Critical to ending the border crisis is removing all incentives for smuggling women and children. Part of the president's speech there from the White House lawn about the new immigration proposal floated by his administration, and to discuss that proposition and some of the gallop poll numbers we were talking about in in a lot more about immigration, illegal immigration. Markeret Coryan joins us in studio. What an honor. Mark is the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
Market's good to you to come by, good to see it in person, Glad to be here. Sure, we've talked many many times through the years. So you want to give us a brief reaction to the proposal what you heard yesterday. There's a lot good in there, because part of it is illegal immigration measures, in other words, plugging these loopholes that are drawing people to the border that the cartels are well aware of and exploit exactly. And the other part, the one that's gotten more attention, is
the legal immigration changes. And the point there is to focus family immigration on just nuclear family, husband's wives and little kids, and then move all of those green card numbers basically into a new merit based system where they would pick people based on, you know, a point system where you get points for you know, your degree and what you're doing, what your age is, that sort of thing, and then people who make the cut would be able
to get in. So all of that, I'm for. The part that I'm worried about is that this doesn't even have a token reduction in the overall level of immigration. The president's proposal endorses the current one point one million new legal immigrants a year, and even a little cut would at least have acknowledged that there's potentially problems in a modern society like ours and taking in more than
a million people every year from abroad. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm with you on that there ought to be a cut, but you're bringing that up introduces the question what's the proper number? What is healthy? What is productive?
What is safe? What what is smart? And just that question has been a taboo in a lot of circles, which is just ridiculous and in a sense that debate we need to have, and that's I mean, even people who don't agree with me, it seems to me, should embrace the idea that if this proposal had had even just a five percent cut the visa lottery. They also got rid of which is a ridiculous thing. We give
away fifty thousand green cards at random. If they got rid of that and didn't really reallocate those numbers, it would have been a tiny cut, maybe even four. But people would then have gotten this debate going. And you know, I don't think there is a magic number. Quite honestly, the way I look at it is zero based budgeting. You started zero because we're a continent spanning country with a third of a billion people who invented the modern world.
I mean, I'm not sure we really need any immigration, but let's have that debate. It start at zero, and then which categories of people have such a compelling case to come in that we let him in. Okay? What our theme of the last hour was looking through Gallop polling on immigration and the incredibly distorted view of America's opinions. American's opinions that you get through the mainstream media in particular.
For instance, seventy seven percent of people think that the large number number of illegal immigrants is a critical or important threat to the United States. Seventies seven percent. If you watch, you know, the mainstream news, you listen to Democratic politicians in particular, you'd get the idea that there's this hardcore of I don't know, maybe the country most Republicans are just racists, and those are the only people who want any reformed immigration law. Well, how do you
think drump got elected? I mean, that's kind of what it amounts to, is that not even just the Democrats, but much of the Republican elite just doesn't take this issue seriously. And if that happens long enough, people are gonna find somebody else who will take it seriously. And you know what I mean. Look, President, the idea of Donald Trump as president was a joke on The Simpsons
years ago. Um. And so the fact that he came in and basically snatched the presidency out from both the Republican and the Democratic establishment tells you that there was an issue there that drew people to him in a way that the elites just had no idea of. Right, that's well said, and there are things the president says about immigration that I think are just clumsy and ham handed, and he creates more problems than he needs to create.
But those of you who are constantly throwing around the r word racist about the president's policies and his fans. Seventy seven percent of people said this is a serious problem, and they were getting nothing from the people in d C. And then Donald Trump said, this is a serious problem. I'm gonna do something about it. And that is not a difficult I mean, you don't need a degree in political science to understand that connection. I don't think the
Democrats have learned that lesson. Quite frankly, some of the Republican elite hasn't either. But look at what we're what we're seeing at the border now. We are seeing last month almost a hundred thousand people who came up because of the loopholes in our law. If you bring a kid with you, or if you say the magic word of asylum or both, I fear for my life, they let you go into the United States. Now you won't get your If you apply for asylum, you'll almost certainly
be turned down because these people simply don't qualify. Some do, but very few. But who's gonna go looking for you. Ice has enough trouble finding the criminals they wanted the port let alone an ordinary schmo who got turned down for asylum. So that you would think the Democrats would come to the president say, look, we disagree on a lot, but this this really is an emergency. Let's so let's get together and work on it. They're not doing it. They hate Trump so much they refuse even to do
something that's in their own interests. Because if this continues at the border for another year, it's gonna keep getting worse and worse. There's a limit to what the president can do with the current laws. This is going to blow up in the Democrats face potentially. Mark Coran is the executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies. I've suggested many times that I don't think either party is at all serious. I mean, the party elders that the real,
you know, pilots of the ship. I don't think they're serious at all about solving immigration problems because I think they'd prefer to have the issue. Do you agree or to what extent do you disagree? Yeah? I don't know. I mean I don't think that much forethought involved in it. I think it's more that they're unwilling to take the steps necessary. They're they're kind of um stuck in a mindset. You know, give me, you're tired, you're poor. This must be great, and we don't want to think too much
about it. And if we take certain steps, our business constituents are gonna be angry, or in the Democrats, they're left wing constituents are gonna be angry. And so I don't think it's quite as premeditated as you suggest. I think it's just an uncomfortable issue politicians wish would just go away. So it's not dishonesty, it's cowardice your defense,
probably a little bit of both. Okay, all right, I think we can compromise on my My other theory, Mark is that if you could assemble fifteen randomly selected Americans, put them in a room within forty eight hours, they could have reasonable immigration reform. I mean they wouldn't get down to the brass tacks and the sub paragraphs and the rest of it, but they could design an immigration system that would make sense and be very very popular. Probably,
But you know Congress is capable of that sometimes. What I think the real problem is the real problem I think in that we face now with the Gang of Eight bill from years ago and before that under Bush where they pushed that big amnesty. The problem was a complete lack of trust that the elites will follow through on their promises because the point always is, look, we're gonna amnesty the people who've been here for a long time, and that's a sympathetic argument. I kind of get that,
especially if they've been here a long time. They're not murderers and rapists. The question is not amnestying the people here now. The questions are we're gonna have another amnesty five or ten or fifteen years from now because we didn't enforce the rules. No one trusts the promises that the politicians are going to enforce the rules starting tomorrow. What about the doctor recipients. I'm actually kind of a
squish on the DOCTA thing. The problem is if you just give them their green cards, you know, you legalize them, because look, these are kids are growing up here. There's
an argument for that. Do we make sure there's not another DOCTA five years from now, because any deal like that has to have some enforcement measures to try to limit the likelihood of future DOCA is happening, and has to have some offset or pay for because if we're gonna give eight hundred thousand, seven hundred thousand green cards extra once to people, there needs to be eight or seven hundred thousand fewer green cards for other people. These people are getting a special deal. Why would we be
basically increasing immigration just to give them an amnesty. Are there any racists at the Center for Immigration Studies or would you tolerate any racists within your organization? Absolutely not. You know, you're really doing a poor job of of being a monster hard But so you're you're fine with the DOCCA kids staying. You're okay with a path to citizenship as long as they're serious enforcement in the future. I just I'm really I'm underwhelmed. I'm doing white supremacy
all wrong here, bad at it. I'm telling you, as we've said to the audience so many times, if you are a good person and you have a reasonable, um an ethical, a patriotic attitude toward immigration and legal immigration, don't let anybody call you a racist. Don't be bullied, Do not be bullied into silence. Yeah, that's become a whole lot less stinging now. I mean especially, I mean the Southern Poverty Law Center for Instances put us on
their hate group list right after President got inaugurated. Nothing changed with us. It was just a political decision on their part. They're on my You're a Joke list? Yeah. Well, and the thing is there on more and more people's You're a joke list. Yeah so Mark re correan has to uh do another interview with some of our esteemed colleagues. Mark, we could talk to you all day. We sure appreciate the time. It's always a pleasure. Happy to do it. Thanks,
well done. More to come Armstrong and Getty Show