• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About

Radio America Online News Bureau

‘I’m Afraid the President is Getting Rolled’

September 14, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/9-14-krikorian-blog.mp3

President Trump and Democratic Party leaders in Congress say they are closing in on a deal that would have Congress enshrining the legal status of illegal immigrants who came here as children in exchange for what Trump calls “massive border security,” but a leading immigration activist thinks the president is getting snookered.

“I’m afraid the president is getting rolled,” said Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian.  “He simply let (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer set the terms of this debate.”

Trump met with Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Wednesday night at the White House to discuss the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.  Following the meeting, Schumer and Pelosi released a statement suggesting a deal was done to approve legislation to give young people here illegally and enrolled in the program permanent legal status.

Trump later tweeted that there was not a done deal and all later said the details still needed to be worked out on border security, although the Democrats reiterated that they would not approve funding to build a wall on the southern border.

Krikorian says Schumer has the upper hand in this debate, as he’s been immersed in it for decades.

“Chuck Schumer has been doing immigration for 30 years.  He was responsible for the 1986 amnesty, the last push to get it over.  He was in the House of Representatives then,” said Krikorian.  “He was the motivating force behind the Gang of Eight that passed the Senate.”

Krikorian says Trump is not well-versed at all in immigration policy and he can see Schumer winning Trump over in the language Trump is now using.

“President Trump doesn’t know anything about the immigration issue.  So Schumer tells him, ‘This wouldn’t be an amnesty, Mr. President, because they wouldn’t get citizenship.’  Trump just mouths those cliches that we have been hearing now for years that are straight out false,” said Krikorian.

“The president has no idea about any of this stuff.  I am happy to stipulate that he is good at real estate deals.  That may well be the case.  But dealing with mob and labor bosses and crooked building inspectors, those guys are much more reliable negotiating partners than Chuck Schumer.  The president is like a babe in the woods.  He’s getting taken for a ride,” said Krikorian.

Krikorian suspects the challenge for Trump is getting even steeper given the myriad of staff changes that leave very few immigration hawks in the White House.

“Everybody with a position of authority is either a liberal Democrat or is a non-political retired general who really don’t have strong political views.  They just want to see things fixed and work better.  And that’s a recipe for the president alienating himself from his base,” said Krikorian.

He says Trump and everyone else in the debate needs to see that granting permanent legal status to young illegal immigrants enrolled in DACA amounts to amnesty and they must proceed accordingly.

“Every amnesty – and that’s what this is is an amnesty, if you let illegals stay that’s an amnesty – every one always draws new illegal immigration into the country and then causes a surge of legal immigration down the stream as their relatives come in,” said Krikorian.

Krikorian believes Obama’s creation of DACA through the executive branch in 2012 was blatantly illegal, but he says that’s not the fault of the people who enrolled and the humanitarian thing to do is to make good on that promise.

However, he says only those actually enrolled in DACA, and not all illegal immigrants brought here as young children, should be considered for the legislation.  He also urges businesses to use the E-Verify system to check the immigration status of job applicants and for the government to crack down on employers who knowingly hire people in the U.S. illegally.

Krikorian urges Trump to use this moment to make tough demands of Democrats in exchange for relenting on DACA.

“What kind of provisions do you include in a bill like that to make sure that an amnesty that  may be 700,000 or 800,000 people doesn’t do more harm than good,” said Krikorian.

He strongly encourages Trump and congressional Republicans to insist that portions of the RAISE Act be included in any bill.  In addition to favoring prospective immigrants with college educations and the ability to provide for themselves, the legislation would also tighten which family members could later be brought in by immigrants.

Krikorian says giving DACA enrollees the ability to confer legal status on their parents must be prevented.

“Their parents knew what they were doing when they came here.  They weren’t children.  They don’t deserve the benefit from this amnesty, so what we need is to change the family immigration system so that it only focuses on husbands, wives, and little kids and not all these other adult relative categories we have now,” said Krikorian.

And he says all of this must be included in the same legislation as the enactment of DACA or the Democrats will win everything they want in exchange for nothing.

“It absolutely has to be in one piece.  If they get everything they want then it’ll be just like 1986, where they got their amnesty first and the enforcement never happened,” said Krikorian.

Standard Podcast [ 11:09 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: amnesty, Chuck Schumer, DACA, families, illegal, immigration, legal, news, President Trump

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Recent

  • Iran Begs for Ceasefire, NY Times Unloads on Mamdani, Fake Cop Targets Minnesota Lawmakers
  • Israel Targets Iranian Nukes, How Trump is Navigating Israel-Iran, Sen. Padilla’s PR Stunt
  • Gov. Newsom’s LA Riot Money Trail, Is Iran Conflict Imminent, Mayor Bass Floundering Again
  • ABC Boots Moran Over ‘Hate’ Tweet, Gabbard’s Nuclear Alarmism, Rep. Green’s Guyana Gamble
  • Massive Immigrant Shift to GOP, Organized Chaos in LA, Hawley’s Wage Hike Plan

Archives

  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in