The former Lieutenant Governor of NY has thoughts on Immigration
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The smart immigration policy open-borders Biden refuses to consider
By Betsy McCaughey
A country can have open borders or a generous social safety net but not both.
President Biden is the poster boy for that mistake, and cities across America are paying the price.
… Immigration is spiking to all-time highs, exceeding even the wave of newcomers from Europe in the late 19th century, when Lazarus wrote her poem.
About half the spike is due to Biden’s open-border policies.
A record 12,000 crossed the southern border last Tuesday, the biggest one-day surge ever.
Immigration per se is not the problem. The US economy needs more workers.
With the birthrate declining and baby boomers retiring, America has a people-shortage problem that can only be solved by immigration.
But Biden is welcoming destitute migrants instead of newcomers who are educated, have job skills to succeed in today’s economy, speak English and arrive ready to provide for their families.
Biden’s open border means anyone who wades across the Rio Grande gets in.
The president’s legal-immigration policy — introduced in Congress in 2021 — also prioritizes everything but economic self-sufficiency.
Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, ramped up enforcement of the longstanding “public charge” rule that bars anyone from getting a green card and permanent residence who is likely to depend on Medicaid, food stamps or housing vouchers.
Biden reversed Trump’s policy last year.
Countries with smart immigration policies — Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — have point systems giving preference to educated immigrants with language and job skills.
In contrast, two-thirds of legal immigrants to America receiving permanent residence get a green card based solely on having a family member here, whether they can support themselves or not.
It’s no wonder a staggering 55% of households headed by an immigrant who has not yet attained citizenship use at least one welfare program.
Biden’s proposed immigration “reform” actually loosens the standards for family-based migration even more, never mind the impact on taxpayers and city social services.
And here’s the wackiest legal-immigration program: the diversity lottery.
Fifty thousand immigrants from “under-represented nations” are literally admitted randomly.
Biden wants to expand that.
Canada is recruiting PhDs. Biden is prioritizing diversity.
Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) introduced a bill last month to establish a point system or “skills-based approach” here.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — a New Yorker — charges that Republican reform plans, including deterring illegal migration, are “anchored in xenophobia.”
Wrong: They’re anchored in survival.
I only disagree with McCaughey to the extent that she attributes the Democrats’ open border campaign to a desire for diversity: if diversity were the goal, there are plenty of educated, self-sufficient non-white immigrants to choose from, but that’s not what the Left is looking for. They want people who will become wards of the state, dependent on and obligated to the masters who control their sustenance. Cram them into Blue cities, bestow voting rights upon them, as New York has already done, then sit back and rule forever. As Lyndon Johnson (may have) said when urging passage of the Civil Rights Act, “I’ll have those nigras voting Democrat for 200 years”. It’s obvious that the Democrats are set on expanding that pool of permanent voters.
