Posted by Tina
The RAISE Act should cause a few heads to explode on both sides of the aisle but it moves the conversation about immigration in a positive direction. It also aligns nicely with Trumps promise to Make America Great Again. The President, along with Senate bill sponsors Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.), held a press conference this morning to introduce the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act. The proposed legislation represents a shift in policy to a merit-based system that cuts the number of people we admit per year in half and requires high level skills and proficiency in English. The President said the bill is designed to support American businesses that need stem skilled workers and to protect lower skilled jobs for American workers. The policy shift will also encourage higher wages for American workers, a group that has suffered downward pressure with the influx of low skilled workers over the last :
The measure reflects Trump’s rhetoric during the 2016 campaign, when he argued that the spike in legal immigration over the past several decades has taken job opportunities away from American citizens and threatened national security.
“As a candidate, I campaigned on creating a merit-based immigration system that protects U.S. workers and taxpayers and that’s why we are here today,” he said, adding the measure would “reduce poverty, increase wages and save taxpayers billions and billions of dollars.”
The United States has previously taken steps to manage and limit immigration following massive influxes of people and periods of economic decline in wages:
In 1917, Congress enacted legislation requiring immigrants over 16 to pass a literacy test, and in the early 1920s immigration quotas were established. The Immigration Act of 1924 created a quota system that restricted entry to 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality in America as of the 1890 national census
We have just experienced the worst economic situation since the Great Depression, a condition that has overwhelmed the budgets of many families, educational systems, and state and local governments, a condition that has decimated the middle class. This policy shift would support Trumps vision to greatly improve the economy, job opportunities, and wages and help to strengthen American families and communities.
Your thoughts?
“We’re against illegal immigration, not legal immigration!”
“Actually, yeah, let’s make some of that legal immigration illegal.”
“We have just experienced the worst economic situation since the Great Depression, …”
So why are you and Peggy both trying to tell me it ended eight years ago, six months into the OA?
You are both deeply weird. You can’t be adjusting reality from post to post to suit your prejudices. Well, you can, and do … but it’s deeply weird.
“So why are you and Peggy both trying to tell me it ended eight years ago, six months into the OA?”
Because it did! It was followed by a long state of stagnacy.
A recession is a thing. Wikipedia’s definition:
Some of those fixes work and other do not. In the Spring of 2009 the negative growth stopped and the nation began a recovery. Then Obama chose increasing government spending, increasing the money supply, and stupid tax breaks that encouraged borrowing (debt) not exactly what business and taxpayers needed. The result was an economy that bumped along under 3% for his entire presidency.
See also article here.
We’ve been over this sp many times before. I know you aren’t really a dim bulb so what’s between you and learning how an economy works at basic levels?
I find it very interesting that the bill’s sponsors are both from agricultural states whose producers are already howling cause they can’t get help. I’m all for it, however. I’m looking forward to listening to you howl when you’re paying $3 a piece for bruised peaches.
$3 a piece for bruised peaches? Why does that bother you? Aren’t you in favor of organic foods? They often come bruised and much more expensive.
In California you Bay Area elites have pretty much destroyed work for ag labor in the Central Valley because of your fondness for the Delta smelt. It’s curious since you don’t mind frying and bashing birds to death with alternative energy tech.
Trump is a businessman. If ag needs workers and Americans wont do it a way forward will be forthcoming.
You guys on the left just don’t get it, We have a right as a nation to choose who we let into our country. We can do that with strong laws and enforcement of our laws. Anything goes has created chaos, crime, problems in our schools and at a great cost to taxpayers.
It’s stupid to think we have to give up jobs, safety, better education for our kids and a smaller tax burden for a few fruit pickers when there’s a way to have both. Face it…you guys don’t know how to govern effectively.
“Trump is a failed businessman.”
Fixed that for you.
“Trump is a businessman. If ag needs workers and Americans wont do it a way forward will be forthcoming.”
Like what, for instance? You say “businessman” like it’s some kind of magic wand. And applying the term to a five-time bankrupt might not be quite the thing … if you want to preserve the reputation of businessmen.
As we know from the leaked transcripts, Trump is a terrible negotiator. He couldn’t come up with any reason to persuade Nieto to help him pay for the wall other than “Because I really want it and if you don’t give it to me the media will be so mean to me!”
Steven Miller does a great job schooling CNN/FNN’s Jim Acosta on the new immigration plan:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/08/02/cosmopolitan-bias-stephen-miller-rips-cnns-jim-acosta-about-facts-on-immigration/
Score: Miller 100 Acosta: zip, zero nada
Well done, Mr. Miller!!
Yes indeed!
It’s sad that you two share Miller’s opinion that the poem on the Statue of Liberty has nothing to do with our values.
I’d take issue with your assumption, except that you’ve already proven that you are so far Left that you’re unable to make a right turn when driving.
Geez, Chris, why the leap?
Cheer up. The poem reflects our values but its not a constitutional dictum that we must take in any number, by any means, that wishes to come. It’s a poem, not a law.
It is just mind boggling that there is any controversy over wanting to strengthen our country and protect our values and culture? Geez, imagine 50 years ago NOT really wanting or caring if immigrants could speak our language and have some skills so they are employable? We would have been thought those people stupid and we would have been right. But, today, almost half the country thinks a merit based immigration system is just terrible and racist!!! Maybe they should try selling that idea to Harvard or any of the Ivy League elites? How long would any of these places remain a top ranked college if they merely had a quota admittance system? The quality of our citizens is what keeps America great, it’s not just diversity for the sake of being politically correct. Our people need to be productive, to be workers, leaders, skilled people with family units, believers in capitalism, appreciating our history and so on. There is just no other way we’re going to make it, it’s so blatantly obvious to me.
To me also, Jack.
But we aren’t overly burdened by all of those PC and globalist rules. 😉 Their’s is a reality built on lies and pure fantasy.
Jack, most of our immigrants are already learning English and doing hard work. The notion that they aren’t is pure propaganda with no factual basis. Conservative think tanks like CATO and AEI have documented that our current crop of immigrants is good for our economy. These institutions actually believe in the free market and recognize that interfering with it to block immigrants from coming and working here is counterproductive. There is no reason for these proposed immigration restrictions other than to further appease Trump’s base. He opened his campaign by promoting unfounded fear against immigrants and that’s all he’s doing now.
I have more time now….
“…most of our immigrants are already learning English and doing hard work. The notion that they aren’t is pure propaganda …”
Where in this directive does it refer in any way to people already here?
The idea is to encourage self-reliance and assimilation in future legally documented immigrants…a very good idea.
The notion that the undocumented are all people who care about America and just want to work is a position you on the left take, often when shouting “racist,” that is not backed by fact:
Is it any wonder our prisons are full and the cost has grown to be such a burden?
I can’t imagine how you can oppose measures that will give us better control of our borders, create safer streets, lower the cost of state, federal and local services, and lessen the burden for teachers in many school districts across the nation. To what end do you fight against common sense, responsible control of our borders?
More facts, February, 2017, here:
American workers suffer a lousy economy while Mexico’s is supplemented by $2.4 billions? And you can’t see anything but Trumps base being “appeased?”
Hate to say it but that makes you a bit of an ass.
Decades long sloppy immigration policy has resulted in negative outcomes for the undocumented as well as the local communities and taxpayers:
Guess where they go for healthcare?
Additional burdens:
It’s frustrating that you deny the seriousness of these realities.
It’s frustrating that you assume racism in those who do take them seriously.
It’s frustrating that, in particular with respect to Mexico and nations south of their border, the left’s policies enable those governments to continue to ignore the plight of their own citizen’s. Go to America, those fools will take care of you and send booty back home!
It’s frustrating that left policies do nothing to encourage those foreign citizens to demand better of their own governments.
It’s more than annoying that you assume that superior tone with respect to the President and the more than qualified people he has placed to clean up the mess your leadership has made.
There were 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants in the US as of 2015 according to PEW. Also, “The U.S. civilian workforce includes 8 million unauthorized immigrants, accounting for 5% of those who were working or were unemployed and looking for work.” At least for now those people are not being escorted out of the country (undocumented criminals are) so we already have a significant number of people from other countries that are “good for our country” living and working in our country. 66% of those people have been here for at least a decade. It is not “counterproductive” to slow down and manage the influx when our own citizens are not able to find work and are often displaced by cheap labor which puts downward pressure on wage growth!
Chris your opinion is biased and does not flow from being fully informed.
An excellent article about the RAISE Act, immigration, and the economy is well worth a read in full. Here’s a relevant excerpt: