Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 Profile picture
Writes about economics, posts about rabbits. For serious opinions/analysis, read my blog: https://t.co/KfUxUlCr01

Sep 5, 2018, 10 tweets

1/Here's an article about how Trump is screwing up legal immigration to the United States, hurting our economy in the process: nytimes.com/2018/09/02/bus…

2/Trump couldn't get his restrictionist agenda passed in Congress, so he's doing what presidents always do in this gridlocked age - falling back on executive power to make a bunch of small changes that add up.

3/Some people may look at Trump's harassment of legal immigrants and quietly think "Oh good, that means higher wages for native-born Americans."

No it doesn't. It means you just lost your doctor.

4/Policy-by-red-tape is so awful. Ugh.

5/Some immigrants are genius engineers who invent cool stuff and start companies that hire Americans, and stuff like that.

Others are humble child-care and elder-care workers.

We need both.

6/Everyone focuses on ICE, but it's Citizenship and Immigration Services that's harassing legal immigrants out of the country under Trump.

"Merit-based system" my ass. It's the most meritorious immigrants who they're trying to keep out. It's racial.

7/Oh look, they're keeping out doctors.

How the hell is that "merit-based"?

And I'm sure that's going to do wonders for the health care cost problem.

8/Of course, racism itself is a pretty effective anti-immigration policy.

Who'd want to immigrate to America just to be harassed by Trump's government and harassed by Trump voters in the street and in the schools?

9/Canada is getting this right, and we are getting this wrong.

10/All the Trump people who say they're only upset about illegal immigration are bullshitting you.

All the Trump people who say they want merit-based immigration are bullshitting you.

You know what it's about. I know what it's about. We all know what this is about.

(end)

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