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After repeatedly bashing undocumented immigrants on the campaign trail and deporting hundreds of them in his first weeks in office, US president Donald Trump is floating a new approach. He now wants a compromise on immigration policy, a goal that eluded both his Democrat and Republican predecessors.

Trump has provided few details on how to achieve this, other than to say that he favors a merit-based system. But he has indicated he is now open to granting legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants in the country, despite previously promising to expel them.

This may seem totally out of character for someone who built his political career by fanning anti-immigrant sentiment. Indeed, its anyones guess whether he will follow through on this new notion, or if it will vanish from the Trumpian agenda as quickly as it appeared.

Still, Trump may represent the best chance of passing immigration reform that the US has had in years.

Yes, at first glance, hes an extremely unlikely candidate for the task of reaching a comprise on this (or really any) issue. But consider what he brings to the table on immigration.

He obviously knows how to talk to the people most against immigration reform, namely conservative Americans scared that foreigners are changing their country for the worse. And the trust he gained with these voters proved fairly unshakable, over the course of a long race filled with scandal and controversy.

If immigrant-friendly Republicans and Democrats can get past Trumps bad hombre rhetoric and his insistence on building a southern US border wall, they may find that his bombastic tack, steered in a slightly new direction, is precisely the way to convince the 46% of Americans who, according to a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, view immigrants as a threat to American customs and values.

It might not even take much to extract their support for an overhaul of the immigration system. If theres something that virtually all Americans agree on, its that the current system does not work.

Trump seems to recognize that the mind deals in vivid examples, which is why he is far more likely in his speeches to talk about the murder of a San Francisco woman by an undocumented immigrant than to offer up statistics on immigrant-perpetrated crime. Of course, the statistics would ultimately disprove the broader point hes trying to make, that immigrants are fueling a national crime wave, but thats not the only reason he avoids dwelling on numbers.

Our minds were never wired to deal with abstract conceptions of threat, explains Steven Neuberg, a psychology professor at Arizona State University.

Instead, our brains often rely on gross shortcuts to determine whats dangerousand that can come down to processing readily apparent factors such as race, gender, and language. (Neuberg points out that this reaction is natural for people of all political leanings; calls to impeach the president because of his attacks on the press come from the same place as calls to build a wall to stop immigrants from taking American jobs.)

And the mind errs on the side of caution, because mistakenly perceiving an non-existent threat is usually not as costly as missing a real threat.

The type of anxiety that contributes to rabid anti-immigrant sentiment is not assuaged by facts and figures, or by lecturingi.e. the primary strategies so far employed by proponents of more pathways to citizenship.

The way to get people to recalibrate their threat-detection systems is by making them feel less vulnerable, or by showing them that what they fear is less threatening, says Neuberg. While Trump has yet do much of the latter, hes rapidly moved to address the former.

During his Feb. 27 speech to Congress, Trump promised he will soon start to erect his proposed reinforcements of the southern US border. Whether its the 55-foot-high concrete wall he touted during the campaign, or mere fencing, as he later suggested, just the idea of having a protective barrier will go a long way toward placating fears about undocumented immigrants. Trumps raids to deport the bad hombres, as hes referred to them, are another example of how hes trying to quell immigrant-induced anxiety.

How we frame our ideas has a meaningful impact on how theyre received.

A 2015 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that political divides are difficult to close in part because debaters on either side of the issue fail to account for the difference in moral values held by those on the other side.

Psychologists have boiled down the values likely to be endorsed by liberals and conservatives to a list, as one of the studys authors, Robb Willer, explained in a 2016 Ted Talk.

The study found that using each groups values to reframe ideas coming from the opposite side helped to sway peoples minds. For example, conservatives were more likely to support environmental protections if they were told the purpose was to maintain the purity of forests and water, instead of avoiding their destruction. Liberals, in turn, were more open to high spending in the military when it was framed as an institution that reduces poverty and inequality than when it was presented as one that promotes unity and the countrys greatness.

During his address to Congress, Trump, commenting on immigration, drew heavily from the concepts on the right-hand portion of the list, invoking the values of sanctity, loyalty, patriotism, and authority. Heres one example:

I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: To improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nations security, and to restore respect for our laws.

He spoke specifically of restoring the integrity and the rule of law at our border and ending an environment of lawless chaos, and argued that those given a high honor of admission to the United States should support this country and love its people and its values.

Whether by design or not, thats rhetoric destined to resonate strongly with conservatives.

Trumps heretofore harshness on immigrationin both his rhetoric and his policieshave earned him the trust of immigration reforms most recalcitrant opponents. That has bought him some space to move the conversation beyond the gridlock its been stuck in for years. Heres Trump speaking at the joint session of Congress:

According to the National Academy of Sciences, our current immigration system costs American taxpayers many billions of dollars a year. Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration, and instead adopting a merit-based system, we will have so many more benefits. It will save countless dollars, raise workers wages, and help struggling families, including immigrant families, enter the middle class. And they will do it quickly, and they will be very, very happy, indeed.

The idea of a merit-based immigration system, to set skill parameters that foreigners must meet in order to come to the US, has mostly fallen by the wayside of the immigration debate. It was crowded out by more basic arguments over whether immigrants are welcome or not to begin withbut Trump is clearly attempting to bring the idea back into the fold now.

Of course, the presidents mixed messages on immigration run the risk of alienating both his base and his opponents. But assuming he makes a serious attempt to build compromise between the two, he has a good shot at getting his base to a place of agreement. Will his opponents be game to go along?

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Trumpyes, Trumpmay be the one to finally deliver on comprehensive immigration reform - Quartz

WASHINGTON Rep. Don Bacon said he understands that some immigrant families are fearful about the Trump administrations approach to immigration enforcement.

As he travels across the Omaha-based 2nd District, the freshman Republican congressman said, he hears from people who could be affected either because they are not legal immigrants, or because they have relatives who are here illegally.

In particular, he cited young people who were brought into the country as children or even as babies and are now worried whether President Donald Trump will continue to shield them from deportation, as the Obama administration did through its executive order known as DACA.

Theyre obviously in a tough situation, and we ought to try to provide some kind of assurance to them, Bacon said.

Bacon said that while any action on those in the country illegally must go hand in hand with better border security and workplace enforcement, hed like to see a compassionate, balanced approach and he would like to see it sooner rather than later.

But such legislation is unlikely to come quickly, Bacon and other Midlands lawmakers acknowledged.

Immigration will be difficult for us to get done this year, according to Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., who said the 2017 legislative calendar will be packed as Congress tackles health care and taxes, processes nominations and works through the federal budget.

And Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., a member of the Judiciary Committee that would handle any immigration bill, said the issue isnt at the top of the list. In a statement, Sasse said the committee is focused now on reviewing judicial nominees, including Neil Gorsuch, Trumps pick for the Supreme Court.

After the campaign, I dont think many conservatives were expecting President Trump to suggest immigration reform right out of the gate, Sasse said. But I do think that the goals of strengthening border security and restoring the rule of law are things conservatives have been saying for years, and thats where I start to approach the issue.

Bacon, whose congressional district is relatively balanced between Democrats and Republicans, often has described immigration as an area where he differs from more conservative GOP colleagues.

Bacon supports legislation known as the BRIDGE Act that would explicitly allow those covered by DACA Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to remain in the United States while Congress works on a broader solution. Bacon is the only co-sponsor of that bill from Nebraska or Iowa in the House or Senate.

And some conservatives are chafing at the fact that Trump has yet to rescind the DACA executive order signed when President Barack Obama was in office. That includes Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who has long been outspoken about immigration enforcement.

Each day the administration fails to act on DACA, King said, it becomes more difficult to change it a point he plans to press with the White House.

I hope to have that conversation soon, King said.

While there have been rumblings that the Trump administration might be open to some kind of bipartisan immigration deal that would give legal status to some illegal immigrants, King said he was pleased to see the president leave that kind of talk out of his recent address to Congress.

His message was the rule of law, restore the rule of law, restore the respect for the rule of law thats all stuff that Ive said for a long time, King said.

Bacon said he can envision a bipartisan consensus to provide a pathway to legal status for many of those in the country illegally, although he stops short of saying that would mean full citizenship.

But first, he said, the government must provide tougher enforcement for those currently entering the U.S. illegally, either by crossing the border or overstaying their visas, and focus on stopping employers from hiring those in the country illegally.

If the American people dont see the border security side of the equation addressed, he said, they wont be willing to support a plan for the millions already in the country.

If we can get that security part down, I think it opens up the doors for an easier discussion for DACA and the other folks who are working here and are good neighbors, Bacon said. Weve got to do both, but people have got to know up-front that the problems being fixed. And when that happens, I think more people will be more amenable to finding a consensus on working with those that are here already that are undocumented.

Congress has wrestled with a comprehensive immigration package twice in the past decade or so. Both times, the legislation passed the Senate, only to stall in the House. The last time was in 2013. Fischer voted against that bill in the Senate, as did Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Sasse and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, were not in office at the time.

Most Republican lawmakers make no bones about putting border security and enforcement at the top of their priority list.

My first concern is securing the border and making sure that we keep dangerous people out of this country, Fischer said. I view it as national security.

Grassley, who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, outlined the steps needed before Congress can consider legislation dealing with those already in the country illegally.

Those steps include securing the border with both physical and virtual measures, and bolstering the border patrol. He also called for addressing visa overstays and interior enforcement.

Which the president is vigorously doing now, but Obama did not do it getting people that are criminal aliens out of the country, Grassley told reporters last week.

He said the government has to demonstrate it is serious about enforcing immigration laws.

Weve been telling people for 20 years were going to secure the border, and there was some actions taken that kind of (we) thought we were securing the border, but its obvious we didnt, he said. So weve lost credibility.

He said hes made that point to the Trump administration. But he also added that he has no objection if Trump allows Obamas DACA approach to continue.

Hes going to let that stand, and I dont think hes going to have a lot of fuss about it, Grassley said.

Overall, he supports Trumps efforts to step up immigration enforcement.

Were talking about just enforcing the law, Grassley said.

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Nebraska, Iowa lawmakers say immigration reform is not a top priority - Omaha World-Herald

In the aftermath of the deadly Kansas shooting of Indian-born engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an immigration reform advocacy website that features photos and a video of Indian families relaxing in suburban Columbus, Ohio has Indian immigrant communities across the country worried, with some unwilling to travel outside the towns where they live.

The site, SaveAmericanITJobs.org, argues that immigrants in the US on work visas are a threat to US tech jobs. Created and maintained by a 66-year old computer programmer from Virginia named Steve Pushor, it has been circulating on Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook and email all week.

What were trying to point out is people in Ohio, IT workers and other professional people, have lost their jobs to foreign guest workers. Thats what our point is, Pushor told BuzzFeed News. Pushor, who said saw a spike in web traffic after Kuchibhotlas shooting, says he doesnt want Indians currently living in the United States to leave the country, and doesnt advocate violence.

Bhavin Bavalia, an American-born IT professional and the son of Indian immigrants, said he first came across the site when a friend shared it on Facebook Its very scary for me knowing that I have a lot of family in these small Indian communities, he said. To think that there could be some weirdo filming my cousins kids as theyre playing at the park, and possibly fomenting resentment towards them, is just disturbing.

The content on SaveAmericanIt.org ranges from a post on the real life story of a highly skilled IT professional and his ordeal of job loss at Pacific Gas and Electric Company by an H-1B from India to criticism of Indian companies and an Indian IT mafia that have ignored or shoved aside American IT professionals for years. But its a PDF entitled Ohio - A Journey To Indian Park and an accompanying video that the Indian tech workers with whom BuzzFeed News spoke found most troubling.

In the video, Pushors camera pans over people playing volleyball and children riding bikes, he narrates what he sees: The number of people from foreign countries blows my mind out here. You see this whole area is all Indian, amazing. Its an amazing number of jobs have been taken away from Americans. The Indian crowd has ravished the Midwest. Its crazy.

This is spooking people.

ID: 10640833

Pushor initially posted this video and the accompanying document which decries India as a hell hole and mourns the loss of Normal Rockwell white people in the US in August, when it generated some early discussion on Facebook, Reddit and Youtube. Its surfaced again in recent days, shared in private networks and on social media among Indian immigrants and their families. Kaplesh Kapadia, the Indian-born CEO of a California startup called SelfScore, said Pushors website was the subject of discussion this week in at least five different Whatsapp groups.

This is spooking people, combined with the Kansas murder, he told BuzzFeed News.

Pramod Buravalli, the India-born CEO of a Houston IT firm, hosts a weekly podcast on Indian-American issues; he says his listeners have been asking whether their families are safe in the US, or whether they should go back to India. They think maybe going to local bars is a no-no, Buravalli said.

Many people, including New York-based Indian-American startup founder Anil Dash, said watching Pushors video in light of the Kansas shooting made them worried for safety of their children. Hes like following people who are just at a playground in their neighborhood, and their kids are there. Im a dad. I have a kid. We play in public playgrounds, Dash said. This idea that someones going to surveil you and creepily videotape your family is kind of terrifying.

An Indian-born engineer who lives in Texas, and asked to remain anonymous out of concern that he or his family would be targeted, sounded a similar note of concern. I have a 5 month old, and I definitely would not go around new places with him, he said. We were talking among friends that we shouldnt probably travel outside Austin unless we really need to.

Pushor described the tone of his posts about Ohio as satire and pointed to other documents on the site, including an interview with an anonymous Indian tech worker living in California . To say our video and our document is going to make such an impact on their lives is a big stretch.

This idea that someones going to creepily videotape your family is kind of terrifying.

ID: 10640841

On his website, Pushor lists three organizations The IEEE-USA, NumbersUSA and Protecting US Workers as other advocates in the immigration space. Reached for comment by BuzzFeed News, all three of those organizations said they were unfamiliar with Pushor, and declined to endorse his site.

Russell Harrison is a spokesperson for the IEEE, an engineering tech trade group that he described as pro-immigrant, but in favor of reforming the work visa program. Theyre going further than they should probably go, Harrison said of Pushors site.. We dont believe the individuals trapped on the H-1B are doing anything wrong.

Harrison said he saw a spike in public concern about work visa fraud following allegations that Disney had fired American workers and replaced them with lower-paid immigrants. It was around the same time that Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, called the skilled visa program very, very bad for workers and said we shouldnt have it.

Tech companies, many of which rely heavily on the labor of high-skilled immigrants, came out definitively in opposition to President Trumps early attempts to restrict immigration.

Indian immigrants in tech were therefore understandably anxious about Trump. The president has since backtracked on work visas; hes yet to sign an executive order aimed at throttling the skilled visa program, and he met with Indian business leaders in DC earlier this week. But his failure to immediately speak out against Kuchibhotlas killing raised the ire of the Indian immigrant community.

While Trump condemned Kuchibhotlas murder in his Tuesday speech to congress, his five day delay in addressing it frustrated some in the US Indian community. It felt like too little, far too late, remarked Dash, who said hes concerned by the Trump administrations failure to address hate crimes head on. Of particular concern to him, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannons 2015 comments that seemed to suggest a proliferation of Asian tech CEOs in Silicon Valley is in opposition to a civic society.

I am 100 percent convinced well see more incidents, Dash said, referring to the Kansas shooting. The thing Im hearing from folks across the country is, its a much more hostile environment than even after 9/11.

Kapadia, who has lived in the US for past 18 years, echoed that sentiment, saying xenophobia wasnt much of a concern for him until recently. Hes unsettled by some of the aggressive rhetoric around immigration. He hopes Trump will take a consistent and firm stand against the kind of hate that claimed Kuchibhotlas life and fears that if he doesnt more incidents could follow.

As the leader of the country, you say things, and people take it to the extreme, Kapadia said. People feel that they have the freedom to discriminate.

Link:
An Anti-Immigration Website Posted A Video Of Indian Families Hanging Out In A Park - BuzzFeed News

Labor association leaders from Washington and North Carolina are not optimistic about immigration reform passing in a divided House and getting around Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Dan Wheat/Capital Press

Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, Feb. 23.

Dan Wheat/Capital Press

Dan Fazio, director of WAFLA, Feb. 23.

YAKIMA, Wash. Chances of immigration reform passing Congress are not good, two farm labor leaders say.

Majority Republicans are divided in the House and Senate Democrats, while in the minority, can prevent nearly any bill from coming to a vote under Senate rules, said Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, and Dan Fazio, director of WAFLA, formerly the Washington Farm Labor Association.

They spoke at WAFLAs annual labor conference at the Yakima Convention Center on Feb. 23.

Fazio and Wicker said they were recently in Washington, D.C., talking with Trump administration officials. Fifty-eight immigration bills were introduced in the first two weeks and none are going anywhere, Wicker said.

Democrats will run the same game on Trump that Republicans ran on Obama. Slow everything down. Gum everything up. You have to have 60 votes to bring anything to a vote in the Senate and I dont think it will happen, Wicker said.

I would predict that if Republicans dusted off the 2013 Senate bill and passed it now that Democrats (who supported it then) would vote against it because they wouldnt want Republicans and Trump to get credit for passing something that would be helpful, he said.

Fazio said House Republicans are divided between moderate conservatives and Tea Party conservatives and that the only way to bring them together is to pass House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlattes bills of the last Congress. HR 1772 for E-verify (electronic verification of employment eligibility) is supported by Tea Party Republicans, and moderate conservatives liked HR 1773, an ag guestworker bill that WAFLA supported.

You need both bills to bring Republicans together, Fazio said.

Chances of getting a bill out of the House are very small and its harder to get a bill through the Senate, he said.

There is no one out here to help you out of this tremendous labor shortage but yourselves. The closer you get to D.C., the more they drink the Kool-Aid and think something will get done, Fazio said.

But while Fazio believes nothing will happen legislatively to grant illegal immigrants worker status or improve the H-2A-visa guestworker program, he said E-verify will happen and will devastate many people (growers) in this room.

The best hope for anything helping growers is Trump administration reform of H-2A, he said. The Bush administration improved H-2A right before President George W. Bush left office and the Obama administration quickly reversed the reforms, he said. The Bush reforms, among other things, allowed small farms to get certification for H-2A workers, Fazio has said.

Trump could improve the program by lessening regulations, allowing it to work more smoothly, lowering the wage threshold and allowing growers to charge a reasonable rate for housing they have to provide, he said.

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Pessimism on immigration reform - Capital Press

President Donald Trump walked across the tarmac at Langley Air Force Base on Thursday.

Remarks that the president made to a gathering of TV anchors this week briefly gave cautious hope to immigrants and their advocates that Donald Trump could support a path to citizenship for thousands of immigrants now in the country illegally, a stark departure from his previous stances.

But hours later, those hopes were dashed when Trump made no mention of that sentiment in his first address to Congress.

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It was the latest twist in an evolving discussion of immigration that has kept policy watchers guessing.

Trump has been kind of all over the map on legal immigration, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that favors limits on immigration. But Trump has remained consistent in his focus on immigrants who have committed crimes, she said.

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Hes gone from they all have to go to were going to focus on the people causing problems, she said. I dont think hes lost the part that this needs to serve our national interest.

Yet another version of a piece of Trumps immigration crackdown is expected any day, when he releases a revised executive order designed to hold up in court.

It would revise one of the three executive orders on immigration he signed in January. The first two called for stepped up border security and enforcement of immigration laws, and broadened the pool of immigrants to target for deportation, leading to more arrests and detentions. The third order temporarily barred people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The White House promised to replace that order after it was halted by a federal court, but the replacement has not yet been introduced.

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In his speech before Congress Tuesday, Trump said the time may be ripe for immigration reform, and suggested that the country should have a merit-based immigration system, which would prioritize the admission of immigrants with specific skills.

Steve Kropper, cochair of the Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, said Trump has so far introduced only attention-grabbing proposals, rather than initiatives that could lead to lasting change in the immigration system. It wont be long, he said, until Trump gives up, and perhaps even offers amnesty to those in the country illegally.

I doubt that Trump has the stamina for the long slog that is meaningful changes in immigration, Kropper said.

Advocates for immigrants say that the arrests of immigrants happening across the country, including two separate arrests of young people who were previously protected under Barack Obamas program for immigrants brought to the United States as children, have many people fearful, no matter what Trump may say now.

Its hard to tell whether the public backlash has actually had an effect on the administrations policy, or if theyre trying to create more confusion and chaos, said Laura Rotolo, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts who focuses on immigration. Whats happening on the ground is, there continues to be a true sense of confusion of what the policies are.

ERIK S. LESSER/EPA

President Donald J. Trump returned to the White House on Thursday.

For example, said Zoila Gomez, an immigration lawyer, a lawful permanent resident from the Dominican Republic whom federal officials want to deport was arrested at his home this week and is being detained while he awaits deportation proceedings, even though he had been allowed to remain free since 2014 as his case moved through the process.

What is the point of picking him up, and putting him in jail, when he is already in the system and complying? Gomez said.

In trying to understand the seeming mixed messages from the White House, policy observers said that its possible that the president is now listening to Cabinet members and other members of his administration and immigration advocates on the issue.

I do think his position has evolved, and I definitely see the influence of people now in his Cabinet in refining what his agenda is on immigration, Vaughan said.

She and others added, though, that such proposals are nothing more than proposals.

He wants to indicate hes open to something, but being open to talk to someone is different than having a plan, she said. If he were to embark on a big legalization program at this point in time, he would really upset a lot of his supporters.

Vaughan said the president has authority to enforce existing immigration laws in a way that protects the country, for instance by ordering the deportations of criminals, but she said that any true reform will need congressional action, something that hasnt happened since 1990.

In his speech Tuesday, Trump called on Congress to come to a compromise and take action.

I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nations security, and to restore respect for our laws, Trump said.

Congressional Democrats and immigration advocates were not swayed. One group, the National Immigration Law Center, released a statement saying that Trump has already spread fear among immigrant communities.

Actions speak louder than words, Kamal Essaheb, policy and advocacy director, said in the statement.

Ira Mehlman, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in an interview that he does not believe the president has wavered or changed course, even after Tuesdays speech, but instead has followed through on the campaign promises he made, to target criminals and create a merit-based immigration system. There really shouldnt be any confusion, he said.

You have to listen to what the president said, and until you hear otherwise, thats the presidents position, he said. It all seems to indicate he believes our immigration laws need to be enforced, and our legal immigration system needs to be overhauled.

As far as were concerned, thats the policy of the administration, he said.

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Mixed messages from Trump on immigration - The Boston Globe