To no one’s surprise, Stephen Miller wants to make President Trump’s temporary suspension of immigration permanent. On April 22nd, in a very belated — and plainly cynical — response to the COVID-19 crisis, the president signed an executive order restricting the issuance of new green cards.
The move was mostly symbolic: the crisis has already halted many forms of immigration. Court proceedings and visa processing are on hold; travel restrictions have been in place for some time. Miller, chief White House nativist, is already saying that the order is a wedge to put in place permanent immigration restrictions, to “turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor.”
Politically, the restrictions are fairly deft and put Democrats in a bind. What is former vice-president Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee, supposed to say? What are any Democratic candidates for Senate supposed to say? They can criticize the restrictions all they want but, so far, Trump’s immigration “pause” appears to have support.
In a new poll from the Washington Post and University of Maryland, two-thirds (65 percent) of respondents said they supported the president’s suspension. Support was predictably split by party affiliation, with 83 percent of Republicans approving of the policy. Yet 67 percent of independents and 49 percent of Democrats also supported the restrictions.
Any calls by Democrats to reopen the borders will be fairly unpopular. They would be met with inflammatory social media activity. That is not a reason to refrain from criticizing the president — but Democrats need to have a smart alternative at hand. This alternative must grapple with the complications of immigration policy while also demonstrating a vision of a functioning immigration system. Moral outrage at the president is warranted, but if it isn’t accompanied by something constructive, Democrats will be left vulnerable to accusations that they simply want to throw open the borders.
Read the full piece here.