Be still whatever Paul Ryan has that passes for a heart! Popular vote loser Donald Trump is working on another immigration restriction and this one is right up Ryan's alley: punishing the poor.
The Trump administration is considering a plan to weed out would-be immigrants who are likely to require public assistance, as well as to deport—when possible—immigrants already living in the United States who depend on taxpayer help, according to a draft executive order obtained by The Washington Post. […]
While Trump’s immigration ban last week focused on national security and preventing terrorism, the new draft orders would be focused on Trump’s campaign promises to protect American workers and to create jobs, immediately restricting the flow of immigrants and temporary laborers into the U.S. workforce. The administration has blamed immigrants who end up receiving U.S. social services for eating up federal resources, and it has said immigrant workers contribute to unemployment among Americans who were born in the United States.
“Our country’s immigration laws are designed to protect American taxpayers and promote immigrant self sufficiency. Yet households headed by aliens are much more likely than those headed by citizens to use Federal means-tested public benefits,” reads one draft order obtained by The Post, titled “Executive Order on Protecting Taxpayer Resources by Ensuring Our Immigration Laws Promote Accountability and Responsibility.” The draft order provides no evidence to support the claim that immigrant households are more likely to use welfare benefits, and there is no consensus among experts about immigration’s impact on such benefits or American jobs.
Yes, you read that right: This is about deporting legal immigrants.
Because Americans will be flocking to those low-wage jobs immigrants now hold—digging ditches, making hotel beds, mucking out dairy barns. Note that immigration law already allows the government to keep a would-be immigrant out if they might become a "public charge."
This order would go further, telling the Department of Homeland Security to "issue a rule saying that an immigrant can't be admitted to the U.S. if he's likely to get any benefit 'determined in any way on the basis of income, resources, or financial need.'" And if they legally come into the U.S. and end up having to use public benefits, they can be deported. But it gets even worse—the person who sponsored them would be forced to reimburse the government for any funds they might have received.
They'll need to recoup that money, of course, because there just isn't enough in the coffers for all the tax breaks Trump and his cronies want to give their friends.