May 12, 2020
Trump’s Latest Decision on Immigration Is Bad for America
As the pandemic continues, President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have sought to impose new and potentially sweeping restrictions on immigration. Back in April, Trump issued a presidential proclamation to temporarily block the issuance of green cards for individuals outside the United States. While those restrictions will remain in place for at least sixty days, Trump’s advisers have indicated this step may be a prelude to further measures. And recently, four Republican senators argued in a May 7 letter to the president for the suspension of guest worker visas, including H1-Bs for specialty occupation workers. Such measures are contrary to U.S. values, counterproductive in this crisis, and damaging to long-term American competitiveness.
This call for additional restrictions on immigration builds upon and goes beyond Trump’s initial decision, which was seemingly an attempt to appeal to his base. That measure which contains a number of exceptions has provoked widespread controversy, including due to its dubious legality. While the administration’s purported motivation for the extreme, almost unprecedented restriction was to protect American workers, there is also little evidence that immigration restrictions generally save jobs for U.S. workers or help American businesses. Instead, the decision’s primary impact has been to disrupt and alarm hundreds of thousands of individuals who are currently entangled within this labyrinthine system. And the recent proposals to expand restrictions on immigration to students and highly-skilled applicants could cause still greater harm to the American economy and innovation.
Read the full article in The National Interest.
More from CNAS
-
How Can the Trump Administration Strengthen U.S. AI Leadership?
Podcast
With a new administration just around the corner, now is the time for the US to strengthen its position as a global leader in AI. Even with changing leadership, there remain n...
By Paul Scharre
-
How China’s Antitrust Tactics Undermine U.S. Tech Leadership
Commentary
If the United States fails to address this threat, it risks not just losing ground in the technology race, but ceding control over the rules that govern it....
By Ruby Scanlon
-
Sharper: Tariffs
Commentary
The incoming Trump administration has signaled that tariffs will be a central pillar of its economic strategy, with significant implications for international trade, the Ameri...
By Eleanor Hume, Charles Horn & Gwendolyn Nowaczyk
-
Technology to Secure the AI Chip Supply Chain: A Working Paper
Reports
Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems, built and deployed with specialized chips, show vast potential to drive economic growth and scientific progress....
By Tim Fist, Tao Burga & Vivek Chilukuri
