The Democrats Double Speak Regarding Trump's Sh*thole Seen Round The World Comments
The Democrats Double Speak Regarding Trump's Sh*thole Seen Round The World Comments
Another Trump controversy is afoot, so I thought I would address it.
In an Oval Office meeting to discuss immigration reform, the issue of TPS came up. TPS is Temporary Protected Status per Wikipedia:
In 1990, as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 ("IMMACT"), P.L. 101-649, Congress established a procedure by which the Attorney General may provide temporary protected status to immigrants in the United States who are temporarily unable to safely return to their home country because of ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_protected_status
Trump made comments that have caused a lot of controversy:
President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met Wednesday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_protected_status
I'll preface by saying that I don't like Trump's language choice here. There is a way to discuss this issue without using that word. He should know that he is not with friends at these meetings - the Democrats and some Republicans will leak every single detail to the media. I also don't like the language because I think it would hurt some of the people from or in said countries who know that their countries have problems but who love their countries just the same.
That said, the media is using this to again accuse Trump of racism - that he would never criticize a primarily white country. However, I am old enough to remember when he took heat for calling Brussels "a hellhole". Not long thereafter, there was a terrorist attack on the airport there.
Realistically, there are countries in the world that are doing better than others. That's a fact. There are countries that have large pockets of poverty, trouble with infrastructure, poor healthcare, poor education, and high crime. It's the reason why people from these countries want to come to a country like the United States. Poverty and crime are the reason why people try to cross the southern border to get into the United States but not the northern border because Canada doesn't have the issues with poverty and crime that Mexico has or that people from some Central/South American countries are fleeing.
Calling a country a sh*thole, even though I disagree with the term, is not the same as calling the people of the country sh*tholes, and that is where the media went ballistic. We have no proof that Trump thinks such a thing of the people or is merely critical of how the country is run.
It's quite ironic that the left, who is very upset with Trump for the "sh*thole" comments that he made, pitched a fit when Trump wanted to end the TPS programs in these countries. Here is the list of countries with TPS:
Nationals of countries that are under temporary protected status as of 2018[edit]
El Salvador— initiated in response to the 2001 El Salvador earthquakes. Temporary protected status of 263,280 Salvadorans will end as of September 9, 2019.[6][14][7]
Haiti — initiated in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake;[15][16][17] Temporary protected status of 58,700 Haitians will end as of July 22, 2019.[6][18][19]
Honduras — initiated in response to Hurricane Mitch in 1998[20] A decision on renewal of temporary protected status may be made by Homeland Security in early 2018.[6]
Nepal — as of June 25, 2015, in response to the conditions resulting from the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25, 2015, and the subsequent aftershocks[21]
Nicaragua— initiated in response to Hurricane Mitch in 1998;[22] protection ends as of January 5, 2019.[6][23]
Somalia — since 2012, in response to the ongoing Somali Civil War[24]
South Sudan — since 2016, in response to the ongoing South Sudanese Civil War[25]
Sudan — since 2013, in response to the ongoing Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile;[26] protection ends as of November 2, 2018.[27]
Syria — as of March 29, 2012, in response to the ongoing Syrian Civil War[28]
Yemen — as of September 3, 2015, in response to ongoing conflict in the area as a result of the Yemeni Civil War.[29]
The left said that it was OUTRAGEOUS that Trump dare end these programs. You know why? Well, because these countries are TOO BAD for them to return home to!!! Don't take my word for it, here is Fortune Magazine:
But from anything other than a narrow legalistic perspective, the decision is appalling. El Salvador, which is wracked by drug and gang violence, has the world’s highest murder rate, at over 100 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Its annual murder rate is nearly double that of Honduras, the world’s next most violent country. (Some 86,000 Hondurans are also under TPS and likely to lose it later this year.)
Remittances from Salvadoran citizens abroad, most in the U.S., account for about 17% of El Salvador’s economy; removing that will further destabilize an already shaky economy and government. Many may follow their Haitian counterparts and flee north to Canada to seek asylum status, posing huge challenges for our neighbor to the north.
For those who do return home, many will be faced with the agonizing decision of bringing their U.S. citizen children back to a violent country they do not know, or abandoning them to relatives or friends in the U.S.
http://fortune.com/2018/01/10/el-salvador-tps-salvadorans-deported-trump-immigration-policies/
This is not exactly the way the Trump administration tends to describe El Salvador. The country is the home base of MS-13 — the transnational gang Trump has referred to as “monsters,” and which he and his top officials use to argue for everything from tightening asylum laws to defunding cities that don’t maximize compliance with federal immigration agents. In fact, the administration has bragged about how many MS-13 gang members it has deported to El Salvador — the very same people it’s now claiming are proof of the country’s ability to absorb returned immigrants.
In 2015 (the most recent year for which data is available from United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime), El Salvador had 108.64 homicides per 100,000 people. That made it the deadliest country in the world by a wide margin — the next most dangerous, Honduras, had 63.75 homicides per 100,000 — and 22 times as dangerous as the United States.
El Salvador is slightly safer than it was in 2015. In January 2017, the country had its first day without a murder in two years. But by fall, violence was spreading again: In September, the country witnessed 435 homicides, or almost 15 per day.
American policy has deeply shaped El Salvador’s recent past anyway. The US supported one of the sides in the civil war that led to the country’s original TPS grant. In the 1990s, efforts to deport immigrants who had been convicted of crimes played a major role in exporting MS-13 — which started as a Los Angeles prison gang — to El Salvador, where it took root.
More recently, the flow of Salvadorans seeking asylum in the US, usually out of fear of violence from MS-13 or other gangs, is disproportionately made up of unaccompanied children and families — in part because of US laws offering guarantees for standards of treatment (and, in the case of unaccompanied children, options for legal status) that aren’t available to single adults. (This has been cited by some Republicans as a reason to change those laws, so as not to “incentivize” children or families fleeing violence to come to the US.)
The Trump administration’s line on TPS is that it’s not about the broader stability of a country, but just about recovery from the initial disaster. But the federal government has the authority to grant or extend TPS based on “ongoing armed conflict” or “other extraordinary temporary conditions.” Asked on Monday about those criteria, a senior administration official simply said it did not believe those conditions applied to El Salvador in 2018.
The Trump administration is attempting to deny — or simply ignore — that the people they’re stripping of status have deep roots in the US.
It’s not even that Salvadoran immigrants are now being pushed to return to the same gang violence they fled to come to the US. By definition, every Salvadoran immigrant with TPS has been here for at least 17 years — before the homicide rate skyrocketed. As of January 2017, according to an estimate from the Center for Migration Studies, 51 percent of Salvadorans with TPS had been in the US at least 20 years.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/8/16862898/trump-tps-salvador-ms13-immigrants
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that the Trump administration will end temporary protected status (TPS) for about 200,000 Salvadorans living in the U.S. Immigrants from El Salvador had been granted the protections in 2001, after earthquakes devastated the country. Now those individuals ― who have been living in the U.S. legally for the past 17 years or more, and many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens ― will have to leave by September 2019 or face deportation, if they don’t find another way to gain legal status.
Those forced to return will go back to a country with one of the highest homicide rates in the world and a serious gang violence problem. One of the biggest gangs is MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha ― a gang started in Los Angeles in the 1980s that then spread to other cities in the U.S. and Central America, namely El Salvador.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-ms-13-tps-el-salvador_us_5a53ef51e4b01e1a4b18b575
El Salvador has rebuilt since the earthquakes. But the violence — San Salvador, the capital, is considered one of the most dangerous cities on Earth — has inhibited investment and job creation, and prompted tens of thousands to flee. The country’s economy experienced the slowest growth of any in Central America in 2016, according to the World Bank.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/us/salvadorans-tps-end.html
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is still struggling to recover from the earthquake and relies heavily on money its expatriates send to relatives back home. The Haitian government had asked the Trump administration to extend the protected status.
(Snip)
A variety of American groups, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the United States Chamber of Commerce and immigrant advocacy organizations had urged the Trump administration to extend the protections again. On Monday, Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, called the decision “unconscionable.”
“There is no reason to send 60,000 Haitians back to a country that cannot provide for them,” he wrote on Twitter. “I am strongly urging the administration to reconsider.”
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican congresswoman from South Florida, said on Twitter that she had traveled to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 and after Hurricane Matthew in 2015. “So I can personally attest that Haiti is not prepared to take back nearly 60,000 TPS recipients under these difficult and harsh conditions,” she said.
Those with temporary protection constitute about half of the estimated 110,000 Haitians living in the United States without permanent permission, according to the Pew Research Center. Since Mr. Kelly signaled that Haiti might lose its special designation, thousands of Haitians have crossed the border between the United States and Canada to apply for asylum in Quebec.
Nearly 30,000 children have been born in the United States to Haitians with protected status. Those children are citizens and entitled to stay. Some of their parents may seek to avoid deportation by claiming it would cause extreme hardship to a United States-born child, but that option is limited.
Most will soon have to make a wrenching decision: take their children back to Haiti; leave them with relatives or guardians in the United States; or remain in the country illegally and risk arrest and deportation.
Mark Silverman, an attorney and director of policy at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco, said that if they are arrested, they would be entitled to deportation hearings. And contesting their cases “gives them at least seven to 10 years,” he said, because of the long backlogs in the immigration courts.
The decision is sure to be felt in Haiti, where remittances from the Haitian diaspora totaled $2.36 billion in 2016, an increase of 7 percent over the previous year, according to the World Bank. That money represented more than one-fourth of the country's national income.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/us/haitians-temporary-status.html
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, the state with the most Haitians, urged Trump to extend TPS, warning in a column he wrote for the Miami Herald that “Haitians sent home will face dire conditions, including lack of housing, inadequate health services and low prospects for employment.”
Fifty-nine percent of Haiti’s population lives below the poverty line of $2.41 per day, according to the World Bank.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-haiti/haitians-in-u-s-malign-trump-decision-to-send-them-back-home-idUSKBN1DM0AR
Here is what the U.S. state department says about traveling to these countries:
El Salvador
Reconsider travel to El Salvador due to crime.
Violent crime, such as murder, assault, rape, and armed robbery, is common. Gang activity, such as extortion, violent street crime, and narcotics and arms trafficking, is widespread. Local police may lack the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/el-salvador-travel-advisory.html
Haiti
Reconsider travel to Haiti due to crime and civil unrest.
Violent crime, such as armed robbery, is common. Local police may lack the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents or emergencies. Protests, tire burning, and road blockages are frequent and often spontaneous.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in some areas of Haiti. U.S. Embassy personnel must receive permission from the Embassy security officer to travel to some areas of Port-au-Prince. Embassy employees are discouraged, and in some instances prohibited, from walking in city neighborhoods, including Pétion Ville. After dark, Embassy personnel are prohibited from visiting establishments without secure, on-site parking. Travel outside of Port-au-Prince is prohibited after dark. Embassy employees are under a curfew from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. The use of public banks and ATMs by Embassy employees is prohibited at all times. Embassy personnel are prohibited from using any kind of public transportation throughout the country.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/haiti-travel-advisory.html
Honduras
Reconsider travel to Honduras due to crime. Some areas have increased risk. Read the entire Travel Advisory.
Do not travel to:
Gracias a Dios Department due to crime.
Violent crime, such as homicide and armed robbery, is common. Violent gang activity, such as extortion, violent street crime, rape, and narcotics and human trafficking, is widespread. Local police and emergency services lack the resources to respond effectively to serious crime.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/honduras-travel-advisory.html
Nepal
Exercise increased caution in Nepal due to the potential for isolated political violence.
There is the potential for isolated political violence in 2018 as Nepal transitions to a new government following the completion of elections in 2017. Political demonstrations intended to be peaceful can sometimes escalate into violence, and may be met with force by Nepali authorities.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/nepal-travel-advisory.html
Nicaragua
Exercise increased caution in Nicaragua due to crime.
Violent crime, such as sexual assault and armed robbery, is common. Police presence and emergency response are extremely limited outside of major urban areas. U.S. government personnel are prohibited from using public buses and mototaxis and from entering the Oriental Market in Managua and gentlemen’s clubs throughout the country due to crime. U.S. government personnel require special authorization to travel to the Northern and Southern Caribbean Coast Autonomous Regions due to crime and transportation safety concerns.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/nicaragua-travel-advisory.html
Somalia
Do not travel to Somalia due to crime, terrorism, and piracy.
Violent crime, such as kidnapping and murder, is common throughout Somalia, including in Puntland and Somaliland. Illegal roadblocks are also widespread.
Terrorists continue to plot kidnappings, bombings, and other attacks in Somalia. They may attack with little or no warning, targeting airports and seaports, government buildings, hotels, restaurants, shopping areas, and other areas where large crowds gather and Westerners frequent, as well as government, military, and Western convoys.
Pirates are active in the waters off the Horn of Africa, especially in the international waters near Somalia.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Somalia due to the lack of permanent consular presence in Somalia.
Due to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of Somalia, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR). For more information U.S. citizens should consult the Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions and Notices.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/somalia-travel-advisory.html
South Sudan
Do not travel to South Sudan due to crime and armed conflict.
Violent crime, such as carjackings, shootings, ambushes, assaults, robberies, and kidnappings is common throughout South Sudan, including Juba.
Armed conflict is ongoing throughout the country and includes fighting between various political and ethnic groups, and the population has ready access to weapons. In addition, cattle raids occur throughout the country and often lead to violence.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency consular services to U.S. citizens in South Sudan. U.S. government personnel in South Sudan are under a strict curfew. They must use armored vehicles for nearly all movements in the city, and official travel outside Juba is limited. Due to the critical crime threat in Juba, walking is also restricted; when allowed, it is limited to a small area in the immediate vicinity of the Embassy and must be conducted in groups of two or more during daylight hours. Family members cannot accompany U.S. government employees who work in South Sudan.
Due to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of South Sudan, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) and/or a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR). For more information U.S. citizens should consult the Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions and Notices.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/south-sudan-travel-advisory.html
Sudan
Reconsider travel to Sudan due to terrorism and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk. Please read the entire Travel Advisory.
Do not travel to:
The Darfur region, Blue Nile state, and Southern Kordofan state due to crime and armed conflict.
Terrorist groups continue plotting attacks in Sudan, especially in Khartoum. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting foreign and local government facilities, and areas frequented by Westerners. Terrorists groups in Sudan have stated their intent to harm Westerners and Western interests through suicide operations, bombings, shootings, and kidnappings.
There is a state of emergency in place, which gives security forces greater arrest powers. Arbitrary detentions, including of foreigners, have been reported across the country. Curfews may be imposed with little or no warning.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Sudan, as U.S. government employees must obtain special authorization from the Sudanese government to travel outside of Khartoum. The U.S. Embassy requires U.S. government personnel in Sudan to use armored vehicles for official travel. Family members under 21 years of age cannot accompany U.S. government employees who work in Sudan.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/sudan-travel-advisory.html
Syria
Do not travel to Syria due to terrorism, civil unrest, and armed conflict.
No part of Syria is safe from violence. Kidnappings, the use of chemical warfare, shelling, and aerial bombardment have significantly raised the risk of death or serious injury. The destruction of infrastructure, housing, medical facilities, schools, and power and water utilities has also increased hardships inside the country.
The U.S. Embassy in Damascus suspended its operations in February 2012. The U.S. government does not have diplomatic or consular relations with Syria. The Czech Republic serves as the protecting power for U.S. citizens in Syria. The range of consular services that the Czech Republic provides to U.S. citizens is extremely limited, and the U.S. government is unable to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Syria. U.S. citizens in Syria who seek consular services should try to quickly and safely leave the country and contact a U.S. embassy or consulate in a neighboring country, if at all possible.
The U.S. government particularly warns private U.S. citizens against traveling to Syria to engage in armed conflict. U.S. citizens who undertake such activity face extreme personal risks, including kidnapping, injury, or death. The U.S. government does not support this activity, and our ability to provide consular assistance to individuals who are injured or kidnapped, or to the families of individuals who die in the conflict, is extremely limited.
Fighting on behalf of or providing other forms of support to designated terrorist organizations, including ISIS and al-Nusrah Front, can constitute the provision of material support for terrorism, which is a crime under U.S. law that can result in penalties including prison time and large fines.
Due to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of Syria, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) and/or a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR). For more information U.S. Citizens should consult the Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions and Notices.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/syria-travel-advisory.html
Yemen
Do not travel to Yemen due to terrorism, civil unrest, health, and armed conflict.
Terrorist groups continue to plot and conduct attacks in Yemen. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls, and local government facilities.
The U.S. Embassy in Sana’a suspended its operations in February 2015. The U.S. government is unable to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Yemen.
No part of Yemen is safe from violence. A nationwide cessation of hostilities deteriorated in August 2016, and high levels of violence, to include armed conflict, artillery shelling, and air strikes, now persist in areas throughout the country. There are also reports of land mines in areas vacated by withdrawing forces.
Military conflict has caused significant destruction of infrastructure, housing, medical facilities, schools, and power and water utilities. This limits the availability of electricity, clean water, and medical care. This instability often hampers the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver critically needed food, medicine, and water. Additionally, there is a widespread cholera outbreak in Yemen. Between April and July 2017, more than 400,000 cholera cases and nearly 2,000 cholera-related deaths have been reported.
Due to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of Yemen, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) and/or a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR). For more information U.S. citizens should consult the Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions and Notices.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/yemen-travel-advisory.html
Trump did support TPS for South Sudan but of course the media will not mention that - goes against the narrative.
Bottom Line - The U.S. State Department either discourages against travel to or flat out tells people not to travel to a lot of these countries. If there are no problems and they are so wonderful, then there wouldn't be a problem at all with free travel and free movement in these countries, but that's not what the U.S. State Department says.
The media was more than willing to say these countries had problems when they wanted Trump to extend protections, but then Trump (in a way he should have worded differently) said that the countries are in bad shape, the media then leaps on him questioning him for saying these countries (essentially) have problems...unlike, say, Norway.
Trump suggested, (because the Prime Minister of Norway) was just here, that we should take more people from countries like Norway. The left was outraged at such a comparison - calling it racist because Norway is white and that one country is not better than another, but then...
Twitter users are telling President Donald Trump that no Norwegian would ever give up access to free healthcare and a longer life expectancy to move to his 's**thole country.
Trump made headlines on Thursday when he lashed out in a meeting with lawmakers about immigration reform, demanding to know why the US should accept citizens from what he called 's**thole' countries.
He was speaking about people from Haiti, El Salvador and various African nations, people briefed on the meeting told the Washington Post.
'Why are we having all these people from s**thole countries come here?' Trump said.
Trump made headlines on Thursday when he lashed out about immigration reform, demanding to know why the US should accept citizens from what he called 's**thole' countries.
'Why do we need more Haitians?... Take them out.'
Trump then suggested the US should welcome immigrants from places like Norway, whose prime minister met with Trump on Wednesday.
But Twitter users, some of them from Norway, quickly lashed out asking Trump: Why would Norwegians want to come to America?
'I'm confused - why the f*** would anyone migrate to the US from Norway? Why would you give up healthcare free at the point of access, living wages and reliable public services?,' one tweet read.
'I live in Norway and would never move to USA. We have free health care, free higher education, 5 weeks vacation 8 hours work a day. No thanks Trump,' another user tweeted.
If you want to attract more immigration from Norway, you're going to need to provide Universal Healthcare, Free College, and robust social safety nets. Because they already have all those things.
'Norway has: universal healthcare, strong labor unions, paidmaternity leave. Why the f**k would Norwegians possibly want to move here?
'Of course people from Norway would love to move to a country where people are far more likely to be shot, live in poverty, get no healthcare because they're poor, get no paid parental leave or subsidized daycare and see fewer women in political power. #s**thole.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5261545/Twitter-tells-Trump-no-one-Norway-wants-US.html#ixzz53wyN0Wfy Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
More Tweets at link. They ACTUALLY proved his general point. His point is that Norway is doing well and that he'd like to see more people from Norway bring their talents here. The left, who decried him for comparing Norway to the TPS countries, came out and said that Norway is SO GOOD people wouldn't even want to leave Norway to come to the U.S! However, with the same breath they are saying the U.S. needs to take in more people from the TPS countries and keep TPS because those countries aren't as nice or stable as the U.S. They've totally contradicted their argument. Norway is better off than the TPS countries, and the TPS countries are so bad to the left that just days ago they said they weren't fit to return to.
The bottom line is, that Trump wants to take in people, but he wants to do it in a merit based system, not based on a subjective lottery to fulfill a certain quota from certain countries and not based on chain migration but rather based on merit. Canada and Australia have the same program. How often have you heard the left call those two countries racist? Canada is saying they won't take the TPS people from the United States. Wait a minute! Isn't Canada supposed to be welcoming and not bigoted like the U.S. under Fuhrer Trump? But I digress.
The left likes to cite the Statue of Liberty Poem in terms of immigration policy:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The reality is if we made this the law of the land, we would have to take in a significant portion of the world's population. If that is our criteria, there are many countries with large pockets of poverty, trouble with infrastructure, poor healthcare, poor education, and high crime. We can't afford to do that. TPS is TEMPORARY based on certain conditions when it is granted. If the criteria for TPS is that conditions aren't perfect in the home country, we'd have to give it to visitors from many countries and essentially retract it from few if any.
The U.S. currently took in 1.8 million people in 2016 based on a combination of legal and illegal immigrants. For reference, that's over a couple hundred thousand more than the population of Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the 5th largest city in the U.S.:
Based on past patterns, it seems almost certain that when data becomes available for all of 2016 it will show 1.8 million new immigrants arrived in 2016, matching 1999 — the largest number of new immigration in a single year in American history.1 (See Figure 1.)
https://cis.org/Report/18-Million-Immigrants-Likely-Arrived-2016-Matching-Highest-Level-US-History
Furthermore:
The United States has a long history of welcoming immigrants from all parts of the world. During the last decade, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) welcomed more than 7.4 million naturalized citizens into the fabric of our nation. In fiscal year 2016, 752,800 people were naturalized.
https://www.uscis.gov/news/fact-sheets/naturalization-fact-sheet
We have taken in over a million short of the total population of New York City in the past ten years. We literally could nearly replace the entire population of the city with the people we've taken in...and that's ignoring illegal immigration numbers.
If Hillary Clinton had become President, such numbers would continue as well as the over half a million refugees she wanted to bring in.
There is nothing wrong with having a cap on immigration and refugees. There is nothing wrong with extreme vetting and making sure that the people who come here want to be a part of this country and assimilate and aren't affiliated with ISIS or want Sharia Law. There is nothing wrong with awarding citizenship on merit and what someone can contribute, not based on chain migration or lottery. That is what Trump wants, and people should come from all over the world regardless of race or country if they fit those categories.
Another Trump controversy is afoot, so I thought I would address it.
In an Oval Office meeting to discuss immigration reform, the issue of TPS came up. TPS is Temporary Protected Status per Wikipedia:
In 1990, as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 ("IMMACT"), P.L. 101-649, Congress established a procedure by which the Attorney General may provide temporary protected status to immigrants in the United States who are temporarily unable to safely return to their home country because of ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_protected_status
Trump made comments that have caused a lot of controversy:
President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met Wednesday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_protected_status
I'll preface by saying that I don't like Trump's language choice here. There is a way to discuss this issue without using that word. He should know that he is not with friends at these meetings - the Democrats and some Republicans will leak every single detail to the media. I also don't like the language because I think it would hurt some of the people from or in said countries who know that their countries have problems but who love their countries just the same.
That said, the media is using this to again accuse Trump of racism - that he would never criticize a primarily white country. However, I am old enough to remember when he took heat for calling Brussels "a hellhole". Not long thereafter, there was a terrorist attack on the airport there.
Realistically, there are countries in the world that are doing better than others. That's a fact. There are countries that have large pockets of poverty, trouble with infrastructure, poor healthcare, poor education, and high crime. It's the reason why people from these countries want to come to a country like the United States. Poverty and crime are the reason why people try to cross the southern border to get into the United States but not the northern border because Canada doesn't have the issues with poverty and crime that Mexico has or that people from some Central/South American countries are fleeing.
Calling a country a sh*thole, even though I disagree with the term, is not the same as calling the people of the country sh*tholes, and that is where the media went ballistic. We have no proof that Trump thinks such a thing of the people or is merely critical of how the country is run.
It's quite ironic that the left, who is very upset with Trump for the "sh*thole" comments that he made, pitched a fit when Trump wanted to end the TPS programs in these countries. Here is the list of countries with TPS:
Nationals of countries that are under temporary protected status as of 2018[edit]
El Salvador— initiated in response to the 2001 El Salvador earthquakes. Temporary protected status of 263,280 Salvadorans will end as of September 9, 2019.[6][14][7]
Haiti — initiated in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake;[15][16][17] Temporary protected status of 58,700 Haitians will end as of July 22, 2019.[6][18][19]
Honduras — initiated in response to Hurricane Mitch in 1998[20] A decision on renewal of temporary protected status may be made by Homeland Security in early 2018.[6]
Nepal — as of June 25, 2015, in response to the conditions resulting from the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25, 2015, and the subsequent aftershocks[21]
Nicaragua— initiated in response to Hurricane Mitch in 1998;[22] protection ends as of January 5, 2019.[6][23]
Somalia — since 2012, in response to the ongoing Somali Civil War[24]
South Sudan — since 2016, in response to the ongoing South Sudanese Civil War[25]
Sudan — since 2013, in response to the ongoing Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile;[26] protection ends as of November 2, 2018.[27]
Syria — as of March 29, 2012, in response to the ongoing Syrian Civil War[28]
Yemen — as of September 3, 2015, in response to ongoing conflict in the area as a result of the Yemeni Civil War.[29]
The left said that it was OUTRAGEOUS that Trump dare end these programs. You know why? Well, because these countries are TOO BAD for them to return home to!!! Don't take my word for it, here is Fortune Magazine:
But from anything other than a narrow legalistic perspective, the decision is appalling. El Salvador, which is wracked by drug and gang violence, has the world’s highest murder rate, at over 100 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Its annual murder rate is nearly double that of Honduras, the world’s next most violent country. (Some 86,000 Hondurans are also under TPS and likely to lose it later this year.)
Remittances from Salvadoran citizens abroad, most in the U.S., account for about 17% of El Salvador’s economy; removing that will further destabilize an already shaky economy and government. Many may follow their Haitian counterparts and flee north to Canada to seek asylum status, posing huge challenges for our neighbor to the north.
For those who do return home, many will be faced with the agonizing decision of bringing their U.S. citizen children back to a violent country they do not know, or abandoning them to relatives or friends in the U.S.
http://fortune.com/2018/01/10/el-salvador-tps-salvadorans-deported-trump-immigration-policies/
This is not exactly the way the Trump administration tends to describe El Salvador. The country is the home base of MS-13 — the transnational gang Trump has referred to as “monsters,” and which he and his top officials use to argue for everything from tightening asylum laws to defunding cities that don’t maximize compliance with federal immigration agents. In fact, the administration has bragged about how many MS-13 gang members it has deported to El Salvador — the very same people it’s now claiming are proof of the country’s ability to absorb returned immigrants.
In 2015 (the most recent year for which data is available from United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime), El Salvador had 108.64 homicides per 100,000 people. That made it the deadliest country in the world by a wide margin — the next most dangerous, Honduras, had 63.75 homicides per 100,000 — and 22 times as dangerous as the United States.
El Salvador is slightly safer than it was in 2015. In January 2017, the country had its first day without a murder in two years. But by fall, violence was spreading again: In September, the country witnessed 435 homicides, or almost 15 per day.
American policy has deeply shaped El Salvador’s recent past anyway. The US supported one of the sides in the civil war that led to the country’s original TPS grant. In the 1990s, efforts to deport immigrants who had been convicted of crimes played a major role in exporting MS-13 — which started as a Los Angeles prison gang — to El Salvador, where it took root.
More recently, the flow of Salvadorans seeking asylum in the US, usually out of fear of violence from MS-13 or other gangs, is disproportionately made up of unaccompanied children and families — in part because of US laws offering guarantees for standards of treatment (and, in the case of unaccompanied children, options for legal status) that aren’t available to single adults. (This has been cited by some Republicans as a reason to change those laws, so as not to “incentivize” children or families fleeing violence to come to the US.)
The Trump administration’s line on TPS is that it’s not about the broader stability of a country, but just about recovery from the initial disaster. But the federal government has the authority to grant or extend TPS based on “ongoing armed conflict” or “other extraordinary temporary conditions.” Asked on Monday about those criteria, a senior administration official simply said it did not believe those conditions applied to El Salvador in 2018.
The Trump administration is attempting to deny — or simply ignore — that the people they’re stripping of status have deep roots in the US.
It’s not even that Salvadoran immigrants are now being pushed to return to the same gang violence they fled to come to the US. By definition, every Salvadoran immigrant with TPS has been here for at least 17 years — before the homicide rate skyrocketed. As of January 2017, according to an estimate from the Center for Migration Studies, 51 percent of Salvadorans with TPS had been in the US at least 20 years.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/8/16862898/trump-tps-salvador-ms13-immigrants
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that the Trump administration will end temporary protected status (TPS) for about 200,000 Salvadorans living in the U.S. Immigrants from El Salvador had been granted the protections in 2001, after earthquakes devastated the country. Now those individuals ― who have been living in the U.S. legally for the past 17 years or more, and many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens ― will have to leave by September 2019 or face deportation, if they don’t find another way to gain legal status.
Those forced to return will go back to a country with one of the highest homicide rates in the world and a serious gang violence problem. One of the biggest gangs is MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha ― a gang started in Los Angeles in the 1980s that then spread to other cities in the U.S. and Central America, namely El Salvador.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-ms-13-tps-el-salvador_us_5a53ef51e4b01e1a4b18b575
El Salvador has rebuilt since the earthquakes. But the violence — San Salvador, the capital, is considered one of the most dangerous cities on Earth — has inhibited investment and job creation, and prompted tens of thousands to flee. The country’s economy experienced the slowest growth of any in Central America in 2016, according to the World Bank.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/us/salvadorans-tps-end.html
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is still struggling to recover from the earthquake and relies heavily on money its expatriates send to relatives back home. The Haitian government had asked the Trump administration to extend the protected status.
(Snip)
A variety of American groups, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the United States Chamber of Commerce and immigrant advocacy organizations had urged the Trump administration to extend the protections again. On Monday, Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, called the decision “unconscionable.”
“There is no reason to send 60,000 Haitians back to a country that cannot provide for them,” he wrote on Twitter. “I am strongly urging the administration to reconsider.”
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican congresswoman from South Florida, said on Twitter that she had traveled to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 and after Hurricane Matthew in 2015. “So I can personally attest that Haiti is not prepared to take back nearly 60,000 TPS recipients under these difficult and harsh conditions,” she said.
Those with temporary protection constitute about half of the estimated 110,000 Haitians living in the United States without permanent permission, according to the Pew Research Center. Since Mr. Kelly signaled that Haiti might lose its special designation, thousands of Haitians have crossed the border between the United States and Canada to apply for asylum in Quebec.
Nearly 30,000 children have been born in the United States to Haitians with protected status. Those children are citizens and entitled to stay. Some of their parents may seek to avoid deportation by claiming it would cause extreme hardship to a United States-born child, but that option is limited.
Most will soon have to make a wrenching decision: take their children back to Haiti; leave them with relatives or guardians in the United States; or remain in the country illegally and risk arrest and deportation.
Mark Silverman, an attorney and director of policy at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco, said that if they are arrested, they would be entitled to deportation hearings. And contesting their cases “gives them at least seven to 10 years,” he said, because of the long backlogs in the immigration courts.
The decision is sure to be felt in Haiti, where remittances from the Haitian diaspora totaled $2.36 billion in 2016, an increase of 7 percent over the previous year, according to the World Bank. That money represented more than one-fourth of the country's national income.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/us/haitians-temporary-status.html
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, the state with the most Haitians, urged Trump to extend TPS, warning in a column he wrote for the Miami Herald that “Haitians sent home will face dire conditions, including lack of housing, inadequate health services and low prospects for employment.”
Fifty-nine percent of Haiti’s population lives below the poverty line of $2.41 per day, according to the World Bank.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-haiti/haitians-in-u-s-malign-trump-decision-to-send-them-back-home-idUSKBN1DM0AR
Here is what the U.S. state department says about traveling to these countries:
El Salvador
Reconsider travel to El Salvador due to crime.
Violent crime, such as murder, assault, rape, and armed robbery, is common. Gang activity, such as extortion, violent street crime, and narcotics and arms trafficking, is widespread. Local police may lack the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/el-salvador-travel-advisory.html
Haiti
Reconsider travel to Haiti due to crime and civil unrest.
Violent crime, such as armed robbery, is common. Local police may lack the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents or emergencies. Protests, tire burning, and road blockages are frequent and often spontaneous.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in some areas of Haiti. U.S. Embassy personnel must receive permission from the Embassy security officer to travel to some areas of Port-au-Prince. Embassy employees are discouraged, and in some instances prohibited, from walking in city neighborhoods, including Pétion Ville. After dark, Embassy personnel are prohibited from visiting establishments without secure, on-site parking. Travel outside of Port-au-Prince is prohibited after dark. Embassy employees are under a curfew from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. The use of public banks and ATMs by Embassy employees is prohibited at all times. Embassy personnel are prohibited from using any kind of public transportation throughout the country.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/haiti-travel-advisory.html
Honduras
Reconsider travel to Honduras due to crime. Some areas have increased risk. Read the entire Travel Advisory.
Do not travel to:
Gracias a Dios Department due to crime.
Violent crime, such as homicide and armed robbery, is common. Violent gang activity, such as extortion, violent street crime, rape, and narcotics and human trafficking, is widespread. Local police and emergency services lack the resources to respond effectively to serious crime.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/honduras-travel-advisory.html
Nepal
Exercise increased caution in Nepal due to the potential for isolated political violence.
There is the potential for isolated political violence in 2018 as Nepal transitions to a new government following the completion of elections in 2017. Political demonstrations intended to be peaceful can sometimes escalate into violence, and may be met with force by Nepali authorities.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/nepal-travel-advisory.html
Nicaragua
Exercise increased caution in Nicaragua due to crime.
Violent crime, such as sexual assault and armed robbery, is common. Police presence and emergency response are extremely limited outside of major urban areas. U.S. government personnel are prohibited from using public buses and mototaxis and from entering the Oriental Market in Managua and gentlemen’s clubs throughout the country due to crime. U.S. government personnel require special authorization to travel to the Northern and Southern Caribbean Coast Autonomous Regions due to crime and transportation safety concerns.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/nicaragua-travel-advisory.html
Somalia
Do not travel to Somalia due to crime, terrorism, and piracy.
Violent crime, such as kidnapping and murder, is common throughout Somalia, including in Puntland and Somaliland. Illegal roadblocks are also widespread.
Terrorists continue to plot kidnappings, bombings, and other attacks in Somalia. They may attack with little or no warning, targeting airports and seaports, government buildings, hotels, restaurants, shopping areas, and other areas where large crowds gather and Westerners frequent, as well as government, military, and Western convoys.
Pirates are active in the waters off the Horn of Africa, especially in the international waters near Somalia.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Somalia due to the lack of permanent consular presence in Somalia.
Due to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of Somalia, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR). For more information U.S. citizens should consult the Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions and Notices.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/somalia-travel-advisory.html
South Sudan
Do not travel to South Sudan due to crime and armed conflict.
Violent crime, such as carjackings, shootings, ambushes, assaults, robberies, and kidnappings is common throughout South Sudan, including Juba.
Armed conflict is ongoing throughout the country and includes fighting between various political and ethnic groups, and the population has ready access to weapons. In addition, cattle raids occur throughout the country and often lead to violence.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency consular services to U.S. citizens in South Sudan. U.S. government personnel in South Sudan are under a strict curfew. They must use armored vehicles for nearly all movements in the city, and official travel outside Juba is limited. Due to the critical crime threat in Juba, walking is also restricted; when allowed, it is limited to a small area in the immediate vicinity of the Embassy and must be conducted in groups of two or more during daylight hours. Family members cannot accompany U.S. government employees who work in South Sudan.
Due to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of South Sudan, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) and/or a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR). For more information U.S. citizens should consult the Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions and Notices.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/south-sudan-travel-advisory.html
Sudan
Reconsider travel to Sudan due to terrorism and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk. Please read the entire Travel Advisory.
Do not travel to:
The Darfur region, Blue Nile state, and Southern Kordofan state due to crime and armed conflict.
Terrorist groups continue plotting attacks in Sudan, especially in Khartoum. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting foreign and local government facilities, and areas frequented by Westerners. Terrorists groups in Sudan have stated their intent to harm Westerners and Western interests through suicide operations, bombings, shootings, and kidnappings.
There is a state of emergency in place, which gives security forces greater arrest powers. Arbitrary detentions, including of foreigners, have been reported across the country. Curfews may be imposed with little or no warning.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Sudan, as U.S. government employees must obtain special authorization from the Sudanese government to travel outside of Khartoum. The U.S. Embassy requires U.S. government personnel in Sudan to use armored vehicles for official travel. Family members under 21 years of age cannot accompany U.S. government employees who work in Sudan.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/sudan-travel-advisory.html
Syria
Do not travel to Syria due to terrorism, civil unrest, and armed conflict.
No part of Syria is safe from violence. Kidnappings, the use of chemical warfare, shelling, and aerial bombardment have significantly raised the risk of death or serious injury. The destruction of infrastructure, housing, medical facilities, schools, and power and water utilities has also increased hardships inside the country.
The U.S. Embassy in Damascus suspended its operations in February 2012. The U.S. government does not have diplomatic or consular relations with Syria. The Czech Republic serves as the protecting power for U.S. citizens in Syria. The range of consular services that the Czech Republic provides to U.S. citizens is extremely limited, and the U.S. government is unable to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Syria. U.S. citizens in Syria who seek consular services should try to quickly and safely leave the country and contact a U.S. embassy or consulate in a neighboring country, if at all possible.
The U.S. government particularly warns private U.S. citizens against traveling to Syria to engage in armed conflict. U.S. citizens who undertake such activity face extreme personal risks, including kidnapping, injury, or death. The U.S. government does not support this activity, and our ability to provide consular assistance to individuals who are injured or kidnapped, or to the families of individuals who die in the conflict, is extremely limited.
Fighting on behalf of or providing other forms of support to designated terrorist organizations, including ISIS and al-Nusrah Front, can constitute the provision of material support for terrorism, which is a crime under U.S. law that can result in penalties including prison time and large fines.
Due to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of Syria, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) and/or a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR). For more information U.S. Citizens should consult the Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions and Notices.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/syria-travel-advisory.html
Yemen
Do not travel to Yemen due to terrorism, civil unrest, health, and armed conflict.
Terrorist groups continue to plot and conduct attacks in Yemen. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls, and local government facilities.
The U.S. Embassy in Sana’a suspended its operations in February 2015. The U.S. government is unable to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Yemen.
No part of Yemen is safe from violence. A nationwide cessation of hostilities deteriorated in August 2016, and high levels of violence, to include armed conflict, artillery shelling, and air strikes, now persist in areas throughout the country. There are also reports of land mines in areas vacated by withdrawing forces.
Military conflict has caused significant destruction of infrastructure, housing, medical facilities, schools, and power and water utilities. This limits the availability of electricity, clean water, and medical care. This instability often hampers the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver critically needed food, medicine, and water. Additionally, there is a widespread cholera outbreak in Yemen. Between April and July 2017, more than 400,000 cholera cases and nearly 2,000 cholera-related deaths have been reported.
Due to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of Yemen, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) and/or a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR). For more information U.S. citizens should consult the Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions and Notices.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/yemen-travel-advisory.html
Trump did support TPS for South Sudan but of course the media will not mention that - goes against the narrative.
Bottom Line - The U.S. State Department either discourages against travel to or flat out tells people not to travel to a lot of these countries. If there are no problems and they are so wonderful, then there wouldn't be a problem at all with free travel and free movement in these countries, but that's not what the U.S. State Department says.
The media was more than willing to say these countries had problems when they wanted Trump to extend protections, but then Trump (in a way he should have worded differently) said that the countries are in bad shape, the media then leaps on him questioning him for saying these countries (essentially) have problems...unlike, say, Norway.
Trump suggested, (because the Prime Minister of Norway) was just here, that we should take more people from countries like Norway. The left was outraged at such a comparison - calling it racist because Norway is white and that one country is not better than another, but then...
Twitter users are telling President Donald Trump that no Norwegian would ever give up access to free healthcare and a longer life expectancy to move to his 's**thole country.
Trump made headlines on Thursday when he lashed out in a meeting with lawmakers about immigration reform, demanding to know why the US should accept citizens from what he called 's**thole' countries.
He was speaking about people from Haiti, El Salvador and various African nations, people briefed on the meeting told the Washington Post.
'Why are we having all these people from s**thole countries come here?' Trump said.
Trump made headlines on Thursday when he lashed out about immigration reform, demanding to know why the US should accept citizens from what he called 's**thole' countries.
'Why do we need more Haitians?... Take them out.'
Trump then suggested the US should welcome immigrants from places like Norway, whose prime minister met with Trump on Wednesday.
But Twitter users, some of them from Norway, quickly lashed out asking Trump: Why would Norwegians want to come to America?
'I'm confused - why the f*** would anyone migrate to the US from Norway? Why would you give up healthcare free at the point of access, living wages and reliable public services?,' one tweet read.
'I live in Norway and would never move to USA. We have free health care, free higher education, 5 weeks vacation 8 hours work a day. No thanks Trump,' another user tweeted.
If you want to attract more immigration from Norway, you're going to need to provide Universal Healthcare, Free College, and robust social safety nets. Because they already have all those things.
'Norway has: universal healthcare, strong labor unions, paidmaternity leave. Why the f**k would Norwegians possibly want to move here?
'Of course people from Norway would love to move to a country where people are far more likely to be shot, live in poverty, get no healthcare because they're poor, get no paid parental leave or subsidized daycare and see fewer women in political power. #s**thole.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5261545/Twitter-tells-Trump-no-one-Norway-wants-US.html#ixzz53wyN0Wfy Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
More Tweets at link. They ACTUALLY proved his general point. His point is that Norway is doing well and that he'd like to see more people from Norway bring their talents here. The left, who decried him for comparing Norway to the TPS countries, came out and said that Norway is SO GOOD people wouldn't even want to leave Norway to come to the U.S! However, with the same breath they are saying the U.S. needs to take in more people from the TPS countries and keep TPS because those countries aren't as nice or stable as the U.S. They've totally contradicted their argument. Norway is better off than the TPS countries, and the TPS countries are so bad to the left that just days ago they said they weren't fit to return to.
The bottom line is, that Trump wants to take in people, but he wants to do it in a merit based system, not based on a subjective lottery to fulfill a certain quota from certain countries and not based on chain migration but rather based on merit. Canada and Australia have the same program. How often have you heard the left call those two countries racist? Canada is saying they won't take the TPS people from the United States. Wait a minute! Isn't Canada supposed to be welcoming and not bigoted like the U.S. under Fuhrer Trump? But I digress.
The left likes to cite the Statue of Liberty Poem in terms of immigration policy:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The reality is if we made this the law of the land, we would have to take in a significant portion of the world's population. If that is our criteria, there are many countries with large pockets of poverty, trouble with infrastructure, poor healthcare, poor education, and high crime. We can't afford to do that. TPS is TEMPORARY based on certain conditions when it is granted. If the criteria for TPS is that conditions aren't perfect in the home country, we'd have to give it to visitors from many countries and essentially retract it from few if any.
The U.S. currently took in 1.8 million people in 2016 based on a combination of legal and illegal immigrants. For reference, that's over a couple hundred thousand more than the population of Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the 5th largest city in the U.S.:
Based on past patterns, it seems almost certain that when data becomes available for all of 2016 it will show 1.8 million new immigrants arrived in 2016, matching 1999 — the largest number of new immigration in a single year in American history.1 (See Figure 1.)
https://cis.org/Report/18-Million-Immigrants-Likely-Arrived-2016-Matching-Highest-Level-US-History
Furthermore:
The United States has a long history of welcoming immigrants from all parts of the world. During the last decade, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) welcomed more than 7.4 million naturalized citizens into the fabric of our nation. In fiscal year 2016, 752,800 people were naturalized.
https://www.uscis.gov/news/fact-sheets/naturalization-fact-sheet
We have taken in over a million short of the total population of New York City in the past ten years. We literally could nearly replace the entire population of the city with the people we've taken in...and that's ignoring illegal immigration numbers.
If Hillary Clinton had become President, such numbers would continue as well as the over half a million refugees she wanted to bring in.
There is nothing wrong with having a cap on immigration and refugees. There is nothing wrong with extreme vetting and making sure that the people who come here want to be a part of this country and assimilate and aren't affiliated with ISIS or want Sharia Law. There is nothing wrong with awarding citizenship on merit and what someone can contribute, not based on chain migration or lottery. That is what Trump wants, and people should come from all over the world regardless of race or country if they fit those categories.
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