Trump's Immigration Offer: DACA Cards for 1.8 Million, 10-12 Year Pathway to Citizenship, $25 Billion for the Wall, Cuts to Chain Migration (and Limits Chain Migration to Immediate "Nuclear" Family Only) and End to Visa Lottery

The "Family Reunificiation" provision, aka "Chain Migration," would be limited to spouses and minor children only -- no parents, no siblings, no cousins.

TBH, I don't see why the immigration hawks are that upset, or the pretend conservatives who like pretending they're super hrrdcore on this issue whenever it suits their anti-Trump positioning to be so. (They're liberal one day, super hrrdcore conservative the next, depending on today's NeverTrump needs.)

There are 800,000 current DACA card holders; we knew the plan would include those. Apparently this proposal includes another million who could apply for DACA but haven't yet.

In exchange, greatly limiting all chain migration, ending the visa lottery, and securing $25 billion for the law.

The one point I imagine people will choke on is the 10-12 year pathway to citizenship. However, two points: 1, it's only the 1.8 million, not the 11 million, or 20-30 million we've previously talked about (or so it seems), and 2, with these people permitted in-country anyway, their kids are automatically citizens. Plus, just being present in America legally gets you all the welfare benefits you could want anyway.

So this isn't a huge concession. Though, it is a big concession, especially right off the top. But not huge as a practical matter.

It's a bigger philosophical point -- it just doesn't seem right to many that people should be rewarded for cutting in line, etc. -- but as for practical impacts, full citizenship (after a 10-12 year period of probation) doesn't grant many more rights than a legal resident would already have.

The right to vote, obviously.

Granting the DACA people citizenship (contingent on not breaking the law, etc.) does stick in the craw a bit, and I would have preferred if this proposal didn't have that, but I don't see the reason for the Hair-On-Fire treatment, except for posers who are really whining, as usual, We could have had Maaaario, as if that's something to get excited about, and deciding to make today a day where they pretend to be a Real Conservative TruHeart (TM).

In any event, the progressives are saying this is "dead on arrival" so it probably won't even pass.

Republican immigration hawks are also angry about it. I imagine a lot of that is about the philosophical objection to the pathway to citizenship more than anything else.

Unless Trump makes additional concessions, or gives up the cuts to legal immigration/chain migration/etc. demanded for the DACA stuff.

In which case, that's a huge problem.

As I don't know what will come from this, I'm not prepared, like some Super HrrdCore Crying Eagle Brigade Tru Con #SalonHot25 bloggers, to condemn this.

I could see Trump getting weaker and weaker in his negotiations in a bid to win Love from people who will always hate him.

But we'll see. Permanent cuts to our asinine system of chain migration and visa lottery slots might be worth it in exchange for granting DACA to people who everyone has always agreed we're going to grant permanent resident status to, one way or the other.

posted by Ace at 07:06 PM

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