Trump ‘tired of seeing our taxpayer paying’ for immigrants’ welfare

US President Donald Trump speaks with reporters after landing at Indianapolis International Airport on October 27, 2018 in Indiana. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP)
(FILE PHOTO by Getty)

President Donald Trump responded Tuesday to the Democrat Party’s growing attacks against his newly announced plan to deny green cards to welfare-dependent immigrants.

I don’t think it’s fair to have the American taxpayer — you know, it’s about ‘America First.’ I don’t think it’s fair to have the American taxpayer paying for people to come into the United States,” he said to reporters during remarks made at an airport in New Jersey.

“So what we’ve done is institute what took place many, many years ago — at our founding, virtually. But we are just re-instituting it. And I think it’s long overdue. I am tired of seeing our taxpayer paying for people to come into the country and immediately go onto welfare and various other things. So I think we’re doing it right.

Listen:

Fact-check: MOSTLY-TRUE (except for the timing).

Ninety-three years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1882. Included within the act was a provision stating that incoming immigrants who were at risk of “becoming a public charge” — i.e., becoming dependent on government welfare to survive — would not be allowed entry into the U.S.

“If on such examination there shall be found among such passengers any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of him or herself without becoming a public charge, they shall report the same in writing to the collector of such port, and such person shall not be permitted to land,” the act reads.

It’s a rule based on the widely held belief that America should only accept the best of the best into its fold — that it shouldn’t just serve as a refuge for people across the globe who’re suffering or merely seek more opportunities. Suffice it to say, one should have to prove himself or herself to obtain entry.

But this belief runs contrary to the beliefs of the Democrat Party, which are that America should accept literally everybody — and that attempts to impose arguably reasonable restrictions on immigration are rooted in racism and bigotry against non-whites.

However, polling data suggests most Americans disagree with this line of thinking. A poll conducted in 2017 by the pro-Trump non-profit America First Policies specifically found that 73 percent of Americans “support a new requirement that incoming immigrants must be able to support themselves financially,” as reported at the time by Axios.

Included among the naysayers is renowned conservative radio show host Larry Elder.

“I kind of thought that people coming to this country were supposed to benefit us, not benefit them,” he said during an appearance Tuesday morning on FNC’s “Fox & Friends.”

“Our welfare state is bigger than ever, and it’s incompatible to have porous borders and a welfare state. So I think it’s just common sense to say that if you come here, you ought not be a charge on taxpayers.”

Listen:


Source: Fox News

When asked why the president has chosen now to drop his new green card rule, Elder noted that reforming immigration was one of his key campaign promises.

“Well, Donald Trump ran to do something about immigration, about illegal immigration,” he said. “He ran on that platform. We take in, what, about a million people legally every year and several hundred thousand people who are here illegally.”

And it’s not as if the pipeline is going to be shut down. It’s simply that the screening process is going to become more rigorous for some immigrants, not including “people who are persecuted in their countries, they’re afraid they’re going to die if they stay there, or they’re claiming asylum and they have a legitimate reason,” as noted by “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt.

“That’s right,” Elder replied. “It does not apply to the people who are applying for asylum, people who are fleeing circumstances like that, refugees. It doesn’t apply to that at all. So to the people who are yelling and screaming, recognize that it doesn’t apply to people who are seeking asylum.”

It’s unclear whether members of the left will even heed this point, given how convinced they are that the president’s new proposal is entirely rooted in racism. The irony is that this very belief is itself racist.

Case in point: In a hyperbolic column titled “Trump wants to make immigration white again,” left-wing columnist Joel Mathis of The Week argued this week that the president’s new policy will lead to only whites immigrating to the U.S. because non-white immigrants are mostly poor (Fact-check: FALSE).

“Under the new policy, federal authorities will use ‘aggressive’ wealth tests to reject residency or citizenship for an immigrant ‘because he or she is likely at any time to become a public charge’ — receiving food stamps or other taxpayer-funded welfare state benefits,” he wrote.

“And officials can make that determination by considering the migrant’s “age; health; family status; assets, resources, and financial status; and education and skills. In other words, the best way to avoid deportation under this new policy is to not be poor.

“In practice, the new rule almost certainly means that more European migrants will go to the front of the line, and people of color will go to the back,” he added, thus unveiling his clear-cut racism for the world to see.

The actual data shows that the most-educated, well-off immigrants tend to be Asians and Indians, who -for the record – aren’t white.

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Vivek Saxena

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