President Trump is on track to cut legal immigration by 49 percent since assuming office, according to a new National Foundation for American Policy report.
The record-high reduction is the convergence of four immigration pathways targeted by the Trump administration: a complete shutdown of the Diversity Visa program; a 92 percent decrease in visas administered on the basis family-sponsored preferences; a 67 percent decrease in granting asylum; a 53 percent decrease in naturalizing immediate relatives of Americans; and a 71 percent decrease in extending citizenship to refugees.
Overall, the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) July 2020 study “projects that legal immigration will fall by 49% between FY 2016 and FY 2021 due to Trump administration policies,” a drop from 1,183,505 to 601,660.
To the pleasure of corporates and establishment politicians but the dismay of American workers, the only immigration category that saw a 60 percent increase was for employment-based preferences:
While the study’s conclusions are projections, legal immigration data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) covering 2016-2018 also showed a decline.
This unprecedented reduction would dovetail with President Trump’s efforts to curtail illegal immigration by constructing wall along the southern border, defunding sanctuary cities, and allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents to enforce existing laws.
NFAP, chaired by former CATO institute director Stuart Anderson, currently an adjunct scholar at the notoriously pro-open borders think tank, boasts several other individuals affiliated with establishment think tanks such as the Hudson Institute.
It’s unsurprising, therefore, the study laments the drop will tank America’s economy, alleging “without immigrants contributing to the quantity and quality of the labor supply, the majority of the economic growth gains America saw between 2011 and 2016 following the recession would have been eliminated.”
But such neoliberal forecasts are misguided: restricting legal immigration boosts employment opportunities and wages of American workers.
