After the first presidential debate mercifully ended, Fox News analyst and moderator Chris Wallace called the free-for-all “interesting.” A better word is ugly.
Challenger Joe Biden sunk to calling President Trump names: “liar,” “racist,” “clown” and resorted to an unprecedented presidential political insult, “Will you shut up, man.” As for President Trump, in some viewers’ opinions, he came off as unpresidential. Add Wallace’s scolding, hectoring performance into the mix, and the result is three losers. The hour and a half verbal brawl made a good case for canceling future debates which would end once and for all the undignified circus-like atmosphere that benefits no one, least of all voters.
If President Trump is indeed trailing in the polls, assuming surveys taken by the never-Trump ABC and Washington Post are credible, then he needs to ratchet up his game. Instead of wasting his breath over whether Biden’s Green New Deal will cost $2 trillion or create 10 million jobs, as the challenger alleges, President Trump should stick to the inarguable facts. One of the top priorities among American voters is jobs, and to make his case President Trump should revert to the issue that won him the White House in 2016: immigration and its detrimental effect on U.S. employment.
Here’s what is indisputable: each year, more than 1 million new lawful permanent residents receive lifetime-valid employment authorization documents. And, about 1 million foreign nationals enter the U.S. annually on low- and high-skilled employment-based visas, and take jobs that, for the most part, would otherwise go to Americans. The congressionally approved immigration regulations operate on auto-pilot, and roll on regardless of economic or sociological conditions – be they 9/11, the mortgage meltdown, the Great Recession or COVID-19.
During today’s pandemic, about 30 million people are unemployed or under-employed. And this year, as per usual, about 4 million high school graduates will enter the labor market to look for jobs. The establishment media and moderator Wallace’s unasked question is whether the existing immigration policy – 2 million legally-authorized-to-work-immigrants – is fair to the 30 million unemployed Americans, and the 4 million hopeful teens. The answer is obviously no. Yet the mainstream media and office-seeking politicians from coast-to-coast consistently refuse to enter the immigration fray.
Although President Trump has come up short on many of his 2016 immigration promises, he’s given every indication that he understands the importance of hiring Americans as his 2017 “Buy American, Hire American” Executive Order proved. Biden’s website and his statements during the Democratic primaries indicate that he would expand immigration and, therefore, create higher immigrant employment that would make it tougher for job-searching Americans.
Biden’s immigration vision is radical. Among his anti-American worker proposals are to a) increase the high-skilled employment visa totals even though unemployment is high in those sectors, b) preserve the fraud-ridden diversity visa lottery, a process that randomly selects 50,000 limited-skills immigrants each year that will compete for employment with struggling minorities, c) grant cities the authorization to sponsor new immigrants, a cheap labor bonanza and d) increase refugee admissions 700 percent.
First and foremost, however, Biden wants to grant amnesty – and permanent work authorization – to the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. The 12 million new lawful permanent residents would eventually petition their family members which, at an average of 3.5 petitions per immigrant, means 42 million more people.
Biden is proposing a wide-ranging makeover of the U.S. immigration system. But Biden should heed a cautionary note from his former boss, and a fellow immigration advocate. President Barack Obama was specifically critical about immigration policies that went too far left, and suggested that adopting a policy to decriminalize illegal immigration, as Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris has vowed, is an error. Obama: “You go survey the average Democrat and they still think there’s such a thing as a border, and if you don’t speak to those values, then you may be in for a rude shock…the average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”
For his part, President Trump needs to put his central issue – immigration – to the forefront. The president can point to his ultimate successes in prevailing on immigration issues that the courts challenged, namely imposing travel restrictions on aliens from nations with ties to terrorism, finalizing agreements with Mexico and other Central American nations to deter illegal immigrants intending to defraud U.S. asylum policies, and dramatically lowering refugee admissions. President Trump’s achievements mean fewer work permits, and more American job opportunities.
Voters with strong stomachs can watch the second debate on October 15, televised from Miami, Fla.
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