With fists raised in the Hart Senate Office Building, students demonstrate for a clean DREAM Act, November 11, 2017, Washington DC
“It’s outrageous that the White House would undercut months of bipartisan efforts by again trying toput its entire wish list of hardline anti-immigrant bills – plus an additional $18 billion in wall funding – on the backs of these young people [DACA beneficiaries].” So said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) in remarks made earlier this month.
But harsh words for President Trump’s immigration stance were not limited to Democrats. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was as outraged as Sen. Durbin. Said Graham, “The Stephen Miller approach to immigration [Stephen Miller is a top advisor to Donald Trump and is opposed to DACA] has no viability. Tuesday, the president was in a good place. He was the president of all of us. He spoke compassionately about immigration, tough on security, wanted bipartisanship. Two days later, there was a major change. I think the change comes about from people like Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller is well known in the Senate for having views that are [Gasp!] outside the mainstream.”
To put it another way, Stephen Miller has this strange idea that a proper American immigration policy should serve the interests of the American people, and, further, that their interests should not be placed in a subservient position to those of foreigners or special groups within the United States.
By standing up for the interests of Americans against the forces, Democratic and Republican, who want to ram a DACA amnesty through Congress, Stephen Miller is staying true to one of the key planks of Donald Trump’s campaign platform. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the Trump promised on his campaign’s website to push for immigration reform that “will make America great again.”
Central to such immigration reform was Trump’s statement that, “A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.” This is surprisingly good language, far better than the usual altruistic claptrap that one usually hears when the subject of immigration comes up.
