Immigration in the Age of Trump
I was like most in the immigration lawyer community who believed that Hillary Clinton would be the 45th President and that we would not see any dramatic changes in our country’s immigration policies. If anything, I was assuming that much needed immigration reform would be more likely after the election of Mrs. Clinton. Obviously, the future will look very different.
President-elect Trump has promised to deal with immigration in his first 100 days. If you think immigration is good for America (even if you don’t support measures helping those not in the US legally), there is much to be worried about.
Trump has made headlines for his immigration plans, but there are not a lot of known details. He’s proposed a 10-point proposal on his campaign web site that has a few ideas you’ve no doubt heard:
- Build a big wall on the southern border and tax money transfers from Mexican workers in the US to their families back home.
- Spend billions increasing immigration enforcement including tripling the number of ICE agents and building massive new immigration detention facilities.
- End the DACA program which allows “Dreamers” – people who came to the US as children and have lived in the US for many years – to work and be protected from deportation.
- Ban the issuance of visas to people from places where adequate screening can’t occur (this is a morphing of the Muslim ban).
- Crack down on employers illegally employing immigrants.
- Make temporary work visa programs more restrictive and cut the number of green cards available.
Trump’s carrying through with many of his proposals will come with a lot of pain for American taxpayers and immigrants alike.
The costs associated with his immigration enforcement policy would blow up the nation’s budget deficit. The wall is expected to cost at least $25 billion and the taxes on Mexicans he thinks will pay for it won’t even come close. The tripling of the number of immigration enforcement officers and the construction of new detention centers will also have to be paid for by taxpayers and the deported workers who are paying a lot more in taxes than they’re receiving in benefits will add to that cost.
And then there are the tolls on families. 665,000 young people are working legally with work cards issued under the DACA program. Their worlds are about to be turned upside down again. Most came to the US as young children and grew up speaking English and attending American public schools. Many don’t even remember the countries where they were born. The DACA program has allowed thousands to work and attend college and envision a future for themselves. They’re about to be forced back in to the shadows and could face exile in countries where they don’t even speak the language. We’re also going to see a return to worksite raids where children would return home from school and find their parents were rounded up and deported with no warning.
We’ll also pay dearly by making our employment-based immigration system a lot tougher to access. On the lower skilled end, without a guest worker program to replace the workers we’ll lose through enforcement, we’ll see the cost of food at the grocery soar. Certain industries, like construction and hospitality, completely depend on immigrant labor and those costs will rise.
Employers will also lack access to talent workers. Foreign students in science, technology and engineering fields will find the doors slammed on remaining in the US. Entrepreneurs interested in starting companies that will eventually hire American workers will end up in Canada and other countries instead. And reducing green card numbers will make the system so unattractive that our competitor countries will have an easy time making the case to these individuals that America is no longer interested in them.
Of course, Mr. Trump has choices in the way he proceeds and can finesse the way he rolls out his policies. Strong enforcement of immigration laws can be coupled with making reforms to open up legal ways for people to immigrate. The President-elect suggested in August that he was open to looking at putting immigrants with no criminal histories and who had been in the US for many years on a path to legalization. When he was quickly attacked by hardliners, he didn’t mention it again. But it left me hoping there’s some room for compassion and common sense in a Trump Administration. I’m also encouraged that our own Senator Bob Corker has the ear of Donald Trump. Senator Corker was critical in the efforts in 2013 to pass a bipartisan immigration reform bill.
I know many are ready to assume the worst will happen. The proposals we’ve seen so far are scary. But I hope the savvy businessman that just became the first person ever elected President with no political or military experience is now thinking about whether he’ll make history as someone who did a “Nixon goes to China” and manages to fix the immigration system after several Presidents before him failed.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk.