Public domain image via CBP Flickr photostream

Over the past few days, we’ve seen a collective freakout among the media over Trump supposedly being so cold and heartless that he’s going to make it tougher to legally immigrate if you are on welfare.

Multiple outlets, including NPR and The Washington Post, ran articles proclaiming how unprecedented and cruel this is.

JUST IN: In a new crackdown on legal immigrants, the Trump administration is changing federal regulations that could make it more difficult for legal immigrants who rely on public benefits to get a green card or citizenship.

— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) August 12, 2019

Then you had people like California Gov. Gavin Newsom spouting this kind of nonsense. Brad Slager covered that here, along with the responses from several 2020 candidates.

Trump’s now punishing immigrants who are here —LEGALLY— forcing them to choose between food, housing, medical care or legal status.

Locking kids in cages, separating families—and now cutting people off from programs they rely on for basic survival…it’s sick. We cannot allow it https://t.co/g24omx3EDl

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) August 12, 2019

I’ll recap the details of why this is happening legally, but past that, let’s just talk common sense.

A country with a vast welfare system, which we have, simply can not sustain itself by allowing the world’s poor to immigrate and collect benefits. If money weren’t finite and bankruptcy weren’t a real thing, I’d have no problem with it. My emotional response to want to help everyone we can.

But that can’t happen if you don’t screen immigrants for their propensity to take more than they give. Without that dynamic, you simply put the country on a quicker path to disaster. Handing out green cards to people who immediately go on SNAP and public housing is a recipe for creating a situation where the United States can no longer help anyone. The best intentions often lead to the worst consequences.

What Trump is doing is not a rash decision he made on a whim because he hates immigrants. He’s actually enforcing a law that goes all the way back to 1996.

https://twitter.com/Elizabe65031179/status/1161047756154134528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1161047756154134528&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fbrads-313037%2F2019%2F08%2F13%2Fgavin-newsom-rushes-to-label-donald-trump-a-racist-over-immigrant-benefits-but-trips-over-bill-clinton%2F

This is the stupidity of our immigration debate. The other side not only relies on specious emotional arguments, they also rely on the idea that it’s immoral or wrong to enforce the law. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s required under the oath the President took. Every Democrat member of Congress that’s running in 2020 made the same pledge and now wants to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Don’t like the current immigration enforcement? Don’t like that the law requires immigrants to be self-sufficient? Go change the law. Making emotional pleas on Twitter and yelling Orange Man Bad is not a policy. That’s a weak minded person’s tactic.

What Trump is doing is simply following the law that preceded his administration. The fact that other administrations chose to flaunt the law is not grounds to now demand Trump do so now. The dishonesty on this topic from our media is mind-numbing.

Past that, it’s simply necessary that there be rules and stipulations placed on legal immigration into this country. To not have that will lead to the destruction of the system all together.

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