President Trump’s seeming prioritization of nearly 800,000 illegal aliens shielded from deportation under former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program breaks a long-held commitment by the populist leader to put American citizens first in every decision.
As Breitbart News reported, Trump posted to Twitter on Tuesday that the open borders activists behind recent protests demanding DACA amnesty will begin “falling in love” with himself and Republicans, hinting that he is interested in a deal to begin giving illegal aliens a pathway to U.S. citizenship.
The statement, though, breaks with Trump’s key commitment to his supporters that Americans will always come first in not only the immigration issue, but on every issue, including trade, healthcare, and foreign policy.
This “America First” commitment best is exemplified in Trump’s historic 2016 immigration speech, in which he repeatedly promised that “there will be no amnesty.”
From the historic immigration speech, Trump stated:
“For those here illegally today who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and one route only. To return home and apply for re-entry like everybody else under the rules of the new legal immigration system that I have outlined today.”
“It’s our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us.”
“Anyone who tells you the core issue is the needs of those living here illegally has simply spent too much time in Washington.”
In February 2016, when Trump was asked specifically about DACA illegal aliens — dubbed “DREAMers” by the open borders lobby, corporate interests, and mainstream media — the then-candidate famously decried foreign nationals being put ahead of Americans.
Trump stated:
“You know what I want? I want DREAMers to come from this country. Okay? You mentioned DREAMers, you mentioned DREAMers. I want DREAMers to come from the United States. I want the people in the United States that have children, I want them to have dreams also.”
“We’re always talking about DREAMers for other people. I want the children that are growing up in the United States to be DREAMers also. They’re not dreaming right now.”
This pro-American immigration language was backed up almost a year later when Trump delivered his historic inaugural speech, where he recommitted to an immigration system that benefitted America’s working and middle class, rather than aiding foreign nationals ahead of U.S. citizens.
From his inaugural speech, Trump rebuked the previous decades of amnesties and illegal immigration that came at the detriment and expense of American citizens.
Trump in January 2017 stated:
“We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.”
“From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.”
“We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.”
“Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.”
“We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.”
Despite his previous commitment to never consider amnesty for illegal aliens, the Trump administration has viewed the DACA issue as a way to make major headway in terms of reducing legal immigration levels to benefit American workers and give them immediate wage increases by no longer having to compete with never-ending flows of low-skilled foreign workers.
For example, Trump last week was firm in his stance that there would be no deal to give amnesty to DACA illegal aliens unless his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall was funded and constructed, as well as an end to two legal immigration avenues that have been responsible for the mass influx of legal immigration levels over the last few decades.
Extended-family immigration, known as “chain migration,” allows newly naturalized foreign-born citizens to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. with them. For example, every two new immigrants to the U.S. brings an additional seven foreign relatives, leading to the current foreign-born population boom, which sits at about 44 million.
Since 2005, 9.3 million foreign nationals have been able to resettle in the U.S. for no other reason than they had extended family members already living in the country, as Breitbart News reported. This huge inflow outpaces two years of American births, which amount to roughly four million babies every year.
Likewise, under the Visa Lottery program, championed by former Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the U.S. randomly gives out 50,000 visas every year to foreign nationals from a multitude of countries, including those with known terrorism problems – such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Yemen, and Uzbekistan. Winners have undergone only minor screening from immigration officials, even when their ideology is hostile to American laws and culture.
Since 2007, 28,783 foreign nationals from Iran, Syria, and Sudan — three countries which support international terrorism — have become legal immigrants into the United States through the visa lottery, Breitbart News reported.
An immigration deal whereby chain migration and the Visa Lottery were officially ended, legal immigration levels would likely be reduced from the current more than one million to about 500,000, as 70 percent of the current legal immigration system is based on chain migration.
Americans would immediately see the benefits from reduced legal immigration, but only if the current waiting list of chain migrants attempting to enter the U.S. is canceled out in a deal.
Such a deal, however, would begin by giving amnesty to the roughly 800,000 to 3.5 million DACA illegal aliens, but could eventually lead to all 12 to 30 million illegal aliens being amnestied in the future, as historical precedent has revealed.
Additionally, a DACA amnesty would come before a border wall was built and finished along the southern border to prevent illegal immigration.
As Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has noted, would-be illegal aliens and human smugglers pay close attention to the U.S. national immigration policy. Enacting an amnesty would likely cause a surge at the southern border with potentially millions of illegal aliens trying to enter the country to fraudulently qualify for the amnesty.
Pro-American immigration reformers have previously told Breitbart News that Trump and Republicans should be able to reach a negotiation that ended chain migration and the Visa Lottery without giving DACA illegal aliens amnesty.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.