In a wide-ranging interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, President-elect Donald Trump discussed immigration extensively. My colleague Teri Christoph has the rundown on what he said about the more kinetic part of the equation: rousting a few million illegals out of the US and sending them home (WATCH: Trump Tells Welker ‘Retribution Will Be Through Our Success’ and Deportations Will Be a Priority). The part that struck me as the most interesting was Trump’s deeper dive into our extremely dysfunctional immigration system.
Birthright Immigration
A lot of people don’t want to hear it, but there is very little illegal immigration to places that don’t let the illegals stay. Europe has accomplished this by creating very, very loose “asylum” standards supported by an extraordinarily generous social welfare system that allows migrants to do nothing and get paid for it. We, being Americans, have gone about creating the illegal immigration magnet in a different way. We recognize being born on American soil as granting American citizenship. That, in turn, allows parents and siblings to stay legally. Inevitably, our “family reunification” policy brings in more folks. The term “anchor baby” causes aneurysms on the permissive immigration side of the debate, but they are a fact.