Topic: Legal Immigration
“Eliminate T and U visas. Victimization should not be a basis for an immigration benefit. If an alien who was a trafficking or crime victim is actively and significantly cooperating with law enforcement as a witness, the S visa is already available and should be used. Pending elimination of the T and U visas, the Secretary should significantly restrict eligibility for each visa to prevent fraud.”
The elimination of T and U visas would be a huge and deliberate step back in the U.S.’s commitment to protecting human rights, particularly the rights of trafficking victims and crime victims.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security here.
“To that end, the diversity visa lottery should be repealed, chain migration should be ended while focusing on the nuclear family, and the existing employment visa program should be replaced with a system to award visas only to the “best and brightest.”
It’s hilarious that they’re arguing for ending chain migration, when Trump’s current wife’s family is here as a result of it.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security here.
“The oft-abused H-1B program should be transformed into an elite program through which employers are vying to bring in only the top foreign workers at the highest wages so as not to depress American opportunities.”
The H1B visa requires employer sponsorship. U.S. Employers must file a petition on behalf of the foreign worker. It sounds like either he’s arguing for reducing the cap on these, which, as of right now, is set at 85,000 visas per fiscal year (65,000 for regular applicants, 20,000 for those with a U.S. Masters’ degree or higher), or introducing reforms. There is already a requirement that employers must pay H-1B workers the prevailing wage or the actual wage paid to similarly employed workers, whichever is higher. Employers must also ensure that hiring H-1B workers does not adversely affect the working conditions or wages of U.S. workers. Cuccinelli does not elaborate on what “transformed into an elite program” looks like.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security here.
“The United States should strictly enforce the doctrine of reciprocity when issuing visas to all foreign nationals.”
The doctrine of reciprocity means that the visa policies applied to foreign nationals entering the U.S. would mirror the policies those foreign nations apply to U.S. citizens. If a country imposes strict visa requirements on Americans, the U.S. would respond by imposing similar restrictions on citizens of that country. This promotes diplomatic leverage, and in a perfect world, could result in better treatment of Americans traveling abroad while they’re in those countries, assuming we’ve agreed to treat visitors from that particular country well while they’re guests of the United States.
In reality, however, some countries would automatically be excluded due to their policies, making enforced reciprocity a means of legally discriminating against foreign visitors from those countries. Israel’s border policy15 is one such example.
The GOP backed off from its allegiance to reciprocity after WW2, once it was widely recognized that their high tariff policies had worsened the Great Depression17 and sparked trade wars18. Now they’re revisiting these misguided and harmful policies even though history has foretold the results.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.3: Department of State here.
“The federal government’s obligation to shift national security–essential screening and vetting resources to the forged border crisis will necessitate an indefinite curtailment of the number of USRAP refugee admissions.”
It’s interesting that Skinner would use the word “forged” here, which can also mean “counterfeit.” It’s almost a Freudian slip. The “border crisis” is indeed a manufactured talking point by Republicans. Trump even blew up a bipartisan border control measure in January because he wanted to continue to campaign on the issue, and resolving the problem would “look too good” for Democrats, since they’re the ones in office currently. It follows logically that since it can wait until Trump is in office to do anything about it, the border must not be as big an issue as they’re claiming it is. Biden later used executive action in June to drastically tighten the border.
So it would seem that Skinner’s recommendation here is simply a means of permanently denying refugees entry to the United States. Even citizens of El Paso, Texas say that there is no “border crisis”, and that the militarization of the border, not immigration, is what’s making their communities unsafe.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.3: Department of State here.
“The Office of the Secretary should recommence proposed regulation put forward under the Trump Administration that would prohibit noncitizens, including all mixed-status families, from living in all federally assisted housing.”
Mixed-status families would include American citizens who are married to an immigrant, and their children.
According to HUD’s OWN ANALYSIS, this proposed rule would result in the eviction of 25,000 immigrant families, including 55,000 children eligible for housing assistance. In fact, two-thirds of people in mixed-status families are already U.S. citizens; the majority of them children.
That’s a lot of homeless families and children, who would be kicked out of their homes for no reason other than racism and xenophobia.
Said HUD, after reviewing this proposal: “The withdrawal of this extremely harmful proposed rule is a win for fair housing – and human decency.”
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“Enforce the death penalty where appropriate and applicable. Capital punishment is a sensitive matter, as it should be, but the current crime wave makes deterrence vital at the federal, state, and local levels. However, providing this punishment without ever enforcing it provides justice neither for the victims’ families nor for the defendant. The next conservative Administration should therefore do everything possible to obtain finality for the 44 prisoners currently on federal death row. It should also pursue the death penalty for applicable crimes – particularly heinous crimes involving violence and sexual abuse of children – until Congress says otherwise through legislation.”
This is concerning on a lot of levels. He has previously suggested that the “current crime wave” is illegal immigration, among other things. Is he suggesting putting illegal immigrants to death?
His choice of words here is interesting… “It should also pursue the death penalty for applicable crimes – particularly heinous crimes involving violence and sexual abuse of children – until Congress says otherwise through legislation.”
UNTIL CONGRESS SAYS OTHERWISE THROUGH LEGISLATION.
I’m not theoretically opposed, either, to putting sexual abusers of children to death. I don’t happen to believe that restorative justice applies here – the evidence suggests that child predators cannot be rehabilitated in most cases30. A compromise I like better than murder is chemical castration31.
But why would Congress “say otherwise” with legislation that child sex offenders should not be punished (or at least not punished with death?) Could it be because so many Congressional Republicans have been accused of sexual misconduct involving children?
See Florida Representative Mark Foley, former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (who pleaded guilty to child molestation), Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, Republican Jim Jordan, Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, and Donald Trump himself, accused by dozens of women (and at least one child) of sexual assault, including barging in on Miss Teen USA pageant contestants as young as 15, who were changing clothes.
Republicans have rallied around these people. There are many more examples than mentioned above.
“The Republicans have apparently decided that the committee in charge of sex crimes legislation should include one guy currently being investigated for actual sex crimes—and another who allegedly looked the other way on them. It’s not exactly the behavior of a party that cares deeply about sexual abuse.” [Source]32 (They’re referring to Gaetz and Jordan respectively.)
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.8: Department of Justice here.
“Cap and phase down the H-2A visa program. Congress should immediately cap this program at its current levels and establish a schedule for its gradual and predictable phasedown over the subsequent 10 to 20 years, producing the necessary incentives for the industry to invest in raising productivity, including through capital investment in agricultural equipment, and increasing employment for Americans in the agricultural sector.”
This will skyrocket food prices for Americans, put family farms out of business, and a look at North Carolina reveals that Americans aren’t going to work on farms. More about that here.5 Berry even acknowledges this: “Some conservatives believe that temporary worker programs help to fill jobs that Americans will not fill, prevent illegal immigration by giving farmers and others who hire low-skilled labor access to workers, and keep down the prices of food and other products and services produced by the temporary workers. Some credibly argue that, absent the H-2A program, many farmers would have to drastically increase wages, raising the price of food for all Americans, and that even such wage increases may not be sufficient to attract enough temporary American workers to complete the necessary farm tasks to get food products to market since those jobs are, by their nature, seasonal. Those who share this view argue that any plan to phase out the program should weigh the program’s current costs (relatively low) and the program’s current benefits (makes American farming more profitable and sustainable while keeping down food costs).” (Project 2025, Section 3.9: Department of Labor and Related Agencies, Jonathan Berry, page 644, paragraph 1.)
He goes on to argue for also phasing out the H-2B visa program, which covers seasonal non-agricultural immigrant labor.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.9: Department of Labor and Related Agencies here.
“Congress must amend the law so that employers can again have the freedom to make hiring Americans a priority. Despite the significant advantages that preferring citizens over (work-authorized) aliens in hiring would provide to American workers, businesses, and the country at large, such a practice has been illegal since 1986. This makes no sense.”
He’s referring to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Under IRCA, employers are prohibited from discriminating against individuals based on their citizenship status, as long as they’re legally authorized to work. He’s arguing for bringing back and even encouraging this type of discrimination.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.9: Department of Labor and Related Agencies here.