According to Tucker Carlson tonight, Trump had every intention of putting an effective moratorium on immigration for the next 60 days that would have protected American jobs. But instead, Trump’s final executive order was a watered down version that would only affect a small percentage of green card applications:
Wow! Tucker On How We Got Trump's Current Immigration EO
"The original one would have suspended several guest worker programs, the ones that prevent qualified Americans from getting jobs."
"The final version, signed just hours ago, doesn't restrict any foreign workers at all." pic.twitter.com/Yrw2lz4RE0
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) April 23, 2020
Tucker reported, via analysis that FAIR provided him, that Trump’s final executive order would only affect between 5k to 60k green card applications out of the one million who get residency every year. And, as we reported yesterday, it doesn’t block any guest worker program whatsoever.
But the original executive order would have suspended several guest worker programs, according to Tucker, effectively protecting American jobs. So how did we go from one that was effective to ineffective?
Tucker reports:
“We talked to a lot of people about this today in Washington and here’s the story. Apparently key White House aids were afraid of angering corporate leaders. For example, Apple CEO Tim Cook…
Officials from the Department of Labor and the Council of Economic Advisors pushed for the vast guest worker exemption. They argued that the unemployment benefits in the coronavirus stimulus bill were so generous, that American citizens would refuse to go back to work. So it’s easier just getting a government check and so we have to bring in more foreigners. In other words, welfare for you, real jobs for foreign nationals.”
Unemployment benefits being too high is exactly what some Republicans were complaining about just before the stimulus passed and White House Steven Mnuchin completely dismissed the argument. Now it appears the administration is using these high unemployment benefits against Trump in order to keep the guest worker programs from becoming part of the moratorium. And apparently he went with it.
I will note that a reporter yesterday asked Trump about a rumor that Trump might sign a second executive order on immigration and Trump said that was very much a possibility. I could be wrong, but it sounds like it might have everything to do with all of this.
In somewhat related news, Tucker Carlson apparently had another fantastic opening segment tonight on America’s lockdown. I didn’t get a chance to watch it but you can if you like: