Patriotic Immigration Reform Begins

Donald J. Trump’s landslide election sent the message to Americans that his administration will tackle the patriotic immigration reform challenge. The mission for the incoming administration is to revamp immigration so that it helps, not hurts, Americans. The new White House faces a steep uphill climb that has grown more difficult since the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 passed. The sixty-year-old act’s lead supporter, Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his Upper Chamber colleagues that, "The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.” Upon signing the act on October 3, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson doubled down on Kennedy’s statement when he said the bill would not be radical, “It does not affect the lives of millions … It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives or add importantly to either our wealth or our power.” Kennedy and Johnson were either uninformed or more likely, bald-faced liars. Under President Joe Biden’s administration, admission standards are non-existent, and the immigrant population has soared to a peak 51.4 million in 2024, a 6.4 million increase since Biden took office. Foreign national job holders represent the fastest growing and often the dominant share of the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Patriotic immigration reform’s undertaking is multi-tiered. The first tier and easiest to correct is to close the open border. Even before Trump’s inauguration, a caravan of thousands of migrants traveling through Mexico on the way to the U.S. had, aware that Trump had vowed to deport illegal aliens, shrunk to about half its original 3,000 size. Had they continued north, all would have had a cursory inspection at the border and been waved into the interior, unvetted. Trump also plans to shut down Biden’s illegal CHNV Parole” program, under which up to 30,000 nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV), none of whom have valid visas or any right to enter the U.S., but are nonetheless allowed to apply for parole from abroad each month and then fly to interior airports to be released. Cuban and Haitian CHNV beneficiaries are immediately eligible upon arrival for a full host of “entitlements”  such as Medicaid, cash benefits, and food stamps, all at the U.S. taxpayers’ expense. Revoking the aliens’ parole status is hard but Trump can wait until it expires in a few months at which time parolees who do not return become illegal aliens and thus subject to deportation. Criminal aliens who ignore their final order of deportation and have exhausted their appeals but remain are fugitives from justice, subject to immediate arrest. And, of course, finishing the wall is a top Trump priority. Also targeted for elimination is the “CBP One” mobile phone app which enables non-admissible aliens to schedule an appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, in order to be escorted through a port of entry, quickly be granted temporary “humanitarian parole” and released into the interior. Other actions that the Trump administration plans to immediately embark upon include promoting mandatory E-Verify to assure that only citizens or lawfully present aliens will get jobs and significantly reducing Biden’s 2024 125,000 refugee cap. Refugees should be resettled in countries that are geographically closer and more aligned with their cultural norms. The New York Times summed up what Americans want from their president on immigration. Reporter Miriam Jordan wrote, “Republicans, Democrats and Independents…blamed the Biden administration for failing to acknowledge the chaos at the border and promptly take steps to address it.” Accordingly, they voted for Trump.

The second reform tier will be more difficult to initiate because it requires a vigorous campaign to educate Congress about the harm done to Americans through questionable and unnecessary non-immigration visas that include work permission. Start by ending the pointless, fraud-ridden, national security risk Diversity Visa lottery that annually admits 55,000 foreign nationals, the significant percentage of which will make few tangible contributions to America’s economy. America is already diverse; in March 2024, the foreign-born population share reached an unprecedented 15.5% of the U.S. total, eclipsing historical benchmarks like those seen in 1910 and reaching a level that the Census Bureau had estimated the country would not reach until 2039. Another fraud-infested employment-based visa that new administration should set its sights on is the H-1B visa that issues 85,000 work permits annually and denies skilled citizen IT workers an opportunity to obtain high-paying white-collar jobs. For decades, Microsoft, Dell, and Disney have claimed that they would go broke without more foreign labor. Here is a golden chance for Trump to assess big business---freeze H-1B visas for two-years to see if the cheap labor addicted employers go under---a highly unlikely outcome. Look hard at other employment visas with the goal of eliminating or dramatically cutting the numbers issued. Phase out the H-2A visa ; instead of admitting an unlimited number of agriculture workers, mechanizing, like most of the world is doing, should be the goal. Similarly, the H-2B visa can also be eliminated. The Government Accountability Office found that the H-2B visa is full of abuse. Supposedly intended for temporary non-ag work, H-2B employers spurn U.S. applicants to hire foreign-born hospitality, forestry and seafood workers, all jobs that Americans will do. Extensive research done by the Economic Policy Institute found that no labor shortages exist at the national level in the top H-2B occupations. O-1 visas, purportedly for "aliens of extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, or who have a demonstrated record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry” has been, not surprisingly, shamelessly abused to a massive extent. These are merely a small handful of examples of visas that Americans want reformed. Other visas worthy of canceling or significantly reducing are L-1 intracompany transfers; J-1 cultural exchange visitors, K-1 fiancée visas, T international trafficking victims’ visas and EB-1, EB-2, EB-3. EB-4, and EB-5, for various categories of workers and their dependents.

The third tier, and perhaps a more difficult hurdle because Congress is enamored with diversity, is the F-1 student visa and the international student enrollment that it has spawned, must be slashed. The F-1 visa is the pathway taken by 1.2 million currently enrolled international students, more than 50% of which come from China and India but also from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Nigeria. For the academic year 2022-2023, 48 states reported an increase in the international student body. Every classroom seat that a foreign national occupies is one less opportunity for U.S. citizen high school graduates. Foreign enrollments are a financial bonanza for colleges and universities who collect full-freight tuition from the overseas enrollees. Some of the 9/11 terrorists as well as the San Bernardino killers who murdered 14 and wounded 21 had valid non-immigrant temporary visas; a diversity visa holder who killed eight on a New York City bike path are good national security reasons for greater vigilance about who enters.

F-1 visa students who specialize in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) can qualify for Optional Practical Training which, like the CBP-One app, has never been congressionally approved but is today the largest work program for foreign nationals. After executive actions in 2008 and 2016, STEM graduates enrolled in OPT saw their designated work periods initially doubled to 29 months, then later tripled to 36 months, currently the maximum allowable employment length. STEM grew by 400% since the first 2008 employment extension. Trump should either end OPT or reduce the permissible postgraduate work period to six months. A related M-1 visa, easily eliminated, is granted to vocational school students. Finally, chain migration and automatic birthright citizenship need re-evaluation. The former should be designated for nuclear family members exclusively; the latter should be reviewed by SCOTUS for a final decision on its legality.

When deciding what steps to take to patriotically reform the multiple levels of fraud, abuse, and useless visas, one question should guide federal immigration officials: are the decisions that I am taking in Americans’ best interests? If so, proceed boldly with the understanding that voters have given you a mandate which you are obligated to fulfill. The immigration morass took six decades to devolve into the mess it is today; four years is not enough time to undo sixty years of damage. But it is a long enough period to get the nation back on the right track.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org