A senior Republican aide has shot down accusations that President Trump’s top adviser Stephen Miller was trying to block a deal on immigration between the GOP establishment and the White House.
In a report by McClatchy DC, a number of Republican aides blamed Miller for being an “obstacle” in the debate over how to provide pro-American immigration reforms to the American people, while giving amnesty to the nearly 800,000 illegal aliens shielded from deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
But a senior GOP aide shot down the narrative, saying Miller has been clear about the White House’s demands on immigration while working with the Republican establishment to cut a deal.
And in the fourth office, an aide to House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, said Miller has been up front about what the White House position is and that his interactions with the office had been “constructive recently.” A longtime Ryan staffer who works on immigration issues speaks to Miller regularly, sometimes even daily, the aide said.
But a senior GOP aide who had opposed Miller on immigration praised Miller. “Honestly knowing his background I thought he wouldn’t want a solution, but after dealing with him for several months I found his insights to be constructive and I truly believe he wants a deal,” the aide said. “He isn’t the problem, others are.” [Emphasis added]
Despite back and forth comments on whether or not Trump would sign off on a DACA amnesty plan, the White House has yet to change from the position that any plan giving amnesty to DACA illegal aliens must be coupled with three reforms: An end to chain migration, an end to the Diversity Visa Lottery, and full authorization for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
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. This process is known as “chain migration.” This huge inflow outpaces two years of American births, which amount to roughly four million babies every year.
Even after discounting normal immigration, the number of chain-migration arrivals at the nation’s airports during five years exceeds the number of babies born during each year. In percentage terms, foreigners deliver one in five, or 20 percent, of all new arrivals at the nation’s airports or maternity wards every year.
The number of extended-family foreign nationals who have resettled in the U.S. in the last decade is greater than the total combined population of Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Cleveland, the White House has noted in a new ad campaign that seeks to explain and end chain migration.
In recent polling by Pulse Opinion Research, nearly 60 percent of Americans said they wanted to see an end to chain migration included in any deal that gives amnesty to the nearly 800,000 DACA illegal aliens.
Under the 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.
The Visa Lottery program has imported roughly 30,000 foreign nationals to the U.S. from terror-funding countries since 2007, as Breitbart News reported.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.