Category: Immigration

Trump Wants to Bring Back Controversial ‘Operation Wetback’

Trump speaks about modeling his deportation plan after Operation Wetback.

Donald Trump defended his vision for immigration policy at the November 10th GOP debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by alluding to a plan implemented by President Dwight Eisenhower’s that supposedly deported more than a million illegal immigrants during the 1950s.

Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower, good president, great president, people liked him. Moved a 1.5 million illegal immigrants out of this country, moved them just beyond the border. They came back. Moved them again beyond the border, they came back. Didn’t like it. Moved them way south. They never came back.

(h/t CBS News)

Reality

Trump did not mention the disparaging name of the program, which was called “Operation Wetback.” Under the program, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service removed undocumented Mexican immigrants from the Southwest and sent them back to Mexico.

The operation began in Texas in 1954 and was a “quasi-military operation of search and seizure of all unauthorized immigrants,” according to the Texas State Historical Association. The association, however, says it’s difficult to estimate how many people were actually forced to leave the country under the operation.

At the time, the government said it had deported as many as 1.3 million illegal immigrants, but analysts have said this number is exaggerated and some have said the total number of people deported was a gradual result of other programs.

It is believed, however, that Eisenhower’s operation was the opposite of humane. A story in the Washington Post says that Mexicans were dumped in hot, obscure destinations in Mexico “with few possessions and no way of getting home,” in order to discourage them from returning to the U.S.

As we pointed out in our policy review of Trump’s Immigration Reform, mass deportations would involve rounding up every undocumented person and forcibly removing them from the country. What Trump is advocating here, the forced removal of a portion of a population with the same national heritage from an area, already has a name, it’s called “ethnic cleansing” and it is not seen as a positive and moral thing. On top of the horrific crimes against humanity being proposed, what Trump also fails to mention here is the cost. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told lawmakers that it costs about $12,500 to deport one immigrant from the United States. Multiply that by 11.3 million, and you get $141.3 billion. Not great for the deficit, smaller government, or freedoms.

Media

Footage of Operation Wetback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOhlDjU15hA&feature=youtu.be

 

Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again

In his first policy paper, Trump laid out a highly racist and nationalist immigration reform based on faulty data and promoted crimes against humanity all while failing the mention of its high cost to taxpayers.

For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well as in other Latin American countries)

The paper goes on to explain the core issues of Donald Trump’s reforms:

  1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.
  2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.
  3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

Reality

Allow me to break down each core issue and explain the problem. As we read these we first need a dose of reality for context. If at any time you start leaning towards Trump’s side just remember a few things:

  1. Mexican immigration net zero. Meaning more Mexicans are leaving the US and moving back to Mexico than the Mexicans coming in. Illegal immigration is not as big of a problem as you think it is.
  2. Undocumented immigrants commit far less crime than the rest of the population. In general the people who are living in the country illegally don’t want any contact with law enforcement.
  3. The Obama recovery worked, the economy is strong, unemployment is at record lows, S&P 500 is up. While wage growth has been stagnant, it’s not like billionaire business owners couldn’t have done something about that.
A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.

Let’s play a game of logic. Drugs are coming across the southern border so Trump wants to build a wall with Mexico and is cheered for it by Republicans. Drugs are coming across the northern border and Governor Scott Walker makes the suggestion that we should also build a wall with Canada and is laughed at and called crazy by Republicans. How could this be that Republicans see 1 problem happening in 2 different places and have vastly different ideas? Logically if this was really about drugs then they would have jumped at the idea of a northern border wall. The only logical conclusion then is race, Canadians in general look and talk like Americans, Mexicans are brown and have a different word for everything. Therefore this idea has its roots in racism.

A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.

This is really vague and kind of a “no duh” comment. But what Trump is talking about here is rounding up every illegal immigrant and returning them to their place of origin, nationwide e-verify, ending birthright citizenship, defunding sanctuary cities, increasing the number of ICE officers, and more.

Mass deportations would involve rounding up every undocumented person and forcibly removing them from the country. What Trump is advocating here already has a name, it’s called “ethnic cleansing” and it is not seen as a positive and moral thing. What Trump also fails to mention is the cost. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told lawmakers that it costs about $12,500 to deport one immigrant from the United States. Multiply that by 11.3 million, and you get $141.3 billion. Not great for the deficit and smaller government.

Tripling the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would cost $8.4 billion per year, again not great for the deficit and smaller government. What Trump also neglects is that President Obama has deported more illegal immigrants than any of his predecessors. So vote Democrat.

Nationwide E-Verify system, while the least controversial of his reforms, would still cost taxpayers $2.15 billion, again not great for the deficit and smaller government.

All-in-all Trumps plan would be a giant middle finger to freedom and morality and cost the taxpayers over $160 billion, again not great for the deficit and smaller government, but great for people who hate Mexicans.

A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

Want to improve jobs? Vote Democrat. Under President Obama, unemployment is at a 20 year low and is below natural unemployment rate, meaning we are at total employment.

Want to improve wages? Don’t vote for Trump. He believes we must keep wages low in order to compete with other countries.

Want to secure America? Well Republicans don’t have the best track record.

Links

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/

http://immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/criminalization-immigration-united-states

http://cronkite.asu.edu/buffett/canada/borderdrugs.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/26/canada-border-is-drug-wars-2nd-front/?page=all

Trump: Birthright Babies Not Citizens

Donald Trump said that he doesn’t think people born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants are American citizens.

The Republican presidential front-runner said in an interview on Fox News:

“I don’t think they have American citizenship and if you speak to some very, very good lawyers — and I know some will disagree — but many of them agree with me and you’re going to find they do not have American citizenship. We have to start a process where we take back our country. Our country is going to hell.”

Trump added he would “test it out” in the courts.

Trump has called for the deportation of all undocumented immigrants living in the United States — allowing the “good ones” to return through an expedited legal process.

“What happens is they’re in Mexico, they’re going to have a baby, they move over here for a couple of days, they have the baby — (the lawyers are) saying it’s not going to hold up in court,” Trump said.

Trump announced in his immigration policy proposal that he wants to end birthright citizenship — preventing future undocumented immigrants from giving birth to an American citizen simply by virtue of being born on U.S. soil.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Most legal scholars will say birthright citizenship is a constitutional right from the 14th Amendment which says:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.”

Other Republican presidential candidates have joined Trump’s call for ending birthright citizenship, suggested birthright citizenship could be ended by simply passing a law through Congress that defines the clause “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

However Trump so far has taken the extra step of suggesting doing so retroactively and stripping certain Americans of their citizenship.

Media

Donald Trump Candidacy Announcement

Donal Trump announces campagin

Donald J. Trump descended “Stair Force One” to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the President of the United States of America and his first overtly racist comment by implying that the country of Mexico is intentionally sending immigrants who are criminals and rapists.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Reality

Donald Trump described people from Mexico as having “lots of problems”, drug users, rapists, and criminals. By painting a large swath of people with a single brush as “dangerous” he is using baseless stereotyping in an attempt to prove that Hispanics are different in their social behavior.

You might try to make the case that immigrants are still committing crimes, even if they are at a lower rate of natural-born citizens, however that does not explain away the fact that Trump is singling out an individual ethnic group as the cause of the problems in America. That is why is statement is racist.

Immigrants generally have a stronger incentive than native-born Americans to stay out of legal trouble — especially undocumented immigrants, who risk deportation. And those who legally are in the United States (or are pursuing legal status) are required to pass a criminal background check.

“Immigrants in general — unauthorized immigrants in particular — are a self-selected group who generally come to the U.S. to work. And once they’re here, most of them want to keep their nose down and do their business, and they’re sensitive to the fact that they’re vulnerable,” said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

And the data backs up this theory.

Crime Rates

FALSE – According to the Congressional Research Service, incarcerated non-citizens represented 7.2% of the total incarcerated population of 2.4 million, a proportion similar to the noncitizen proportion of the foreign-born population. If illegal immigrants were bringing high crime then their should be a larger number of incarcerated illegal immigrants compared to the national population.

Mexicans Are Rapists

FALSE – Of all of the convictions of illegal immigrants in 2013 (the majority of whom were from Mexico) only 1.6% was sex offenses. Immigration offenses account for the largest portion of federal convictions of immigrants, followed by drugs, then traffic violations.

Crime Category 2013
Immigration 31.3%
Dangerous Drugs 15.4%
Traffic Violations 15.0%
Assault 10.2%
Burglary 2.8%
Weapon Offenses 2.7%
Larceny 2.7%
Fraud 2.6%
Sexual Assault 1.6%
Forgery 1.5%
Other 14.2%

Compare the 1.6% number to the national average of 12.2% of convicted prisoners who committed sexual offenses. So an illegal immigrant is 7.5x less likely to commit a sexual offense.

Mexicans Are Drug Smugglers

FALSE – In 2013, the Center for Investigative Reporting found that four out of five arrests for drug smuggling involved U.S. citizens.

Media

Links

Here’s Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech

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