By Mark Krikorian
Donald Trump has been given a mandate by the voters to reverse the disastrous anti-borders policy of the Biden/Bush/Obama/Cheney neoliberal uniparty. Whatever the specifics of the "largest deportation effort in American history," there's consensus among conservatives that the gaps – both physical and legal – in our immigration-control system have to be plugged and the millions who've wriggled through those gaps made to return home.
But then what?
Fences, detention centers, repatriation flights, worksite raids, etc. are not immigration policy, but merely the means by which we implement and enforce immigration policy. The policy itself must answer the questions of how many foreigners we should let in to live among us, and how to select them.
And here there is no consensus among this month's winning coalition. If anything, there appears to be the same elite/public gap on immigration in the new Trump coalition as in the bad old days, with the elite favoring continued mass immigration — except that "they have to come legally," as the president-elect has said on more than one occasion.
Voters in general, and Republican voters in particular, tell pollsters again and again that they want lower levels of immigration, both illegal and legal. This is true when they're asked generally whether they want more, less, or the same, and also when they're given the actual level of legal immigration (about 1 million per year) and then presented with alternate levels.
At the same time, many of the leaders of the newly victorious right — most notably President-elect Trump but many others as well — cling to the old GOP immigration cliché of "legal-good/illegal-bad", with the proviso that they take the "illegal bad" part far more seriously than earlier Republican figures, for whom it was little more than boob bait for Bubba.
Trump, for instance, has told supporters in the tech industry that he wants to give green cards to every foreign student graduating from an American institution, including those receiving associate's degrees from community colleges. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has said he wants "greatly expanded" legal immigration and Bill Ackman wants to "open the floodgates" to skilled workers... | 
Posts
