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Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, hasnt given up on immigration reform. He was in the Senate to watch comprehensive bills he favored fall apart in 2006, 2007, and 2013. He was one of the presidential candidates whom Donald Trump beat for the Republican nomination in 2016. Trump won that contest after saying he would deport all illegal immigrants over a two-year period.

But Trump softened on the issue after winning the nomination, and Graham now thinks he can work with him to achieve many of the aims of those earlier bills. He isnt trying to revive comprehensive legislation one more time, but he also rejects the idea of tackling issues a la carte. If Republicans try to enact legislation that only increases enforcement of the immigration laws, he believes Democrats will block it.

Instead, he tells me, he favors a series of discrete deals.

The first one would combine ramped-up enforcement, starting with the bad dudes, and the legalization of illegal immigrants who came here as minors. Republicans are open to that legalization, he said, and it would be hard for Democrats to say no to securing the border and helping these 800,000 kids have a better life.

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The second one would legalize adult illegal immigrants working in agriculture and tourism, and at the same time require employers to use the e-verify program to make sure all new hires are legal workers.

Third, Graham would legalize those remaining illegal immigrants who passed a background check and paid a fine. In return he wants to shift legal immigration toward recruiting people with high skills rather than reuniting extended families. The immigration system of the future would be merit-based, he says.

I opposed the previous bills that Graham supported, and Im not completely sold on this plan. But it has enough attractive elements to make me think that those of us who are more hawkish than Graham on immigration should consider it.

The earlier bills would have substantially increased immigration, and low-skilled immigrants would have made up much of the increase. Most Americans dont want that, and the economic case for it is weak. His current idea would not raise immigration levels.

Under earlier versions of comprehensive reform, illegal immigrants might have gotten legal status before effective enforcement measures were in place - because, for example, those measures were tied up in court. In that case, legalization could have acted as a magnet for more illegal immigration, and we would remain stuck in a cycle of illegal immigration and amnesty. This three-step sequence would reduce this risk, because Congress would enact most of the legalization after enforcement had been implemented.

One reason advocates for illegal immigrants have opposed enforcement-first bills is that they have feared that Republicans would never get around to addressing their concerns once they got those bills enacted. Because Grahams first step would include the legalization of illegal immigrants who came here as minors, though, it might be taken as a sign of good faith.

As leery as congressmen are about trying to address immigration again, Graham believes that the expiration of President Barack Obamas executive order granting quasi-legal status to illegal immigrants who came here as minors will be a tripwire forcing action. Republicans dont want Trump to renew their status they said it was an abuse of power when Obama granted it but fear the political consequences of exposing them to deportation again. So they have an incentive to pass legislation granting legal status, but they will want to get something to make that legislation more congenial to conservatives.

The senator thinks he has one more thing going for him: the president. Heres the key: Trump can do something no other Republican can do on immigration, Graham said. What Trump can do is persuade the voters who are most concerned about illegal immigration that he is enforcing the law, and serious about making sure it is enforced in the future.

The fact that comprehensive reform got as far as it did in the past, Graham added, suggests that congressional majorities could be assembled for many of its components. All in all, he is more hopeful than most observers that a productive immigration compromise, or series of compromises, can be reached. For that to happen, many of the Republicans who blocked previous bills would have to come along.

What are the prospects of that? Grahams judgment: I believe the party will follow Trump if he leads.

Ponnuru is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is a senior editor of National Review and the author of The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life.

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An immigration-reform plan for the age of Trump - The Morning Sun

As President Trump fulfills his campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration and consider cuts in legal immigration, his critics responded that his policies will frustrate his promised goal of 3 percent economic growth. In just the last few weeks, establishment media organs have inundated us with headlines like Opposition to immigration is at odds with economic growth (Washington Post), Tighter immigration controls could hurt Trump growth plans (Atlanta Journal Constitution) and Hardline on immigration threatens growth (Wall Street Journal).

It is impossible to overstate how important growth is to economic and political stability in the industrial age in which we live, affecting the economy, in jobs, housing, wages and incomes. If growth required mass immigration, only extreme national security, environmental or cultural concerns would justify restriction.

That impending demographic slowdown set off alarm bells in corporate boardrooms across the country. With population growth slowing, the rising tide that had done so much to raise U.S. corporate growth and profits to record heights was projected to ebb.

The answer was obvious to corporate CEOs: mass immigration. A 1997 Wall Street Journal editorial bewailed the looming shortage of warm bodies, pointedly noting that a drop in births can be compensated by immigration. The Journal did its part by excoriating people like former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), who dared to suggest that immigration needed to be controlled, as nativists and xenophobes. The Journals editors declared repeatedly that there should be open borders. The national Chamber of Commerce and other big business lobbies began pressuring their GOP allies in Congress and collaborating with left-wing groups to undermine immigration law enforcement, pass amnesty for illegal aliens and increase immigration by all possible means.

But big business was hardly alone in being alarmed and energized by the looming shortage of workers and consumers. Big government was equally horrified. Why? Slowing economic growth would mean slowing tax revenues, less money for expanding government programs and favored interest groups, and even more importantly, less money to pay the growing cost of a fast-rising national debt. The Wall Street Journal noted that a 0.5 percent reduction in GDP growth reduces federal revenues by a staggering $1.36 trillion over a decade. As former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers pointed out, If we get the growth rate up, the debt problem will stay in control.

Former President Clinton, campaigning for the Senates Gang of Eight amnesty bill in 2013, picked up the theme, saying that if Congress understood what the economic impact of the countrys declining fertility rate would be, they would pass the bill because its the only way to keep our country growing. In another post-Trump scare piece, the Journal laments that an aging population, the physically demanding nature of many blue-collar jobs and the trend toward pursuing college degrees compound the labor shortage. However, as Sen. Tom CottonTom CottonSenators introduce new Iran sanctions Trump should ignore the business lobby and stick to immigration promises McConnell vows Senate will take up ObamaCare repeal next week MORE (R-Ark.) responded, Higher wages for Americans are a feature, not a bug, of reducing levels of legal immigration!

In addition to boosting wages, immigration restriction will lead to lower housing prices, safer neighborhoods and better schools. Trump also promised to reduce taxes and extend maternity leave for working mothers. All these policies will encourage Americans to have more children.

Corporate Americas demand for growth through mass immigration is misguided. If Trump ignores the business lobby and sticks to his campaign promises, he can boost productivity to spur real economic growth, even with lower immigration.

Tom Tancredo served Colorados 6th congressional district from 1999 to 2009, where he chaired the bipartisan 100+ member Immigration Reform Caucus. KC McAlpin serves as the president ofU.S. Inc,a conservative group working for immigration reform.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Trump should ignore the business lobby and stick to immigration promises - The Hill (blog)

The Mexican owner of a steakhouse in Granger, Indiana, whose wife voted for President Donald Trump was scheduled to be deported Friday. Roberto Beristain, 43, who immigrated to the U.S. illegally nearly 20 years ago, was attending his yearly U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) check-in last month when officials arrested him in the state capital of Indianapolis, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

Beristains family, which is made up of his wife Helen and their four U.S.-born children, has implored a federal immigrationjudge in New York to take up their father's case in an effort to buy him some more time in the country. Beristains stepson, Phil Kolliopoulos, created a petition for the judge to open the case, which has garnered more than 600 signatures, the South Bend Tribune reported Thursday.

Read: What We Know About Mexican Immigration: Study Shows Half Of All Undocumented Immigrants Are Mexican

A Republican, Beristain worked at Eddies Steak Shack eight years until January when he bought it from his wifes sister. Helen Beristain voted for Trump because she agreed with his hardline stance on immigration and the sentiment that undocumented immigrants who were convicted of crimes in the U.S. should be driven out of the country, his s 14-year-old daughterJasmine Beristain told the New York Daily News. Her mother, however, had no idea that doing so would affect her father, Jasmine said.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat, penned an essay Tuesday arguing that the conservative community would lose a model citizen if Beristain were to be deported.

The last time Beristains family spoke with their father was Tuesday night while RobertoBeristain was being detained in a country jail in Kenosha, Wisconsin.Roberto Beristain's incarceration was because a deportation order was placed on him in 2000 while he was on a family vacation toNiagara Falls along the U.S.-Canada border.Beristain, who was driving, took a wrong turn and his family found themselves on the Canadian side of the border. When he tried to come back, U.S. border officials found out he was in the country illegally and placed a deportation order on him.

After the incident, Beristain was ordered to leave the country voluntarily on two separate occasions, which he refused to do because his wife was pregnant, Jasmine said.

Protests have erupted across the countryreaction to more than 680 immigrants being arrested within a month of Trump taking office, BuzzFeed reported last month. That was largely to due to anexecutive orderTrump signedJan. 25 calledEnhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," whichresulted in more than 2 million legal immigrants becoming the targets of deportation raids for having criminal records for low-level crimeslike marijuana possession or writing a bad check.Before the executive order, legal immigrants could only become a removable alien when convicted of a crime.

There were approximately 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2014, making up3.5 percentof the U.S. population, the Pew Research Centerreportedin November. Among those, more than half were Mexican.

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Immigration Reform 2017: Trump Voter's Mexican Husband Set To Be Deported - International Business Times

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait and dozens of their counterparts from around the country joined forces Tuesday to call on Congress and President Donald Trump to fix a broken immigration system and pass a comprehensive overhaul of how people are granted entry into the United States.

The concerted effort by mayors to call for immigration reform and conduct a day of action in support of undocumented immigrants came one day after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials took their own action in targeting noncooperative cities.

The agency released its inaugural weekly report on cities or agencies that have rejected federal immigration detainer requests to hold people in local jails past their release dates. The report, which mentioned detainers that appeared to have been issued and rejected at Los Angeles and Anaheim jails, was prompted by an executive order signed by Trump in January.

During a teleconference Tuesday to discuss the mayors day of action, Garcetti compared the ICE report with an attempt to pin a scarlet letter on cities and law enforcement agencies and said it was destructive to collaborative relationships between local and federal governments.

RELATED STORY: ICE puts LA jails on non-cooperative list for refusing to hold immigrants

Tom Cochran, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said Tuesday that the group has serious concerns about ICEs report, including questions about the assertion that the cities listed are in noncompliance when they do not honor federal detainer requests, which are often seen as voluntary by local law enforcement agencies.

Several mayors highlighted their individual cities efforts to help immigrants and to press for federal immigration reform during the teleconference, which was on the Cities Day of Immigration Action organized by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Garcetti, chairman of the groups Latino Alliance.

Anaheims Tait, a Republican, said he and Democratic mayors such as Jorge Elorza of Providence, Rhode Island, are making a bipartisan push for the federal government to fix the nations immigration system.

(Mayors) are closest to the issue, said Tait, who co-chairs an immigration reform task force with Elorza in the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

As cities work to keep people safe, and we protect their rights, Tait said, we have a broken system we have to work around.

RELATED STORY: Mayor Garcetti bars LA police, civil servants from acting as immigration enforcers

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Tait said the task force is preparing a letter signed by mayors from around the country to demand comprehensive immigration reform, and he has also written an op-ed on the issue for The Orange County Register.

In the article, Tait said he has personally seen how undocumented immigrants live in the shadows, scared to call police to report a crime or fearful to engage in their community.

Meanwhile, Garcetti said the federal government must move forward on immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million who people in the country illegally.

Do what President Reagan and a bipartisan coalition in Congress did in the 1980s, he said. Its long overdue.

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, who emigrated from Peru at age 5, said his family benefited from President Ronald Reagans amnesty program that allowed undocumented a path toward citizenship, and he wanted to share that immigrants also grow up to become mayors.

People dont realize that the immigration process and the path to citizenship it is not easy, he said. It took us probably 10 years of going to offices, getting advice, waiting in lines, working with caseworkers to ensure that we were doing the process correctly. Garcia said he was 21 years old and coming out of college when he and his family became U.S. citizens.

The day I became a citizen was the best day of my life, and it instilled a value of loving your country, working hard and giving back, Garcia said. To the president and the members of Congress, all those young people out there, all those families that are out there, they want to be able to have the opportunity that so many other immigrants like myself and my family had.

The cities day of action kicked off in Los Angeles at 6 a.m. with an on-air, phone-bank event at Univision Studios featuring legal experts giving advice on immigration matters.

Garcetti said he also visited the offices of immigrant advocacy group Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, or CHIRLA, and spoke to immigrants known as DREAMers, who were brought to the United States illegally when they were babies or very young.

Link:
LA and Anaheim mayors call for immigration reform as Trump and ICE bear down - LA Daily News

The administration wasted no time taking its first steps to build the big, beautiful wall President Trump promised the American people. Last Friday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection asked for bids to construct the border wall (one concrete and the other using different materials.) Under the timeline set forth in the proposal, those interested will have two weeks to submit their designs and models should follow soon thereafter.

The U.S.-Mexico border wall, according to the CBP, must be an imposing physical barrier. Department of Homeland Security expects the wall to be: not climbable; able to repel a sledgehammer, pick axe, or other hand-held tools for a minimum of 30 minutes for the non-concrete wall and an hour for the concrete version. Finally, the wall must not be easily tunneled under, making it as impenetrable as humanly possible

No matter who becomes president in the future, the border wall will ensure that uninvited and unwelcome individuals do not gain entry into the United States. Regardless of policy shifts, the wall cannot and will not be asked not to turn a blind eye to illegal border crossers like many Border Patrol agents were pressured to do during the Obama administration. Further, an imposing physical barrier allows Border Patrol agents to pay more attention to drug cartels and those who pose national security threats.

Even before the first block of concrete is poured, President Trumps executive order has already had a positive impact on the border. Illegal border crossing decreased in February by 40 percent, with February 2017 having the fewest February crossings in a decade. People like taking the path of least resistance, and soon, illegally entering the U.S. by jumping the border will no longer be an option.

Despite Congress not yet appropriating a dime, the administration is moving swiftly and decisively to regain control of the borders. In the budget blueprint that President Trump sent to Congress last week, the administration requested $2.6 billion for the border wall in fiscal year 2018. It also requested another $3 billion in its supplemental 2017 funding request to secure our nation.

Predictably, immigration activists blasted the funding for the wall threatening to shut down the government if the money was included in any of the 2017 spending bills. Pandering to them, Republicans who have control over the wall are stalling in order to avoid a funding standoff that could shut down the government.

Perhaps those Republicans who are holding up the process need to be reminded of the cost savings to American taxpayers. Building the wall across the entire southwest border is expected to cost about $15-$30 billion. Even if the cost of the wall exceeded those levels, it would quickly pay for itself. A cost study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform found illegal aliens cost American taxpayers $113 billion every year.

Read more:
If You Build It, They Won't Come - ImmigrationReform.com (blog)