During the 2016 election campaign, President Donald Trump promised that Mexico would pay for the wall. Despite massive opposition by the Democrats and some Republicans, he managed to achieve his goal partially through threats of tariffs. Now, it appears he is doing something similar domestically to curb harmful immigration.
Recently appointed director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Ken Cuccinelli wrote in a memo that “if the sponsored immigrant receives any federal means-tested public benefits, the sponsor will be expected to reimburse the benefits-granting agency for every dollar of benefits received by the immigrant.”
In plain language: If you want immigrants in this country, you pay the bill. This is a smart move by the president. He knows that to a socialist, responsibility is as disinfectant in a cesspool; the sunlight that kills the vampire.
Socialism only works while there exists an indefinite supply of victims who can bear the brunt of the cost. But as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously stated: “The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” The surest way to stop socialist policies is, therefore, to make sure that the socialists must bear the consequences of their actions. Trump knows this and has skillfully applied this technique on several occasions in immigration.
The first time was when he ordered illegal immigrants to be shipped to sanctuary cities. This immediately caused an outrage on the left, thereby exposing that they were only fine with migrants if someone else bore the cost. Now Cuccinelli continues that strategy by holding the sponsors of immigration financially accountable. The result will surely be that immigration will be reduced because apparently, diversity is only a strength if someone else pays the bill.
The move by the Trump-administration is smart because it cannot be construed to be an anti-immigration or racist policy. It is designed to reduce only harmful immigration while also exposing the hypocrisy of the left. The strategy also exposes how spineless, submissive, and ineffective the Republicans have been on these issues before the arrival of Trump. Why wasn’t this done a long time ago? The answer is that the Republican Party was heavily influenced by corporations wanting to privatize profits from cheap illegal immigrant labor but socialize their costs.
Arguably, this led Trump to win the 2016 election. He was not beholden to any corporate interests. He paid for his campaign mostly out of his own pocket, with the help of small donations from ordinary Americans. Conservatives had grown increasingly weary of the Republican Party, and Trump’s straight talk gave them hope that they may finally be taken seriously.
So far, Trump has delivered far more than any supporter could reasonably hope for, and while it is too early to tell, he may have changed the Republican Party for decades to come by showing an alternative that was always available but never chosen. Now that voters have seen what is possible when a politician has a spine, it will be more difficult for Republicans to go back to their old, submissive ways. Expect to see more of the strategy of letting the proponents of a policy pay for their suggestions in the future. It may become a Trump signature.
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