Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
Immigration has been at the forefront of conversation these days. For the first time in the poll’s history, more Americans want to increase immigration than decrease it. Immigration, the key issue has largely been ignored during the debates and the presidential campaign, overshadowed by the pandemic, health care and economic concerns. Experts on EMS videoconference on Oct 30 examined the balance of his actions on legal and unauthorized immigration, refugee policies and temporary visitors, among others. A second term for the Trump Administration will likely result in further erosion of the legal immigration system and key protections granted by the 14th amendment including birthright citizenship, immigrant rights experts warn.
The impact is, in a word, tremendous. In 2017, more than 3.2 million immigrants ran their own businesses and employed almost 8 million American workers, generating $1.3 trillion in total sales. By this measure alone, it is abundantly clear that immigrants and immigration are of great benefit to the nation. “My read is that (the Trump administration’s) efforts for the 2020 Census not to count the undocumented are the early steps to making the case that the 14th amendment doesn´t apply to the immigrant community,” said Ali Noorani, President & Chief Executive Officer of the National Immigration Forum during a briefing with ethnic media. “I do expect that if we see a second term, there will be a steady stream of executive orders or even litigation to chip away at those rights.”
The balance of the first term on immigration policy was extremely damaging to the legal immigration system as well as visas for business, students and even visitors, said Alex Nowrasteh, Immigration Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. The Administration has basically shut down the asylum system and every work visa category, and cut the issuance of green cards to people seeking to immigrate to the United States by 92%, Nowrasteh said.
“That decline in green cards for people outside of the country is the largest we have seen in American history, greater than the one we saw after first closing the open borders with Europe in the 1920s, greater than the cut during the Great Depression and both World Wars,” Nowrastreh added. The Administration has cut refugee admissions to the United States by 85% since 2016, despite a record number of refugees needing resettlement.
Juan Escalante, a DACA recipient and long-time immigration advocate, said that he expects no move from a second Trump administration other than using DACA as a bargaining chip for obtaining more restrictive legislation from Congress.
