Don't get me wrong, as a liberal Democrat I think Donald Trump would be a disaster as president.
On the other hand, I must say that I was impressed by the level of detail in his recently released immigration policy paper.
As Mark Krikorian has written, Trump's position "clearly has advanced the immigration debate."
What I find significant, and surprising, is that his illegal alien policy paper is so detailed, and so appropriate, particularly on some of the financial specifics of immigration policy that no one else has even mentioned.
His earlier, frankly ridiculous, boast that he would build a wall on the southern border and get Mexico to pay for it has morphed into a sensible approach that would get it paid for by Mexican and other illegal aliens. Among his specific suggestions:
- Raise money for the wall by reducing current income tax breaks for illegal aliens;
- Enhance fees for overstaying a visa;
- Put more fees on the admission of legal temporary alien workers; and
- Charge admissions fees for all border crossers, every time they cross the border.
I am not sure, however, that it is possible or appropriate to "impound all remittances derived from illegal wages" as proposed in the Trump document, but it certainly would be an excellent idea to tax them, as the federal government and 49 of the 50 states have not done. (Oklahoma is the one exception, as we have noted from time to time.)
Trump's position against birthright citizenship would have a useful byproduct that he may not know about — so many illegal aliens when caught in the interior argue that they should not be deported because it would be hard on their U.S. citizen baby or small child; that entire argument would be swept away if the child were not regarded as a citizen.
May some of the others in the race steal some of these ideas!