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Republicans Government United States

Trump Will Temporarily Suspend Immigration Into the US For 60 Days Due To Coronavirus Fears (businessinsider.com) 336

President Trump tweeted on Monday night that he will sign an executive order to temporarily suspend immigration into the U.S. to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, adding that his decision was spurred by an "attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens." Trump later clarified at a coronavirus press briefing on Tuesday and said the order would only be in place for 60 days and apply to individuals seeking permanent residency or green card seekers. From a report: "We have a solemn duty to ensure these unemployed Americans regain their jobs and their livelihoods, therefore in order to protect American workers, I will be issuing a temporary suspension of immigration into the United States." "By pausing immigration we'll help put Americans first in line for jobs as America reopens," he continued. "I would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced by new immigrant labor flown in from abroad."

Trump said that the order would last 60 days and then would be reevaluated by him and "a group of people based on economic conditions at the time" on whether the measure should be extended. He said the order would only apply to individuals seeking permanent residency or green card seekers. He added that additional immigration measures may be considered in the future as the country seeks to reopen its industries shut down in order to stop the novel coronavirus spread. As of Tuesday evening, the U.S. recorded over 820,000 coronavirus cases and more than 44,000 deaths.

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Trump Will Temporarily Suspend Immigration Into the US For 60 Days Due To Coronavirus Fears

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  • I thought he wanted instead to reopen US.

    • They got to block immigration at first and hire Americans, so that companies have knowledgeable staff, to properly train their foreign replacements.
  • by EzInKy ( 115248 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @06:26PM (#59973994)

    The one thing that has fueled American prosperity is immigration. More people means more demand for goods.

    • I'm doing my part by heading down to the Department of the Interior to sign up for my free parcel of land, thanks to the Homestead Act. Westward ho!

      • The best thing about free land from the government is that in a generation or two your descendants can start cursing the government for interfering in their private property by taxing it and regulating what can be done on it.

    • by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxruby&comcast,net> on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @10:20PM (#59974716)

      Nonsense. The one thing that has fueled American prosperity is having a field that is reasonably free of corruption. You can can come immigrate to America and start a business and you generally do not have to pay anyone off (gang infestations in some places are the exception to the rule). You can simply work hard and build your business, hire people and prosper.

      In a lot of other countries you simply cannot do that. In Mexico you will pay more to the cartels then you do for bribes and more for bribes than you do for taxes. In a lot of countries the story is much the same. Business owners effectively have three taxes, one to the government, another to government employees in the form of bribes and a third to local criminals. When all is said and done the business owners barely have enough to survive.

      In some countries bribes are tax deductible (Germany comes to mind off the top of my head) as they are such a prevalent cost of doing business. I have seen a server sit for 12 months in customs when a fortune 50 company with a policy of refusing to pay bribes refused to do so and the India customs paperwork kept getting misplaced - again.

      Now you come to America and you do not have to pay two of those three taxes. You can actually prosper from your own hard work and you already recognize have learned to appreciate the value of doing so. Take the weights off and let someone do their thing and they will. This helps to explain why 43% of fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants. They thrive because no one is stopping them.

      • by Uecker ( 1842596 ) on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @01:54AM (#59975142)

        Bribes are not tax deductible in Germany since 2002. At the same time bribes in foreign countries were made illegal. Bribes inside Germany were already illegal.

      • Now you come to America and you do not have to pay two of those three taxes.

        Well... one of those three taxes. The cost of elections has been ballooning ever since Citizen's United, and lobbying has the greatest RoI of pretty much anything a large company can invest in.

  • What's that old saying? "A day late and a dollar short".

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @06:32PM (#59974012)

    to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus

    We have over 45,000 dead in less than two months and NOW he's worried about the spread of covid-19?

    Isn't this the same guy who said this is no big deal, everything is under control, it's no worse than the flu, the numbers will definitely be going down, that there is a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan to fight covid-19? Yes. Yes he is [imgur.com].

    • Re:Say what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wycliffe ( 116160 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @06:55PM (#59974088) Homepage

      to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus

      Despite the headline, Trump has made it very clear that it is not about stopping coronavirus and more about helping existing citizens who have recently become permanently unemployed to get first dibs on existing jobs. Basically, it's an attempt to keep unemployment numbers low.

    • But thanks to the worldwide lockdown not just in the US but elsewhere, people have not been coming into the US since the emergency was declared: in fact, the US military had to evacuate Americans who were trapped in other countries and needed to come home.

      So it's not like the situation of the weeks before the ban on Europe, when Americans returning from Italy weren't quarantined, or asked any questions. That's one place where one properly could blame the administration for not preventing the disease from

  • What the absolute fuck? He's only now talking about suspending immigration? That's insane, he should have closed the borders to ALL immigrants and tourists months ago. There is no way to control the spread of the virus if you're allowing people to still enter your country - unless there is a MANDATORY 14-day isolation on ALL new arrivals.

    • by spitzak ( 4019 )

      The borders *are* closed. This actually makes no immediate difference, except somebody pointed out that somebody already here trying to get their visa may have to leave (which may be denied by the country they are trying to return to which also has closed it's borders).

      • If a citizen of, say, Vietnam, loses his job and the visa lapses, that person has to go back to Vietnam, and Vietnam would have to take him. They don't have the option of not taking him. Now once he's back at Hanoi, they may decide to quarantine him at the airport or a nearby hospital or send him home and order him to quarantine there, but bottom line - they have to let him back in.

        Just like the US has had to take, and is taking back its citizens who were visiting other countries when this thing broke.

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )

      People getting greencards are not coming from abroad. They are mostly adjusting status and are already in the country.

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @06:49PM (#59974068)
    It appears to have plenty of exceptions. Also, while this is going on they've extended all work visas. It will have no material impact but it will make him look like he's doing something that his base wants.

    This is timed with a drop in his polls with his base. It's just meant to boost his poll numbers. It's politicking of the worst kind. No jobs will be brought back, nothing in that regard will change. Tech workers will continue to be replaced with H1-Bs as fast as Congress can get away with.
  • by sedwards8675309 ( 3492587 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @06:50PM (#59974074)
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/t... [wsj.com] It is not an immigration ban if while we have tens of millions of unemployed Americans, he is going to import a bunch of slave labor for his cronies.
    • If you're going to cite a paywalled source, at least quote the relevant bits in your post. Thanks in advance!
  • by fredrated ( 639554 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @06:53PM (#59974084) Journal

    Horses?

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @07:04PM (#59974108)

    It said "good idea, let's do that right now!".

  • by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @07:18PM (#59974168)

    The problem is this EO does NOT affect guest workers

    Employers always want to hire workers for less and in this case less than Americans would get paid. These guest visas let them do it. And now they will continue to do it at a time when 22M Americans just filed for unemployment .

    You may have just lost your job but you'll be happy to know Accenture can still import IT workers from Asia.

    • Everybody pay attention: the order does NOT affect guest workers.

      Trump may be the most gifted politician of my lifetime, but he's a one trick pony. And this is is trick: he can stop people from talking about *anything* by getting them to talk about something he said.

      For someone who has accomplished *nothing* in this pandemic, he sure has managed to keep people talking about things he's done. If Trump were a meme, he'd be a cancer cell.

  • "President Trump, aliens are attacking!" "Okay, notify the Joint Chiefs of Staff.... oh, and stop immigration for 60 days!"
    • "President Trump, aliens are attacking!"

      "Okay, notify the Joint Chiefs of Staff.... oh, and cut taxes."

      FTFY

  • by adfraggs ( 4718383 ) on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @07:57PM (#59974320)

    The travel ban from Iran, Sudan, Yemen etc. (Trump's "Muslim Ban") was supposed to be for 90 days. That was three years ago. Current status is still active for most countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • US has 800000 Covid cases. Dont really think anyone is lining up to come here right now.

"If there isn't a population problem, why is the government putting cancer in the cigarettes?" -- the elder Steptoe, c. 1970

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