Sputnik: In your opinion, what is the likelihood that Trump's new immigration plan will be approved, given the Democrats' majority in the House of Representatives?
Marguerite Telford: First of all, I think that the Kushner-Trump immigration plan will start in the Senate where actually the Republicans have a majority; but I don't actually think it's going anywhere. I think it's going to be more of a campaign, document that's going to be used, where they've kind of laid out things that are important to them in immigration. So, I don't think it's going to go anywhere.
Sputnik: So, you think it's only the part of the pre-election campaign and that's it?
Marguerite Telford: Yes. I think they would've liked to have seen something, and maybe they'll take it apart and put it into smaller bills. And I may be wrong, but I actually don't think it's going to go anywhere. The Democrats are not going to vote for anything that has border security in it; the Democrats are not going to vote on this. So, I don't think it's going anywhere.
Sputnik: Let's imagine this plan goes somewhere. How do you think this plan will affect the number of immigrants in the closest to the border Democratic states, like California for example?
Marguerite Telford: I haven't seen the plan yet, so we're speculating. But if it does what we are hearing it does, which has kind of shipped us over to a more merit-based system from a family-based system, then we would expect to see an immigration population that's more educated and highly-skilled coming in; and we'd also expect to see a lot of border security. I think, from what I'm hearing, they're going to close down the two big loopholes, the Flores settlement and they're going to close the credible fear loophole, and that means you're going to stop that flood of illegals who are coming to the border. And I think if you decrease the illegal immigration at the border by a large amount and you change who is coming into this country, I think it's going to decrease the population; because immigrants are like anybody else, they come and go.
Particularly with illegall, but also with legal. You know, your family member gets ill, you want to go back home; you make enough money, you want to go back home; you are not happy, you are not acclimatising, you go home. It's a revolving door — people come, people go. So, you'll see the natural flow of people who always leave, but I think you'll see the number of coming in to decrease on the illegal side; it's the illegal population that's really flooding to Mexico.
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Sputnik: According to the recent news, this plan deals only with legal immigration, and not the 11 million undocumented immigrants and the 1 million so-called "Dreamers"…
Marguerite Telford: First of all, illegal immigrants are not undocumented. So, you're talking about the illegal immigrant population which is estimated to be about 11 million. I believe what I've seen in the media is the White House is saying: "We want to talk about what we can agree on. If we bring an amnesty for the DACA people, it's going nowhere. So, right now let's talk us on what we can all agree on." And so, that wasn't part of the conversation'; that's not what this was meant to be.
Sputnik: As you know, the Democrats have Democrats have been trying to pass this so-called Dream Act since 2001…
Marguerite Telford: They haven't tried very hard because Trump made a deal where he was not only willing to give them the 700,000 Dreamers, but he increased that number to their kids; don't forget, they are older now. Their kids and whole other bigger population, there are over a million he was going to give amnesty to, and the Democrats wouldn't sign on. So, it's funny that the Democrats really like to blame it on Republicans; but Trump was willing to go there and they weren't willing to make any type of deal or any type of compromise. They like to use that population. I would go back a really long time ago. That was actually based on studies of psychology where people who came here under 6 years old and had never left. I think long time ago that could have passed; but the Democrats have kind of held that group hostage because they want to get everybody in on their backs. So, who knows when you'll get some type of amnesty for that population because the Democrats won't give anything. That group is not worth a trade for anything. If I were them, I would be so upset with the Democrats because they're being used.
Sputnik: In your view, how exactly should the perfect immigration plan work?
Marguerite Telford: What I liked better about this particular plan is that they did not want a comprehensive immigration plan, that's not what they were looking for; they were looking for the major things that are making our system dysfunctional right now and fixing them. For example, the Flores settlement, the credible fear, those are the things that are causing the flood across our border right now. So they wanted to fix that. The chain migration is a huge problem, our numbers are way too high; and I liked that if people are having to wait with the backlog. For example, if you get rid of some of these chain migration categories, like bringing in the adult children like at the age of 40-45. I lived most of my life in Europe; if I actually moved when I was 60, should my 40-year-old be automatically allowed to with me, with his wife, with his kids? That's insane. No other country does that. Your aunts and uncles, all of them coming over…
So, I liked the idea, from what I'm hearing, that this plan is making a high priority to a nuclear family. So the kids, the spouse. They are keeping the parents they are saying there is a cap to it, and you have to show that you can actually financially take care of them and they won't be on welfare. So, they are bringing together the nuclear family, which means that you won't have to wait as long for those people to get to you, you won't have to wait for a couple of years to get your children or spouse. And in order to do that you've got to decrease the numbers; so, you're getting rid of those other categories. If you're really interested, care about the nuclear family then you should like this plan. I liked the things that he has prioritised on it; and I just really think border security is very important at this point. If we don't have border security, we shouldn't be doing anything else because people will continue to flood in.
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Sputnik: In your view, how will this plan affect Trump's chances in the 2020 election?
Marguerite Telford: That's a good question. Trump got elected on immigration, I think; and I think border security, illegal immigration is important, but also decreasing legal immigration numbers is important. And I'm a little bit concerned that although this plan from what I'm hearing does lots of really good things, modernising things, it does not decrease the numbers. We have 1.1 million legal immigrants coming to this country every year; it doesn't decrease the numbers, it kind of shifts around the numbers. I'm a little bit concerned that his base may feel like that's not what they bargained for; but I also think that he put together a group, Kushner is not exactly a Conservative and I think he probably got stuff slipped in there. So, the question is whether Trump can distance himself from that. We'll see.
The views and opinions expressed in article are solely those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect Sputnik's position.
*The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is a non-profit organisation and think tank "that favors far lower immigration numbers and produces research to further those views."