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Oct. 9, 2017 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
19:18
Trump's 70-Point Immigration Reform - Here's A Better Way

The White House has rolled out the President's 70 point plan to reform the immigration system. Will building a wall, hiring more officers and prosecutors, mandating E-Verify, and other enforcement measures help solve the problem? Or is there a better way?

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The Welfare State Dilemma 00:14:41
Hello, everybody.
Thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams.
Daniel, good to see you.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
Good.
I just wanted to mention to our viewers that are used to watching us live.
Normally, obviously, we are live at this time.
But for the past few weeks, we've been having problems streaming live on YouTube.
So, unfortunately, we've had to do some recorded, pre-recorded shows, which we're doing today.
If anyone out there has had these problems and has solved them, please get in touch with us because we would love to figure out what is going on.
There you go.
We'll do our very best to find it, but I get a little paranoid some days when this equipment doesn't work like it has been working for a year or two for us, just very well.
But today, I wanted to visit with our audience and with you, Daniel, about immigration.
The president's come up with a program, simple little program.
You know, I was always wanting to write a bill, one page.
Keep it one page, keep it short, keep it simple, so that I can understand it.
Everybody understand it, the people understood.
But this is not even legislation.
This is just trying to correct an executive order that Obama had made dealing with immigration.
But seven-point immigration reform plan.
70-point.
70 points.
Okay.
And, you know, when you see reform in there, we always get suspicious too.
And there's a big question, what is this going to do?
They summarize this, that he's conceding that he will allow the liberals to win on DACA, you know, and take care of the children that came here but are not citizen and they're not going to be sent back.
So he's more or less conceded that point, but he says he wants his wall, but he wants more agents, easier to deport people.
He wants to be able to have more surveillance at the borders, and he wants to crack down on sanctuary cities.
There's a few things in there that I might be able to support, but there's several things in there that I'm not too gun-ho over and doesn't fit my thoughts about how a libertarian should solve the immigration problem.
Yeah, and the plan is basically falls into three categories, and you mentioned them.
The border security is one, and that includes the wall and others.
Interior enhancement, which is what you talked about, some of the restrictions, and the merit-based immigration system is the third major part of this.
But, you know, the problem that you've always had with the immigration is that the two sides that are always fighting, neither of them really get the real issue.
You know, one wants to just let a bunch of people in, and the other one just wants to keep a bunch of people out, you know, and there's no philosophical background.
Yeah, and, you know, the idealistic libertarian society would be very much openness, you know, open borders.
And in a practical sense, that's not going to happen politically.
And under the circumstances of the welfare warfare state, you know, it's not going to happen.
But I think that the one example that I can use that people might be able to understand, what would it be like?
And that would be, what would the United States be like if you couldn't cross state borders?
You know, it was intended that each state would be independent and they would come together as a loose-lit and loose-knit nation.
But lo and behold, that didn't work real well because everybody was inflating separately and they had barriers between the states.
So the purpose was to modify the articles, give us a sound currency, but also to make sure that goods and services and people could go back and forth over border.
It was really free immigrations within the confines of what was considered the United States.
And That ideally, if you had the right conditions, that would probably work.
But today, it's so different.
We have this welfare state.
That introduces all kinds of problems.
And the people who live and die getting more support for welfarism, they're always advocating more and more is better.
And they never ask the question, well, what does that do to the people who are here?
Is it undermining their liberties?
And I say it is.
It's not exactly equivalent, but in a way it's equivalent to the government in an authoritarian society, like the communists, they would come in and say, well, you know, you have a big house, Ron.
You should be able to take two immigrants in there very easily and put them in your house.
So we want you to put them in.
But Americans would say, oh, no, that's not what we mean.
We don't want the government to force us to take care of somebody.
But that's what it really is.
People, when they just march in and they take over, they can go on food stamps, they can go on medical benefits, they can get free housing, and they can be guaranteed all kinds of things.
And they become, they're more strongly supported when it's mass immigration by liberal Democrats who want more of the welfare.
So the welfare state really confuses things for working toward this freer immigration that I think would be great if we had the right conditions.
I think that's a great point to make because it's not a literal taking over of a room in your house.
But in a virtual sense, it is because it's taking part of your income to fund these programs.
And I wonder why neither side talks about the issue of the welfare mag.
Obviously, the liberals wouldn't be that interested.
But why does it never enter into the Republican debate?
Why can't we just get rid of these perverse incentives?
I wonder if Republicans support welfarism.
You know, they preach one doctrine, but then when they get in charge, you know, they're for balanced budgets and low taxes and all, but it never happens.
It's not going to happen now.
And it just keeps getting worse because there's two reasons.
One, they really didn't believe that the government shouldn't be involved.
But once you establish a program, it's virtually impossible.
You can't get rid of Obamacare.
You know, that's what they're discovering.
It has to self-destruct.
And that is the big problem because this means it's more difficult.
Now they have to have all kinds of rules.
So you get the liberals in and they have the president write executive orders and say that they can go to sanctuary cities and not observe the immigration laws, which are technically constitutional.
And then that just means we have to send more money to the sanctuary cities.
And that becomes a major problem.
And then the other side said, well, what we need are more guns.
We need more fences.
Higher fences are going to do it.
I think we need a fence, but it has to be a more ideological fence.
We have to just deny these benefits.
Oh, that's ruthless.
But then I think about maybe how my ancestors came over, in particular, my grandfather.
Yeah, and the issue of the border wall is probably one of the really divisive parts of the plan.
A lot of people like the idea of a wall.
You've always said walls can keep people in as much as they can keep people out.
We know that from Berlin in 1953.
$27 billion, I think, is going to be allocated for that in fiscal 2018.
But the issue is also the fact that two-thirds of the area that the wall will be built on is privately owned.
So you're facing what could be one of the largest examples of eminent domain in U.S. history.
Yeah, and that's not protecting private property.
It's abusing private property.
And there's a lot of people in Texas that are starting to realize this.
But the other thing is, is the hawks on immigration that really, really want to crack down, they're the supporters of E-Verify, you know, the national ID card.
You just can't have an ID card for an illegal.
I mean, how would you know who the illegals are?
But that gets a lot of support, and there's going to be a bigger push on now.
I wouldn't be surprised when the death settles that we'll have something like that.
And right now, I thought there was one point that Trump made to sort out how to write up these regulations and how to handle DACA and how to handle these people who are here and you don't want to send them back and how you keep them.
He suggested that maybe Congress ought to deal with it.
That's the proper answer, except for the fact that Congress is totally inept.
And I would still argue that case.
It shouldn't be done by executive order, even though I'm sure that Trump won't be bashful using executive orders.
But the left has moved this along to be immigration with aggression.
And of course, the migrants, you know, this whole idea of getting millions of people in as a consequence of a very failed foreign policy.
That's another problem because sometimes I was told they moved to the front of the line, you know, and actually got benefits earlier than the people who were waiting, American citizens that were waiting.
But I think this is an unintended, maybe intended consequence of the welfare state, and they're not going to follow it.
The threat of punishment is one side, the other is free stuff.
And I would say that if you had a libertarian society, you would have a much healthier economy.
Labor would be in much greater demand.
There would be no free stuff.
And then there wouldn't be need to have this authoritarianism of either allowing people to come in and steal more from one group to give to another one or using more guns and more walls.
For some reason, I have never, never could get excited about the wall.
It sounds good.
But it sounds like it reminds me of the China wall.
I think that's been a few years ago.
And I think even today, there's so many ways you get around a wall, especially if there's an enticement to come.
But there's the other side of the story is right now, the numbers coming in aren't quite like they were.
And it might be because our jobs aren't doing as well.
Maybe an indication our economy is weaker than a lot of people realize.
Yeah, if you look at some of the charts when the bubble burst in 2007 and 08, you saw the illegal immigration just crash.
You probably had better back home.
But you mentioned earlier E-Verify.
And, you know, when I was back in your congressional staff, I think I must have drawn the short straw because I had to do immigration for you, which wasn't fun because I think I was yelled at more than the other staffers.
I'm still traumatized by it.
But E-Verify was an issue that was so divisive, and it was so difficult to talk to the immigration hawks who felt very strongly about the need to keep illegals out to the point where they would be willing to submit to E-Verify.
And we had to tell them about all sorts of downsides, the false positives, the false negatives, the fact that it's totally, it'll be something run by the DMV controlling whether any of us can work.
And imagine if you come up with a false positive, oh, Ron Paul, you're an illegal.
You can't work anymore in the U.S.
Well, I'll just dispute it.
Well, three, four months later, if you don't have a lot of money in your checking account, you're going to be out on the street.
You know, it's amazing what the establishment media gets away with by making Americans feel guilty because we don't give the immigrants enough stuff and letting the doors wide open, letting them come in as citizens.
One of my proposals was the people who have been here, I don't feel like rounding them up and kicking them out.
I think it's impossible.
But I think if they want to have a public presence, that they ought to get a green card and maybe indicate, I came here illegally, but still have a present.
But I don't think, and it's back to, I don't think they should qualify for free stuff.
And then they say, well, then you're discriminating because non-discrimination means everybody gets stuff until you're totally broke.
But I think that's where the real problem is, is that people think that they can do this and then come in and get these benefits.
Yeah, and I think that's fairly unique in this country.
I don't think it's that common.
You can walk into another country, sign up for benefits, and get them.
Yeah, I often think because I've known some people that moved to Japan and lived there for a long time.
But they never became citizens and they weren't on the dole.
I don't know how their welfare system works, but I think we probably had one of the best systems as far as openness goes and welcoming people into this country because even Mexico, I don't think they're very generous with people coming in.
Matter of fact, they facilitate Central America people immigrating here, migrating here and send them up here.
So that's the big thing.
But I don't think, I bet we're more generous than most countries.
And I think it's really a reflection, especially in 08 and 09, because when this would come up in the debate, everything was the immigrants.
And just as I've said already, that's a problem.
And it's going to get worse because of the welfare system.
But I also thought the blame was too heavy.
It was almost like the Hispanics were the scapegoats.
They had to be blamed for everything.
And I don't believe that is to be true because I think there's other problems.
And I think it's our system of welfareism because our system doesn't even, well, it actually encourages people not to work.
If you can make a certain amount of money not working and you go off working, you don't already get a couple dollars increase.
I just think I'll stay on welfare.
So it's just a bad system.
So we left the free market economy a long time ago, and then the immigrant problem got worse.
But I think if you have a truly free society and a good, sound economy, people would be looking for workers.
I mean, there were times not too long ago, and even now, farmers or workers used to come from Mexico and they'd work two or three months.
I thought it was a great way to pass out foreign aid.
They came up, they worked, they had their pockets full of money, they went home and took their money home.
Federal Aid and Immigration 00:03:01
And guess what?
They spent the money, dollars.
You only spend money in the United States.
But they worked for it.
And we'd have that more if we had a much better work program and a green card system where we're not threatening people and trying.
I think you touched on it.
People are not willing to say it's the welfare system, which Republicans and Democrats endorse.
They won't say that, and therefore it's difficult to challenge it because too many people are getting stuff from the government.
And the people who screamed at us about immigrants coming and picking lettuce for a couple bucks an hour would never themselves go pick lettuce for a couple bucks an hour.
They would never do that and they never realized that if they were back in Mexico, they'd probably be getting 10 cents.
They come here voluntarily and they consider that a heartless statement, but compared to what is what you should say.
Now the thousand agents, you've throughout your career complained about armed federal agents and this plan does include a thousand more armed federal agents.
It seems like that could probably be taken from elsewhere if it's needed or does that concern you?
More federal agents?
Well, you know, I'm for gun control on all federal agents and a lot less guns in these 120 countries where we send military personnel and the CIA and special forces.
That's the gun control that we need.
And it was never intended by the founders nor the Constitution that we have a national police force.
But I don't think that should, I don't think that's entirely my position that there should never be anybody that has some responsibility for protecting the borders because, you know, national security to some degree, you know, has to recognize that right if people are marching in with who knows what.
But no, we don't need more guns at the border.
We probably should take those away.
If you had to have a couple more people, there's enough other agencies that shouldn't even exist.
There's a little more justification.
But I think just facilitating the travel going back and forth and making sure, you know, checking the records and making sure they're coming to work in the fields or something.
What is their reason for coming?
Yeah, and the final thing, I guess, is I'm curious what you think about the merit-based immigration.
You know, they're requiring people to not just come in, but you have to prove that you have, you know, make certain requirements to be able to come in.
You must, you know, there's a points-based system for green cards and that sort of thing.
Is that a decent shift?
It doesn't get me too excited because the H-1B has been around for a long time.
And I think if we look back, I probably supported that, thinking that with the welfare state, it's not somebody that's going to come in and cost us more money to take care of them.
But that still, you know, isn't the entire answer.
But the merit system reminds me about how my grandfather came over, and his dad came first back in the latter part of the 19th century.
Help Us Spread the Message 00:01:25
And he came by himself at the age of 14 and had essentially no money.
And somehow or another, he got into New York and got down to Pittsburgh and found his dad and this sort of thing and got established.
But if it was only on a merit system and coming by himself, he'd have never come.
I'm glad he made it.
But that was a better system and a better understanding.
And there wasn't the runaway welfare system.
And there wasn't too many wars going on in that period of time.
Yeah.
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