Why Trump Is Right About Immigration

From Mark Krikorian, at the National Interest:

For the past two years, ever since Donald Trump’s escalator ride, the immigration debate has focused on enforcement and illegality. The wall, criminal aliens, deportation, Obama’s lawless executive amnesty—it’s been all illegal immigration, all the time.

And that’s as it should be, at first, because if the rules aren’t enforced, it doesn’t much matter what the rules are.

But in the long run the more important questions are: What are the rules? How many people should the federal immigration program admit each year? How should they be selected? How can we minimize the harm from the program while maximizing the benefits?

Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue have started to answer these questions. They joined President Trump at the White House this morning to unveil legislation to restructure and modernize the federal immigration program. The Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act (RAISE Act) resumes the effort undertaken by civil rights icon Barbara Jordan’s U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform in the mid-1990s. Two decades ago, the corporate Right allied with the cultural Left to kill Jordan’s recommended immigration changes. But the logic of those changes didn’t go away. And today’s announcement picks up where she left off.

The Cotton-Perdue bill makes a number of significant changes to the current program. First, it focuses family immigration more narrowly. Currently, two-thirds of the million-plus foreign citizens who get green cards (i.e., permanent residence that can lead to citizenship) each year qualify only because they have relatives already here. This nepotistic system does not screen for skills or education. It also drives chain migration, as each cohort of immigrants sponsors the next one.

The RAISE Act would limit family immigration rights to the actual nuclear family: husbands, wives, and little kids of American citizens and legal residents. The current categories for adult siblings, adult sons and daughters, and parents would be retired. U.S. citizens could still bring in their elderly parents in need of caretaking, but only on renewable nonimmigrant visas (no green cards or citizenship) and only after proving that they’ve paid for health insurance up front.

The second major element in this restructuring addresses the employment-based immigration flow. It is now a jumble of categories and subcategories, the main result of which is to provide steady work for immigration lawyers. The Cotton-Perdue bill would rationalize this mess by creating one, streamlined points system, along the lines of similar schemes in Canada and Australia. Points would be awarded to potential candidates based mainly on education, English-language ability and age, and those who meet a certain benchmark would be in the pool for green cards, with the top scorers being selected first.

The bill would also eliminate the egregious Diversity Visa Lottery and cap refugee admissions at fifty thousand per year, rather than allow the president let in as many as he wants, as is the case today.

The level of immigration—now running at over a million a year—would likely drop by 40 percent, and then drop some more over time, as the number of foreign spouses declined. (Most U.S. citizens marrying foreigners are earlier immigrants, so as they age, and fewer new immigrants come in behind them, the demand for spousal immigration is likely to fall.) That would still mean annual permanent immigration of 500,000–600,000 a year, which is more than any other nation.

The bill isn’t perfect. It leaves the level of skills-based immigration, for instance, at the current 140,000 a year—the world doesn’t generate 140,000 Einsteins annually. It preserves a category for the spouses and minor children of green-card holders, which I don’t think is justified. (That relates to spouses acquired after immigration; if you’re married at the time you get your green card, your spouse automatically gets one too.) And I don’t think there’s any justification for resettling even fifty thousand refugees (as opposed to helping a far greater number at the same cost in the countries where they’ve taken refuge).

Neither does this bill address so-called temporary immigration, where businesses import cheap labor—both higher- and lower-skilled—to make an end-run around the American labor market...

More.

Trump Administration Rescinds DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans)

This is big. Freakin' really big.

More immigration news: The Trump admin just killed DAPA https://t.co/VyPPTzEaLs

— Jon Passantino (@passantino) June 16, 2017

Promise Kept: Trump Admin Rescinds DAPA Amnesty Program https://t.co/RdQR7QVr55 pic.twitter.com/iDjajYnJgx

— The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 16, 2017

The Trump admin just rescinded DAPA, which would have given legal status to undocumented parents with US children pic.twitter.com/9KzSaLbfAZ

— Marcelo Rochabrún (@mrochabrun) June 16, 2017

Local immigration lawyer says Trump Administration's decision to rescind DAPA will not impact Dreamers: https://t.co/k5D3zfbUU3

— #NBC7 San Diego (@nbcsandiego) June 16, 2017

Deadly Fentanyl

This is gnarly, at NYT:

Fentanyl Outpaces Heroin as the Deadliest Drug on Long Island. #Opioids https://t.co/SZ7ArqAvPA

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 31, 2016

'The first time I ever smoked pot I also had sex...'

Well, I'm sure that was nice. Especially the sex, heh.

At Nerve, "Love in a Time of Cannabis" (via Instapundit):

I was in high school, she was older and asked if I was cool. I nodded. She showed me how to hit the bong then laid me down on the bed and showed me how to please her. Forever after, I’ve associated sex and weed. They go together like music and dancing. It’s the perfect substance for romance. Your body becomes hypersensitive and alert. Everything’s light, funny, wonderful and weird...

More.

Four Killed as Drunk Driver Plunges Truck Off Coronado Bridge in San Diego (VIDEO)

This was over the weekend in San Diego.

Man, what a horrible killing.

At the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Driver in Coronado bridge crash is aviation electrician."

And at ABC News 10 San Diego:

Generation Adderall

This is an excellent essay, from Casey Schwartz, at NYT:

Generation Adderall. https://t.co/gYvyrZNBaZ

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 14, 2016

California's Proposition 64 Has Deeply Divided the Medical Marijuana Community

Lolz.

This is interesting.

At LAT, "The push to legalize pot for all has deeply divided the medical marijuana community":

Come November, medical pot dispensary operator Lanette Davies won’t be joining others in her industry in voting for Proposition 64, a measure that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

The initiative could create a flood of new customers for Davies’ nonprofit Canna Care pot shop, which is located in the back of an industrial park on the outskirts of Sacramento. But Davies fears the Nov. 8 ballot measure will result in big corporations driving out small operators, and the government setting steep taxes and fees on cannabis that will put it out of reach for many of her mostly low-income customers.

“Because of the double taxation and the permit fees, you are not going to have affordable medication,” Davies predicted as her customer bought a $33 bag of Jedi Kush marijuana. “The people who are going to suffer are those who are disabled, who are on low incomes. They are not going to be able to get life-saving medicine.”

She is not the only one concerned. Proposition 64 has split the medical cannabis community, with some seeing new opportunity and others fearing it will wreck a system that is working for nearly 800,000 medical pot card holders...

"Life saving medication."

That's good marketing, heh.

Frankly, "medical" marijuana's been a back-door legalization program for recreational users in any case, which has been the goal all along. I'm told that some dispensaries don't even ask for a "medical marijuana" card. You just cruise in there and cop your dope, bro.

So it's pretty rich that these hippies with the hip "Jedi Kush" baggies are all up in arms now that Big Marijuana's coming to town. Hey, you guys are the ones that got it going. Adapt or die, as they say.

Still more.

Seattle to Create Government-Financed 'Heroin-Injection Clinics', 'Safe Sites' for Junkies to Shoot Up

It's a terrible idea, but then, this is Seattle, the far-left freakazoid enclave on Puget Sound.

At LAT, "Seattle's new war on drugs: Giving heroin addicts 'safe sites' to shoot up":

Seattle officials are moving forward with a controversial plan for what would be the nation’s first supervised heroin-injection clinics — government-financed shooting galleries that supporters say can save lives but that critics say will only enable drug users.

A new 99-page task force study envisions at least two safe-use facilities — one in Seattle, another in the suburbs — where heroin addicts can legally take narcotics while being monitored by medical personnel who can administer aid or call 911 if needed.

The project is modeled after North America’s first supervised heroin haven, InSite, a government-funded injection facility 140 miles north in Vancouver, B.C., which in 13 years of operation has never had an overdose fatality, officials there say.

That success has inspired other cities — including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland — to consider government-approved safe sites for addicts to inject heroin. But Seattle is moving fastest, convinced there is “urgent need for action,” as the new study puts it.

“For me personally, what has worked,” says Seattle social worker Thea Oliphant-Wells, a task force member and recovering heroin addict for 11 years, “was to have harm-reduction folks engaging me long before I was ready to change my drug-abuse behavior. I promise you, when you give people the opportunity to get better, they will.”

Jeff Duchin, head of Seattle-King County Public Health, said the safe sites — officially known as Community Health Engagement Locations — will increase the odds for drug users to return to healthy lives by reducing overdoses, preventing HIV and other infections and cutting down on other drug-related medical problems.

The proposal has the support of King County’s chief executive and the mayor of Seattle, a city once dubbed by Rolling Stone as “Junkie Town.” Heroin use here and across the U.S. dripped, then spiked in the last decade as Americans addicted to pain killers such as OxyContin and Percocet looked to the streets for cheaper alternatives.

A United Nations study released this summer found that use of heroin has soared in the last two decades. U.S. deaths related to the narcotic have increased fivefold since 2000 and the number of U.S. users has tripled to one million in that time.

In King County, with good Samaritan laws that prevent prosecution of anyone who, in good faith, aids an overdose victim, and with wider use of the recovery drug Naloxone by first responders, overdose deaths actually dropped last year — 132, compared with 156 in 2014.

But from 2010 to 2014, the number of users seeking treatment here doubled from 1,439 to 2,886, and the death toll in 2015 was a third higher than two years ago.

With no apparent end to the upward trend, local officials say safe-use sites are a worthy intervention...

Sorry. I'm not convinced giving addicts a government-sponsored heroin safe space is the path to creating drug-free lives. The article needed to cite addiction experts who provide evidence why this isn't a great idea. It's still experimental at this point. My hunch is that enabling addicts to shoot up only legitimizes hardcore drug dependency. If you want to help people, get them into treatment. Drug use will continue to spike as long as government-financed bleeding-heart leftists enable drug addicts to get high.

Police Photos Show 4-Year-Old Boy in Vehicle with Two Adults Overdosing on Herion

I hate drugs.

Starting with marijuana, which is a proven gateway to harder drugs, including marijuana.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Cops: Photos of 4-year-old boy with overdosed adults show heroin scourge."

Cops: Photos of 4-year-old boy with overdosed adults show heroin scourge https://t.co/Q4H3iFxYGf

— L.A. Times News 24/7 (@latimesfirehose) September 9, 2016

Enemies of Irvine PTA Mom Yearn for Revenge

Following-up from yesterday, "The Irvine PTA Mom's Enemies."

At LAT, "Framed: Secret lovers, legal maneuvering and a fictional blueprint for 'the perfect crime'."

I'm actually kinda hooked on this series, heh.

The Irvine PTA Mom's Enemies

Following-up from the other day, "Irvine PTA Mom Busted With Ziploc Bag of Marijuana, Two EZY Dose Pill-Pouch Baggies, One With 11 Percocet Pills, Another With 29 Vicodin."

And from yesterday's Los Angeles Times front page, "The Power Couple."

Irvine PTA Mom Busted With Ziploc Bag of Marijuana, Two EZY Dose Pill-Pouch Baggies, One With 11 Percocet Pills, Another With 29 Vicodin

And she says she was framed.

Right, heh.

From the front-page at yesterday's LAT, "FRAMED: SHE WAS THE PTA MOM EVERYONE KNEW. WHO WOULD WANT TO HARM HER?"

Oh boy, what a drama.

It's in six parts too.

More later.