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No New Plan in Trump Immigration Speech
Posted on May 16 2019
May 16, 2019—Despite the president’s May 16 Rose Garden speech on immigration, no new administration proposal has yet been introduced in Congress. The president’s speech, and the other rhetoric surrounding the Kushner/Miller/Trump “plan,” continue the same anti-immigrant and anti-refugee posture that underlies all of this administration’s immigration policies.
“Nothing in the speech offers any protection or path forward for Dreamers,” said Lenore Millibergity, Interim Executive Director of the Immigrant Law Center. “Nothing offers a way forward for people who have lived in the United States with Temporary Protected Status for years or for Liberian families living here under Deferred Enforced Departure permits. Nothing offers hope for the millions of undocumented families who work, pay taxes, own homes, care for their U.S. citizen children, and live in fear of this administration’s deport-everybody policies.
“In contrast, the American Dream and Promise Act, introduced in the House with 208 sponsors, is a move forward. The Dream and Promise Act offers protection and a path to legal residence to Dreamers and people with Temporary Protected Status. That’s not a full solution, but it’s a step forward that any thoughtful person can and should support.”
What President Trump actually said in his speech is a mish-mash of outright lies, half truths, and recycled rhetoric. For example, he characterized family reunification visas as “random chance” and said “it doesn’t really matter who that relative is.” In fact, family reunification is limited to spouses, children, parents, and siblings. No one else. Millions of these close family members have been on visa waiting lists for years, and would face further delays or an end to eligibility under the Trump proposal.
The president also characterized family-based immigrants as “mostly low-wage and low-skill.” That is not true. According to an analysis by the Cato Institute, cited in Forbes magazine last year, nearly half of immigrants who entered the U.S. on a family or diversity visa in 2015 had at least a college degree, which compares favorably to 29% of U.S. natives with a college degree.
Last year, the administration’s immigration legislation failed to get even 40 votes in the Senate. If the administration actually introduces legislation this year, that legislation also is going nowhere. Instead of this nowhere plan, we need actual movement on immigration to provide a path to legal residence and citizenship for Dreamers and for all of the 11 million undocumented immigrants who are already building our communities and our country.
Family members, asylum seekers, refugees, farm workers, doctors, carpenters, and engineers: we have room for all of these immigrants and we need all of them to continue to grow our economy, support our Social Security system, and contribute their imagination, caring, and loyalty to our communities and our country.