enforce existing laws, and otherwise to make the U.S. less desirable to foreigners as a potential source of welfare. See the “public charge” discussion below.
Next, “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility.” I don’t pretend to be an expert on denaturalization, but this is what the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says:
A person is subject to revocation of naturalization if he or she procured naturalization illegally. Procuring naturalization illegally simply means that the person was not eligible for naturalization in the first place. Accordingly, any eligibility requirement for naturalization that was not met can form the basis for an action to revoke the naturalization of a person. This includes the requirements of residence, physical presence, lawful admission for permanent residence, good moral character, and attachment to the U.S. Constitution.
So denaturalization could be an option for immigrants who turn out not to be of good moral character, or to be anti-American. Given that this is inherently a one-person-at-a-time process, it won’t be a major factor, but could have symbolic importance.
And finally: “deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.” I don’t expect “non-compatible with Western Civilization” to get far, but how about being a public charge? This is something I have never understood: 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1182 (“Inadmissible Aliens”) (f)(4)(a) says:
Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.
And yet, we have millions of immigrants receiving welfare benefits of various kinds. Is the “public charge” standard–i.e., the requirement that immigrants be self-supporting–one that applies only at the admission stage, so that anyone who makes it to our country can become a public charge at will? I don’t know what law or precedent may exist here, but it seems to me that an essential element of a revamped approach to immigration must involve reviving the “public charge” requirement and the ethos that it represents.
The Democrats will, of course, go crazy over anything Trump does here, proclaiming a suspension of Third World immigration to be “racist,” etc. Please, let’s have that battle and let Americans vote on it. Mass Third World immigration has been a disaster for those countries that have allowed it–France, Germany, the U.K., Sweden, to a lesser extent so far, the U.S.A. Countries that have not allowed mass Third World immigration, for example Poland, Hungary and Japan, have benefited enormously.
One could offer thousands of data points in support of that proposition, but for now let’s settle for one: in 2023, Sweden reported 84 rapes per 100,000 population, France 63, Denmark 40, Belgium 38, Germany 16. Meanwhile, Hungary reported 6 rapes per 100,000, Japan 2, and Poland 1. Have Swedes and Danes suddenly turned into prolific rapists? What do you think?
Barack Obama said that he wanted to “fundamentally transform” the United States. We now see that his, and his party’s, vision of fundamental transformation relies in great part on mass Third World immigration. And we can see that, to the extent the Democrats’ open border policies have been pursued, they have indeed transformed America–for the worse. So let’s have it out in the political arena, and see whose policies on immigration the American people want to follow.
