Demonstrating the broad appeal of his in-depth immigration plan released Sunday, Trump’s proposal has won the accolades of one of the nation’s leading experts on the H-1B visas program. The H-1B is a visa designed to provided corporations with cheaper and less experienced guest workers to fill technology jobs.
Norm Matloff, a professor at UC Davis, has written extensively about H-1B visa abuses, and his work is widely cited in the H-1B reform community.
Matloff, a self-described Democrat and “longtime admirer of Bernie Sanders,” gave Donald Trump’s H-1B policy “an A+” and was pleased that the Republican frontrunner was willing to take aim at the Republican establishment’s preferred candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio. Rubio is pushing a plan to triple H-1B visas so that corporations can more easily import substitute guest workers.
As Matloff wrote in a blog last night:
Presidential candidate Donald Trump stunned the H-1B visa watcher community today with his platform on immigration. which includes surprisingly detailed, helpful provisions regarding H-1B… On H-1B, the man gets an A+. I’ve never seen any politician, even Tom Tancredo, put up such an effective platform as Trump has. He decries that most of the visas go to the bottom two (out of four) wage levels in the legal requirements for H-1B, recognizing that the unrealistic prevailing wage law is at the heart of the problem. He insists that employers be required to give hiring priority to Americans. Most important to me is that, at least as stated, these provisions would go a long way to stem the visa abuse by not only the “Infosyses” (rent–a-programmer firms) but also the Intels, who are just as culpable. One nice added touch: He refers to pro-H-1B Senator Rubio as “Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator. :)
Matloff writes that Trump’s platform distinguishes from politicians on both the left and right:
Trump says in his platform what no other politician, including Sanders, is willing to say: Immigration is great in sensible quantities, but in its present form, both legal and illegal, it’s hammering the lower and middle classes. Take for example the high black and Latino unemployment rates. The Democrats say the solution is education and the Republicans say the path is lower taxes and regulation, and though both may have points, Trump states the obvious — bringing in large numbers of low-skilled immigrants is going to harm the most vulnerable people in our society, our own low-skilled (including earlier immigrants)… Latino activists don’t seem to care, nor do their allies in the Democratic Party care. I haven’t heard a peep out of Rep. Luis Gutierrez about the blight that the immigration-swelled labor market brings on the Latino community. Indeed, the Latino activists want to shut down talk of harm to American low-skilled workers… I say, ‘¡Arriba Señor Trump!’… Immigration policy must be a sensible one that is beneficial to those already here. We need a national dialog on the issue, not selfish posturing by politicians. Hopefully Trump’s platform will lead to a broader — and more honest! — dialog on this crucial topic.
Matloff’s praise is echoed by NumbersUSA–a nonpartisan group that calls for immigration moderation–and conservative activists alike.
Conservative icon Ann Coulter and author of new book Adios America has called Trump’s policy paper, “The greatest political document since the Magna Carta.”
Tea Party co-founder, Mark Meckler, writes:
Trump sets the standard for specificity in his immigration plan that all the other candidates will now have to meet. His immigration plan will resonate with a broad cross-section of grassroots voters, particularly tea party and conservative voters and this will benefit him in the primaries and caucuses. Love it or hate it, everyone else is now playing catch-up.
Conservative HQ editor, George Rasley writes:
The ‘donor class’ of the Republican (and Democratic) Party – whom [Alabama Senator Jeff] Sessions calls the ‘Masters of the Universe’—are losing influence in a big way over the Republican Party. Their candidates, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, have been fading so fast under the heat of the conservative populist message of Donald Trump…
By embracing a platform of immigration moderation — i.e. returning immigration to lower, more normal historical levels from today’s surging record highs — Trump could begin to see increased support from a wide range of voters. For instance, polls from Fox News and Gallup show that Americans — by a 2-to-1 ratio — want to see visa issuances reduced. A 2012 Pew Poll found that 69 percent of Americans want to place greater restrictions on who was allowed into the United States. A recent poll from Kellyanne Conway found that a plurality of Americans wish to see a moratorium on immigration for the time being. And a separate poll by KellyAnne Conway found that Hispanics, by nearly a seven to one ratio, want employers to hire workers already in the country rather than importing foreign workers to fill jobs. Black voters support this measure by a ratio of almost 30 to 1. As Matloff explains, both of these groups suffer every day from the federal government’s policy of adding millions of new competitors to the labor pool.
The immigrant to population ratio is already at its highest level in 105 years, since during the height of the European immigration wave. The Census Bureau forecasts that in a few years, driven by our visa issuances to poor countries, the immigrant to population ratio will explode past all known historical markers.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.