Monday the Trump administration issued new rules that will make it much easier to deny green cards to those who could end up on taxpayer-funded welfare programs. We are, naturally, waiting for the inevitable Dem screeching and court challenge.
Trump Immigration official Ken Cuccinelli commented on the new measure, “The principle driving it is an old American value, and that’s self-sufficiency.”
Good.
Generally separate from the question of border security and illegal immigration, is what kind of people get to come and possibly stay, even on a relatively temporary basis? Like most countries in the world regarding their own standards, the U.S. should look to the most industrious and brightest of other nations and encourage them to immigrate and make this land their home.
Legal immigration to our shores of those who can better America is an excellent goal. As we know, the U.S. was immeasurably improved by those who immigrated here during the Ellis Island period. Before and after that many came legally and made significant contributions to our society.
Nevertheless, there are people who do not want the best and the most productive coming to America. They want others who can be more easily controlled. Others who will vote their way in exchange for income redistribution. The hard left and their Dem handmaidens will start the usual furor and let loose their hounds in court on the new Trump rules. Are they concerned at all for the U.S. taxpayer who is picking up the bill for their indirect largesse? Nah, have they ever been?
The more sane and less politically avaricious know Americans cannot be asked to pick up the bill for those who now arrive here and may not be able to support themselves. That period, if it ever existed, is over. There are, of course, extenuating circumstances in some applications for resident status and those should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.
A great exception should be made for those foreign nationals who have supported us in wartime, like interpreters from Iraq or Afghanistan. We owe those people, men who risked their lives and fought with us, and cannot leave them to the tender mercies of the Islamist fanatics who may take over now or later. These allies and their families have earned our support.
However, Americans have enough on their budget plate dealing with the economic responsibilities of daily life without taking on unfair, or unearned, burdens.
Yes, we are a great and generous people. But our generosity is not unlimited, nor should it be. For too long we have tossed national treasure in a bottomless bin by ignoring common sense immigration standards. We have also pitched loads of foreign aid cash into corrupt, badly governed dirigiste money pits (pretty much like Baltimore) and in other international aid to nations who publicly damn us at the drop of a fez.
The president is changing all that for the better, as he is much else. Bully for him.
