Restricting immigration to the US was one of Trump’s core campaign planks, so it’s not like he needs an excuse to hang out the NO VACANCY sign. Circumstances have nonetheless dropped a number of excellent excuses in his lap. With a pandemic still raging and twenty-two million Americans out of work, not stopping all immigration immediately would be downright insane.
MAGApedes were quick to pop the champagne on Twitter following the President’s announcement. After all, Trump’s base has earned the right to celebrate after three years of subsisting on scraps from the big donors’ table.
To be sure, shutting down immigration is ample cause to celebrate. Averting the Death Cult’s scheme to dissolve the American people and elect another is Trump’s number one electoral mandate. He’s been stymied by activist judges and backstabbing legislators–many from his own party–since day one. Leveraging the pandemic to enact a series of bold moves is exactly the right play. Trump even has the example of Viktor Orban to show him how it’s done.
After a rocky first term of fluctuating hopes and false starts, it looks as if Donald Trump is ready to become the President his base elected.
Now that you’ve had your long-awaited white pill, it’s time to wash it down with some sober analysis. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who hopes more that Trump follows through on the literal text of his tweet. But expectations should be set by past results more than words. This is not the first time the President has promised to curtail immigration via executive order. Remember the much-touted executive order to end birthright citizenship from back in 2018? So far, the administration’s only action on that front has been to tweak citizenship protocol for overseas military personnel–a policy change that will affect a whopping twenty-five people a year.
Then there’s the fact that as of this writing, the celebrated EO has yet to be drafted, let alone signed. Blue checks on the Beltway press beat are already buzzing about conjectural exceptions to the order.
Speaking of which, now is a good time to contact the White House and let them know we don’t need any more H1b, H2b, J, or student visas.
To bring the mood back up, it’s encouraging that we’re in the enviable position of having to remind the President which holes to plug in his forthcoming anti-immigration EO. What prompted him to finally get serious? Most pundits will credit Corona-chan with inciting the sense of urgency Trump needs to cut through the red tape that’s bound him. A more realistic take based on examining his past performance observes that Trump has built a career on making bombastic, even outrageous, claims which he then gradually walks back down to earth. Never forget that Trump is a boardroom negotiator, not a Jacksonian strongman.
What will we end up getting from Trump’s immigration order? It’s too early to say for sure, but we have enough accumulated data to hazard a guess. Expect what amounts to an expansion of the current virus travel bans, with exceptions for H1 and 2 bs, farm workers, and students. In short, the base will get half a loaf, but it beats getting left with crumbs.
Speaking of getting stuff from Trump, if you need a way to spend those TrumpBux that are burning a hole in your pocket, my white-knuckle mech thriller is a fun way to allocate one of them.
UPDATE: Called it. What Trump announced tonight amounts to a half-measure that puts a 60-day pause on accepting immigrants seeking permanent residency while exempting those on temporary visas.
It’s about what I expected, and it’s better than nothing, so on the whole I think this is a step in the right direction. We’ll have to keep an eye on the situation to see if further restrictions are added.