Among the most commonly accepted and yet utterly baseless political theories out there is the idea that you can "satisfy" nativist urges by giving into some of their demands. How much history do you need to refute this? Did the Chinese Exclusion Act satisfy nativism?
The Japanese Gentlemen's Agreement?
The Asiatic Bar Zone?
The literacy act?
The 2-year Emergency Quota Act?
The Permanent National Origins Quota Act?
1930 public charge visa ban?
Deporting Mexicans?
Blocking Jews?

Here are some funny exchanges from @bryan_caplan & @DanielDiMartino at @sfliberty.
-Caplan: "Why don't you restrict childbirth based on projected net fiscal burden like you want to do with immigration?"
-DiMartino: "It's immoral. I'd never support deporting even homeless Americans if it saves govt money."
-Caplan: "Oh, now it's immoral. Why?"
-DiMartino: "It's different. You're assuming everyone has a right to come like everyone born here has a right to be here."
-Caplan: "Why assume that everyone born here has a right to be here?"
-DiMartino: "Well, some people, I guess, do want us to change that..."
-Caplan: "Uh, yeah..." [chuckle]
-DiMartino: "But I'm not making a moral argument."
Wait, weren't you? DiMartino: One of our first restrictions was ideological. We banned anarchists!
Caplan: So you'd ban much of this audience?
DiMartino: There were different kinds of anarchists.
Caplan: So you trust the govt to decide the good anarchists from the bad anarchists? [laughter]
Note: DiMartino would ban the only libertarian head of state: Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist (who he supports)

NBC: Trump's admin is releasing immigrants arrested into the US. After 4 years of nonstop lies about Biden, Trump does exactly what Biden is doing. MAGA will have all the excuses about how it's really the Democrats' fault. But the facts will remain the facts! NBC reports that they are releasing people but not anyone "convicted of a serious crime." Hilarious! On the one hand, Noem's out there insulting our intelligence by saying that they're only arresting "dirtbags." On the other hand, they aren't releasing any "serious" criminals!

Wow! The DHS notice to terminate TPS for 300,000 Venezuelans claims Venezuelan TPS holders cost the US government "billions of dollars". The citation is to testimony from a hearing at which I testified and where I point-by-point dismantled the testimony being cited... You can watch me shred the testimony here. You can watch the whole hearing. There was never any response. The chairman of the committee ended up asking CBO to research the issue because he had lost confidence in his own witness's testimony.

https://x.com/David_J_Bier/status/1821616135735062826

What Trump Has Done and Imminently Plans to Do:
A comprehensive review of the illegal, unconstitutional, and merely bad:
"The country is facing 4 years of indescribable lawlessness, waste, chaos, and economic uncertainty that will leave America smaller, poorer, and less free." Link⬇️"He is diverting America’s military and all types of law enforcement at every level away from their primary public safety and security missions and toward this economically destructive and socially damaging project that will make America less safe" alexnowrasteh.com/p/what-trump-h…

Members of Congress accused me of not telling them the truth so I just want to go through point-by-point my testimony, so we can be clear about the data being cited: Trump destroyed the immigration system and Biden rebuilt it. 🧵

https://twitter.com/David_J_Bier/status/1882184703178133563

"President Trump abused his authority to cut legal immigration from abroad by nearly 80 percent."

SHOCKING but not shocking. As I predicted, Trump's birthright citizenship EO includes a Kamala Harris clause, specifically designed to deny the legitimacy of her US citizenship as the child of someone with a temporary status. This order jeopardizes the citizenship of millions... of people in the United States. It purports to limit the damage by applying it only to future children but if they can get away with this blatantly unconstitutional action, they can strip anyone of their citizenship. The 14th amendment would be dead. This order is...

As I predicted, Trump has signed an order deprioritizing public safety threats for removal, requiring that DHS target anyone removable regardless of their security risk. This EO is a dangerous threat to the public, diverting resources away from critical security tasks. But it's even worse! Trump's order requires the attorney general to prioritize misdemeanor criminal cases for illegal entry OVER the rest of its criminal workload: terrorism, fraud, trafficking, homicides, and other crimes just got bumped down. This is insanity.

Trump Will Cut Legal Entries More Than Illegal Entries.
-Illegal immigration is low right now. He doesn't have much to cut. And look at what he did last time. Illegal immigration actually increased significantly by the end of his term in office. Link to the whole piece: alexnowrasteh.com/p/trump-will-c…

1/ Trump will lie about who he is deporting. Week 1, we expect a big televised series of arrests. We know that ICE was *already* planning to arrest the criminal targets of this raid. But Trump will also tell ICE to go ahead and arrest noncriminals in the area as well.... 2/ Trump will sign an order Day 1 allowing ICE to arrest anyone without legal status. He will then slander everyone arrested as a criminal or gang member when, in reality, he will have deprioritize criminals and diverted resources away from serious threats.

Now that Biden is leaving office, I can give a full review of the evidence on the border crisis thanks to some new data. The prevailing narrative is wrong. Biden didn’t cut enforcement. Biden increased it. Biden Didn’t Cause the Border Crisis: The Definitive Case. Link: alexnowrasteh.com/p/biden-didnt-…

Today Cato published a comprehensive assessment of Trump’s record toward noncitizen criminals. Partly using FOIA data, we find Trump released more criminals, oversaw a major increase in criminal entries, and deprioritized criminal arrests. cato.org/blog/trump-rel… Trump demonizes immigrants as uniquely criminal, even though all the evidence we have from the Census Bureau and other sources, show that they are less likely to commit serious crimes. But was Trump focused on the minority who do commit crimes?

🚨Dealing a devastating blow to those who want to restart expulsions, Border Patrol Chief @USBPChief just reported numbers that confirm a dramatic 70% decline in gotaways, or successful evasions of Border Patrol, since Title 42 ended in May 2023. cato.org/blog/border-pa…
Even when arrests rose back to Title 42 levels, the number of gotaways remained low. This is huge win for the Biden administration which took a massive political risk by ending Title 42. It should stick to its guns and not reverse course now.

Does the US have "open borders"? In my new paper, I provide the 1st-ever look at total green card requests over time. Since 1922, every year, most applicants didn't receive green cards. In 2024, just 3% will receive a green card, down from 99% in 1890. cato.org/briefing-paper…
Applicants are not being denied primarily because they are not qualified, but rather because the numerical caps don’t allow them to receive green cards. The caps haven’t been adjusted since 1990. Since 1996: way more requests, but no more green cards.

🧵OK, Mayorkas's impeachment: 1st 5 charges are Mayorkas not complying with various detention mandates, even though Congress has not funded this mandate and it would be unconstitutional detain everyone without feeding them. Even sleep deprivation conditions are unconstitutional:

They say his enforcement priorities that are mandated by 6 U.S. Code § 202 are illegal and cite a 5th circuit decision from 2022 that was *reversed by the Supreme Court*.

Fareed Zakaria believes Biden can simply say: "You can't come in" and then people wouldn't be able to come in and they'd stop coming. He thinks that it's political insanity for Biden not to play this card. But the card doesn't exist... washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/… Zakaria believes that most people are released **because of an asylum claim.** But this is easily disproven. Title 42 had outright banned asylum for 3 years, but people kept being released because of bottlenecks in the removal process. Now there's an asylum ban. Same thing!

New US Sentencing Commission data show that 89% of convicted fentanyl traffickers in 2022 were U.S. citizens. The new data came out just as members of Congress were frantically whipping the public into a frenzy over the need to ban asylum to stop fentanyl cato.org/blog/us-citize…
The new data are completely compatible with other data showing that 93% of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points, where U.S. citizens are subject to the least scrutiny and have the right to enter whenever they want.

The @CatoInstitute just launched : an interactive online platform to allow Americans to experience the difficulties of obtaining legal permanent residence in the U.S. from an immigrant’s perspective. See if you can win! #greencardgame https://t.co/GdrUNomrVKthegreencardgame.com
Players start abroad and see if they can obtain a green card by answering the same questions & overcoming the same challenges as America's immigrants. If you have the right combination of luck and legal expertise, you might get a green card this century. Then try for citizenship!

Legal immigration is *impossible* for nearly all immigrants wishing to immigrate to the U.S. legally.

You can’t just “get in line.” That’s a fiction perpetuated by those who want to keep immigration illegal.

My latest report explains why. Here’s the summary in 1 pic... 🧵 U.S. immigration law's basic premise is that all immigrants are *guilty* until proven innocent.

Immigration is ILLEGAL unless you prove you fall into a narrow eligible category.

The result is that over 99% of people who want to immigrate legally cannot do so.

🚨Unprecedented Student Visa Denials in 2022: 35% Rejected. In 2022, consular officers denied a record 220,676 student visas. More than 1 in 3 student visa applicants were denied. This is a disaster as student visas are the jumping-off point for most skilled immigrants. The United States is losing hundreds of thousands of talented students and future workers because the State Department claims too many of the students will want to stay permanently in the United States. cato.org/blog/unprecede…

Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers. Facts:
-Fentanyl trafficking is funded by US consumers: ~99% are U.S. citizens.
-US citizens were 86.3% of fentanyl traffickers in 2021, 10 times more than illegal immigrants cato.org/blog/fentanyl-… >90% of fentanyl seizures happen at ports of entry. That U.S. citizens account for most fentanyl trafficking convictions is not surprising since U.S. citizens can easily cross through ports and are subject to less scrutiny than others.