Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Sunday released his campaign’s immigration plan, which includes ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.
“This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration,” Trump says in the plan posted on his website.
“We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own,” Trump also said. “That must change.”
Here is how Trump describes the three principles of his plan:
A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.
Trump’s plan includes his frequent call to make Mexico pay for a wall across the southern border. “For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well is in other Latin American countries),” Trump says.
Says Trump: “We will not be taken advantage of anymore.”
Trump is also calling for the government to triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, mandate nationwide e-verify systems for employers, deport criminal illegal immigrants, end catch-and-release of people caught trying to enter the country illegaly, defund sanctuary cities and implement harsher penalties for immigrants overstaying visas.
Speaking of legal immigration, Trump says, “We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream.”
Speaking of the H-1B non-immigrant visa program that allows companies to hire foreign workers, Trump says there needs to be a requirement to “hire American workers first.”
“Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement,” Trump said. “In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need to companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.”
Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, who has met with Trump to discuss immigration, released a statement Sunday evening praising the plan:
“This is exactly the plan America needs. Not only would the plan outlined in this paper work, but more quickly than many realize. Most importantly, this plan reestablishes the principle that American’s immigration laws should serve the interests of its own citizens. For too long, ‘immigration reform’ plans in Washington have served the special interests at the expense of working Americans. By contrast, this plan puts the needs of working Americans foremost, and develops an effective strategy for improving their wages and job prospects. Crucially, this plan includes an emphasis on lifting struggling minority communities, including our immigrant communities, out of poverty — by preventing corporations from bringing in new workers from overseas to replace them and drive down wages. When the labor market is oversupplied, it tilts the balance of power away form workers and towards employers. In combination with a smart, fair trade policy this proposal would reinvigorate the middle class. Polling shows this plan will appeal broadly to all segments of the electorate: prioritizing the just demands of loyal, everyday Americans who have been shunned by a governing elite.”
