An adviser to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign told Fox News on Sunday that the President wants to “provide support” for DACA migrants and to import “the brightest and the best” foreign workers into U.S. jobs.
Fox News asked Mercedes Schlapp July 12 about Trump’s July 10 comments saying he would support an Executive Order or a draft immigration bill that provided some form of legalization to perhaps 750,000 DACA migrants. She answered:
Well, I don’t want to get ahead of the President, but let me tell you something; the President from Day One has talked about and has had results in making sure that we secure our border and build the wall, which has been a priority for this president.
And so, in essence, what the President has also been talking about is a merit-based immigration system, meaning that you protect American workers while at the same time bringing in the brightest and the best into our country.
Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, described Schlapp’s answer as portraying the demand by business lobbyists for massive legal immigration as the only reasonable alternative to Democrats’ open-border plans. This either/or choice allows her to “memory-hole the choice of reducing immigration” that would allow Americans to get well-paying jobs, he said.
In Trump’s 2017 inauguration speech, he promised jobs for Americans, not migrants:
We will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor. We will follow two simple rules; buy American and hire American.
Amid the coronavirus crash, “what is the argument for keeping immigration now?” Krikorian asked.
Trump added much confusion on July 10 when told the Spanish-language TV network Telemundo:
I’m going to do a big executive order. I have the power to do it as president. And I’m going to make DACA a part of it. But we put it in and we’re probably then going to be taking it out. We’re working out the legal complexities right now, but I’m going to be signing a very major immigration bill as an executive order. I’m going to make DACA a part of it.
His comments come after making the popular June 22 decision to curb the inflow of migrants into the jobs needed by U.S. graduates and blue-collar workers.
Schlapp commented on the President’s July 10 statement.
“The Democrats and Joe Biden believe in open borders, they believe in free health care for illegal immigrants, and obviously that’s not going to work,” Schlapp said. “So, the President has been transparent in this process, in ensuring that we first and foremost secure our border, [then] work on a merit-based immigration system because we know our current immigration system is broken, and then provide support for the DACA recipients.”
But the say the immigration system is broken because the huge inflow of legal migrants to Fortune 500 companies undermines wages and jobs for Americans, Krikorian said. Any policy of bringing in more of “the brightest and the best” would cause even more economic harm to Americans, he added.
Krikorian went on, saying “the unspoken premise [in Schlapp’s comments] is that only illegal immigration undermines American workers.”
“In fact, most immigration has always been legal, and even the “high-skilled immigration” of ordinary tech workers undermines American jobs and wages,” he said.
“This is a completely predictable attempt to preserve [Trump’s] pro-worker rhetoric without delivering pro-worker immigration policies” to Trump’s voters, he said.
Schlapp suggested that Trump could maintain voter enthusiasm while endorsing a DACA amnesty:
There’s no question that we have an enthusiasm edge over Joe Biden and this is due because of President Trump’s strong record in helping the American people, and up here at the campaign and over at the RNC [Republican National Committee] we’ve been harnessing this enthusiasm and turning it into positive voter registration numbers.
Each year, roughly four million Americans leave school to begin their careers and to prepare for marriages and families.
Trump has successfully blocked nearly all blue-collar illegal migration since 2019. But he has not managed to repatriate many illegals who are living and working in the United States.
However, the federal government import roughly one million legal immigrants to spike the economy with extra consumers, real-estate buyers, and workers.
The federal government allows the Fortune 500 companies to keep roughly 1.3 million foreign white-collar workers in the started jobs needed by U.S. graduates. For example, the Occupational Practical Training program annually provides Fortune 500 companies with up to 500,000 cheap, compliant, and legally unprotected white-collar workers, many of whom work for Indian-run, gig worker subcontractors.
Business groups tout these visa workers as the best and brightest, yet most have skills inferior to American graduates and are often trained to do their jobs by American workers.
Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC, or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart.com.
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