Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Chris Coons (D-Del.) have introduced legislation that would give 40,000 green cards to foreign doctors and nurses, claiming we have a shortage of healthcare providers. But is the "shortage" due to a lack of Americans willing to enter the field, or is it more due more systemic issues?
Pres. Trump promised with his Monday night Tweet that his Administration would be halting immigration at a time when more than 20 million Americans are filing for unemployment. Unfortunately, the actual Executive Order fell well short of that promise, but there is some room for hope.
We just celebrated the 50th Earth Day. It came and went with minimal fanfare as the planet's inhabitants are concerned with more immediate matters. Still, let's take the time to reflect on why there is an Earth Day in the first place.
I'm sure you have heard a bewildering amount of descriptions of what the President's Proclamation will do to the number of permanent immigrants and temporary foreign workers coming into the country the next few months.
Let's walk calmly through the details.
With tens of millions of Americans who want to work fulltime unable to do so, most immigration at this moment makes no sense, and the President appears to be moving in the right direction to curtail it.
Pres. Trump's Tweet a few hours ago indicates a sensitivity to a primary purpose of immigration laws of every country, and that is to protect a nation's vulnerable workers from harmful competition. To continue most immigration at this time would show a callous disregard for those Americans who are enduring deep economic suffering.
The nation's meat supply chain is threatened by meatpacking plant shutdowns due to Covid-19 outbreaks among employees. But the Costco plant in Freemont, Nebraska has thus far had only one employee confirmed with the virus (according to MeatPoultry.com) and is humming at full speed.
"Faster buses. Plentiful parking. Cleaner air." Those are just a few of the ways The New York Times describes life in the great city of New York during this pandemic-induced traffic time out. There's even birdsong! But just as everyone expects traffic, congestion, and pollution to rise once the outbreak has subsided, our population will also continue to do so, zooming past 400 million in the next four decades, as long as immigration policies remain unchanged.
The nation's ability to survive the Covid-19 pandemic does not depend on continuing the DACA amnesty, despite a major attempt to suggest otherwise in the elite East Coast media this week.
As always, the numbers in the debate have to be put in context.
