1st Edition of Immigration Grades for 20 Presidential Hopefuls

May 26, 2015

After weeks of work, our NumbersUSA team is ready to show you our evaluations of the 20 politicians who Real Clear Politics show are polling at 1% or higher for the 2016 Presidential Election.

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We’ve chosen a really easy url for the Grade Cards for the 2016 Presidential Hopefuls.

THE SAD RESULTS OF FIRST WEEK EVALUATIONS

Only two of the 20 Hopefuls earn a decent grade at this time. But we always expect improvements.

We will re-evaluate all category ratings and all grades EVERY week until the Primaries are over and the 2016 general election is held.

But in our first week of publishing our analyses, these are the grades we have to give out:

5 D+
2 D-minus

WORKER-PROTECTION IMMIGRATION GRADE CARDS

Assessing immigration stances that affect Americans’ jobs & wages by changing supply of workers.

Multiple polls find that every recommendation and principle in the NumbersUSA Grade Card is the favorite preference of U.S. voters.

EACH GRADE BASED ON RATINGS IN 10 CATEGORIES

Our grading in every election cycle is the most widely cited in news media and social media because we dig below generalizations and platitudes for history of actions and – even more importantly – specificity of promises of what candidates now say they would do on immigration issues.

For example, statements such as “I oppose amnesty” or “secure the border” mean almost nothing until we have more specifics.

Each Presidential Hopeful earns a single overall immigration grade which is based on ratings in 10 immigration categories, which we show on our master grid.

The main consideration in each category is how a candidate’s positions would loosen or tighten the labor supply competing with Americans for jobs and wages.

elections2016@numbersusa.com

3. Contact your candidate’s staff to better educate on the specific issues and to suggest ways for the candidate to improve his/her position for the American people and for that candidate’s grade. We have often seen this work in past years. We will be providing contact information on each candidate’s individual pages.

REVIEW OUR CRITERIA FOR EACH CATEGORY

Too many politicians, their staffs, bloggers and news media treat immigration policy as something that has only two or three components.

But the livelihoods and quality of life of tens of millions of Americans are affected by dozens of aspects of immigration policy.

To review the many factors we consider in the 10 categories we rate, go to this page:

www.numbersusa.com/content/elections/races/presidential/ratings-criteria.html

You can also get to that page on a link provided when you roll over the names of the categories on our master grid.

In each category we determine whether a Hopeful’s actions and statements are significantly more harmful than helpful, or vice versa. For some, they are close enough that we grant a MIXED rating.

For those whose positions are on balance helpful to American workers, we then weigh whether they deserve a rating of 1st STEPS, or GOOD or VERY GOOD or EXCELLENT.

On the other end, the ratings are UNHELPFUL or HARMFUL or VERY HARMFUL or ABYSMAL.

Not surprisingly, many of the candidates have failed to address issues in some of the categories. We rate those as NO ACTION, a rating that drags down the grade of many of the Hopefuls. It is important for citizens to press candidates to address every one of the issues.

WE’RE INTERESTED IN MATURE DISCUSSIONS & MOVEMENT BY POLITICIANS INTO CHANGED POSITIONS

Unlike publications connected to partisan campaigns, NumbersUSA has no interest in “gotcha” quotes or so-called gaffes.

We’re interested in mature discussion of serious topics.

We recognize that politicians are juggling myriad issues and cannot be expected to be experts in all of them. It is not surprising that they sometimes contradict themselves and become confused. In such cases, we encourage them to publicly clarify their positions.

We are not interested in “punishing” politicians for past behavior. We welcome Hopefuls who change their mind on an immigration issue and take a stand that is more favorable to wage-earners than in the past. We hope that all Hopefuls will become better advocates for the average American worker as debates and campaigning progress.

We reject the idea that a politician’s specific, very public promise on an issue can’t be used in the future to hold that politician to the promise, or at least closer to it than if the promise had not been made.

It’s early in the campaigning. Let’s go to work to help these candidates get SMARTER, WISER & MORE SENSITIVE to the needs of America’s workers and their families.

ROY BECK is Founder & President of NumbersUSA