by Michael Liss
Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? —Thomas Jefferson, 1801
Last month, after 3 Quarks Daily published my “A Requiem For Post Mortems,” I got a direct email from a reader politely critiquing it. We exchanged emails afterwards, and I asked him if I could raise some of his points in a subsequent post. I’ve chosen one, not intending to diminish his other ideas, but because this one, where he said I’d “misse[d] first on the importance of the migration issue, i.e., that … Trump was right and Dems wrong on the need to control migration [and] that Trump controlled migration much better than Biden, who didn’t even try until the 3d trimester” has the most salience right now.
So, since Elon and Vivek and Laura Loomer and pretty much all of MAGA-land are talking about immigration, let’s go there. Let’s do something we have never ever been good at and talk about immigration.
We can start by acknowledging my correspondent’s point, although I would phrase it differently. Certainly, from an electoral perspective, Trump was right on the need to control illegal immigration. Biden didn’t do it until very late in his term, too late to help Harris in the election. It is not clear to me why Biden didn’t move more aggressively earlier, but, during his four years in office, aggregate immigration, legal and illegal, rose to a level not seen since 1850. I can ascribe to Biden a good-hearted intention—a genuine desire to ease the suffering of others—but it cannot be ignored that part of a President’s job is to be practical and even a little cold-hearted when the situation requires it, and Biden, for whatever reasons, wasn’t. We don’t have hard polling data that indicates that swing voters, and even some Biden 2020 voters, went Trump in 2024 solely because of the immigration issue, but it could not have helped Harris.
Would voters have been less critical of Biden’s approach if he had been able to curtail illegal immigration while otherwise maintaining a generous posture? Hard to say, not just because of the potency of the issue and the effectiveness of Republican messaging, but also because of the layering of how policy is determined and applied.
It’s true that you are either a “legal” immigrant or an “illegal” one. But your legality can be both a technical and temporal one. You are “legal” insofar as you meet the description of one of many classifications (see the USCIS website for them) describing your current status. You remain “legal” so long as those classifications hold both as government policy and, specifically, with respect to your person. To put this more plainly, of the 77% of “Biden” immigrants who are presently “legal,” many would not be legal if a variety of legislated preferences, Executive Order initiatives, and bureaucratic policies were not in place. Some of these go back decades, and for good purpose. Others are in place to meet perceived emergent needs like catastrophes. A third variety are basically band-aids to deal with problems that plainly exist, but for which there are limited options for a compassionate country to address (should they so choose). DACA is in the last category. But all are good only so long as we say they are good.
The gold standard of “Legality” is the Green Card. The USCIS lists multiple pathways to a Green Card. The process is exacting and takes resources; half of Green Cards issued last year went to people still overseas, who often obtained them with the help of institutions with which they are associated. You also need to have a lane to run in, and we’ve created many. Close family members is one (roughly a quarter of all in 2023). Then, there’s the “marry a citizen” that makes for good rom coms. Religious workers may qualify, as may ”First, Second, and Third Immigrant Preference Workers.” Afghan and Iraqi refugees were added in response to their (US accelerated) plight. Asylum-seekers and nationals from other strife-ridden countries. Employees of international organizations like NATO. Juvenile victims and Victims of Human Trafficking. My personal favorite, “International Broadcasters.” The people who qualify for these “on-ramps” don’t necessarily all complete the process, but roughly 1 million Green Cards were issued last year, about 223,000 of which went to family members of those who were already US citizens and 140,000 for employment-related reasons.
The media has focused on the spectacle of Trump and his muscular immigration hawks, both in his government and in friendly states with ambitious Governors like Texas (Abbott) and Florida (DeSantis) saddling up, arranging a posse, and rounding up the bad guys for mass incarcerations and then deportations. It’s a fairly good choice—visually compelling, and a safe bet for at least some set-piece actions intending to intimidate.
The more interesting battles may come on the policy side. Watch Trump end Biden-initiated humanitarian parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans (CHNV), and particularly Ukrainians (U4U). Half a million live and work in the United States. Trump could stop the processing of new applicants, or even attempt to revoke existing authorizations.
Then, the roughly 535,000 “Dreamers” under DACA—which had long-standing GOP opposition even before Trump and is perceived as a soft target. A First Term Trump attempt to end the policy was sidelined by SCOTUS on technical grounds. Don’t be surprised if he tries again, and with more success.
Then there’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) which spares from deportation and authorizes to work migrants from countries with unstable domestic conditions. TPS presently covers 850,000 people.
Let’s not leave out more ambitious efforts, supported by a considerable number of Republicans, to ignore the 14th Amendment and end “Birthright Citizenship,” and to use denaturalization (taking away citizenship from someone already granted it) more aggressively. Could that also lead to accelerated deportation? There’s little doubt that’s part of the purpose.
All these policies, and more, are possible from Trump. You can consult Project 2025, which advocates for a new enforcement structure with 100,000 people and Cabinet-level status. It’s worth reading through the document to get an idea of the scope of the drafters’ intentions. On page 174, you can find a reference to ending what are called T and U visas, because “victimization should not be the basis of an immigration benefit.” Then move to page 178, where they call for the ending of the current system of family preferences where Mom and Dad are reunited with their children—that leads to “chain migration.” Further on, there’s a baleful eye on employment preferences to award visas “to only the best and brightest.” Then, skip to page 181, where they call for repeal of a statute that provides certain benefits to minor children and “reforming” the US Refugee Admission Program (“USRAP”) to cause an “indefinite curtailment” of any admissions of refugees.
I could go on (for many pages) but I want to return to two central issues. The first is simple, but controversial. Let’s align ourselves with the Project 2025 drafters and the Loomer-ites for a moment. Strip away the rhetoric, strip away the politics, and you get down to a central question—doesn’t a country have the right to determine who gets to live within its borders? We’ve all heard some form of the biblical invocation from Leviticus 19:33-34: “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Is it fair to characterize that as aspirational poetry that few of us are willing to embrace when an immigration policy directly affects us? I think so.
The fact is, we live in a democracy; we have chosen our leaders for the next four years; and, derivatively, we have given them the authority to determine who gets to enter and stay here, and for how long. As a country, we don’t need to be kind, humane, generous, open-minded, tolerant, or display any other of the higher-order human qualities. We can be as restrictive as we want, even for the worst reasons, and even at the cost to our international reputation. To be clear about this, an extreme, hardline approach to immigration policy would not be to my taste, nor do I think it would be at all wise. My family came here a little over a century ago, learned English, became citizens, each of them feeling immense gratitude for not just America’s bounty, but also America’s generosity. It bound them, and each succeeding generation, to America’s past and present—it made them citizens.
But no policy, however wise or well-intended, is entitled to detach itself entirely from the electoral process, and the public chose Trump. He is perfectly positioned to make vast policy changes, impacting millions of lives. The power that selects, enacts, and enforces immigration policy is in his hands and likely will find no meaningful institutional resistance, particularly with SCOTUS increasingly acting as his faithful servant.
In short, we should expect most of Trump’s agenda. Just what that will be, besides early “shock and awe,” is not entirely clear. Trump has never had a sustained focus on any issue besides just plain politics. In the beginning, he may get public support. Gallup reports that, in just the last few years, the share of Americans who want a reduction in immigration—not merely illegal immigration, but overall immigration—went from 31% to 55%. We can trace some of that to manipulation and fear-mongering, but that’s “some” and certainly not all of it.
There’s one more datapoint, maybe a little subtler, that can also be thought of as in play. In 1970, following a long period (1920s to 1965) of restrictive immigration policy, new immigrants were just 5% of the total population. Given that many congregated in a comparatively small number of cities, many American communities rarely saw any critical mass of immigrants and felt no need to accommodate them—nor any economic competition from them. The few were just there. Half a century later, after globalization run by sharp-eyed Capitalists have moved good-paying industrial jobs to other countries, competition for wages is everywhere, and so are immigrants. Today, only about a dozen states have immigrant populations of less than 5% (not surprisingly, they tend to have some of the most vocal hard-liners). What many voters are concerned about may not just be cultural discomfort, or even economic competition, but also the need to share or even build out infrastructure while experiencing them. The gigantic and terrible machine of Capitalism does not wait for people to catch up.
This leads us to a brief but revealing encounter with the richest man in the world, his highly opinionated near billionaire bro on DOGE, a flame throwing nativist, and….the meatpacking industry.
We should start with the blood and guts people, the meatpackers. According to an article in Axios, “Meatpacking industry supports Trump but braces for deportation fallout,” America’s volume butchers have a problem. For many years, they spread around their political largess in a non-partisan way. If you were a legislator who could help, you got cash. But this year, lured by the vision of a Trump-led return to pre-Upton Sinclair days, they backed the former and future President. Great, right? Big win. Well, maybe not so much, because a quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation about their workforce indicates that somewhere between 30 and 50% are undocumented. Of course, they dispute this number with a passion reserved for Ms. Piggy’s “Moi?,” but do concede that it’s very difficult to recruit for what is low-paying and dangerous work. It’s “brace for deportation fallout” time, and the industry must bank on Trump’s transactional side and willingness to “forget” to send around the Feds for inspections. Otherwise, headcount (sorry) could drop so low they might not be able to staff their factories adequately.
Why should a middle or upper-middle class voter care much about the folks who debone their chicken, besides griping over the cost of a family barbeque? Because a different variant on the immigration argument is taking place in far more rarefied places, like the high-paid high-tech sector. The Christmas week started with far-right provocateur Loomer criticizing Trump’s pick of Sriram Krishnan, a technology investor, who was born in India, as his senior policy advisor on AI. Krishnan was on record as supporting the removal of some caps on Green Cards and otherwise opening more doors to foreign-born skilled workers to come to the US. The very existence of the H-1B visa program, as well as the number of H-1B visas handed out, rankle Loomer, and she has a strong emotional bond with the outside edge of MAGA-land. She let loose on the “betrayal of MAGA.” Very loose.
Loomer’s decidedly unfiltered tone, particularly on Musk’s X, brought out the big guns—Musk himself, whom Loomer accuses of censorship, David Sacks, a private investor, podcaster, and fervent Trump supporter who was selected to be the new AI and crypto chief, and the inimitable (and voluble) Vivek Ramaswamy. Still, Loomer’s message, redacted for crudeness, had a resonance with the Trump base—why should high-paying tech jobs be filled by foreigners instead of the boys back home? This didn’t sit well with Musk, Sacks or Ramaswamy—neither Musk nor Sacks was American-born (Musk actually had a H-IB visa), and Ramaswamy was the child of Indian immigrants. Exactly no one pulled their punches. On top of Musk’s alleged move against Loomer on X, he also said: “The number of people who are super talented engineers And supermotivated in the USA is far too low.” Later in the week, he called his MAGA opponents “contemptible fools” who should be purged from the Republican Party. Ramaswamy chimed in with an X post on Thursday that the reason technology companies hire foreign-born engineers is because “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” And, if you missed the point, Vivek wants “[a] culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.”
This past Saturday, Trump weighed in, in support of Elon, Vivek, and H-1B, but Nikki Haley, of all people, backed Loomer. 2028 is just four years away. And Loomer has some facts on her side: The US grants up to 65,000 new visas per fiscal year, plus an additional 20,000 for those with a master’s degree or higher from a US institution of higher education. Coincidentally, Musk’s Tesla makes heavy use of the H-1B program—as do other tech giants—as a source of well-trained and relatively inexpensive labor. MAGA might reasonably ask, are there really no American workers who would crack the top 65,000?
What’s interesting, beyond the scorpions-in-a-bottle aspect of this fight is how critical the debate actually is. According to a 2023 study by the National Foundation for American Policy, as quoted in The Washington Post, 28 of the top 43 AI companies in the US were co-founded by immigrants, and 70% of the full-time grad students in AI are international students. Those immigrants turn out to be major engines of growth for the American economy.
So the biggest boys in the Trump sandbox think the Americans they expect to govern lack motivation and venerate mediocrity? And the Protectionist In Chief, who’s looking to tariff people into submission, annex other countries’ territories (by force?), and swallow our hockey-loving friends to the North, thinks we should keep (almost) all foreigners out? It’s not just the meatpackers. Has he checked the potential impact on such industries as construction, farming, health care, and the like?
We will just have to wait and see. Elections have consequences, and Trump will decide who goes and who stays. My best guess is that the transactional Trump—the “I have H-1B workers on my properties”—will find ways to please some, buy off others, and enrage more than a few (who will remain powerless). I doubt I’ll like much of it, but the country might benefit from having to face reality. Democrats certainly do. It’s notable that a number of Democratic Senate and Congressional candidates ran to Harris’s right on it, often successfully. Of the five swing states that had Senate elections, four Democrats—Baldwin (Wisconsin) Rosen (Nevada), Gallego (Arizona) and Slotkin (Michigan)—all narrowly held on, with more centrist approaches to immigration.
As to my correspondent who asked very good questions and made very good points, I fall back on quoting my immigrant grandmother, who came before women had a right to vote, then, after the 19th Amendment, marched unfailingly to the polling place for the next 70 years. She welcomed a good debate.
A favorite line: “We aren’t arguing, Michael. We are discussing.”
The woman was almost never wrong. Let’s discuss.