Trump’s DACA fix will help underemployed minorities the most

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Trump presidency, conservatives are rightly pleased with his accomplishments on tax reform, deregulation and putting originalists on the federal judiciary, including the nomination and confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Sadly the reaction we see from liberals is more of the same politics and rhetoric of racial division.

{mosads}My recent appearance on MSNBC sadly illustrates the destructive nature of our national dialogue. I was up against a stacked deck of two academics who were determined to brand President Trump with the absolutely false claim that he is a clear and present danger to minorities.

In neighborhoods across America, minorities are concerned with real danger, such as children being killed by drugs and criminals. We are concerned about real threats that come from the loss of jobs or reduced wages.

There was an opportunity to lead on race when President Barack Obama was elected as our first “biracial president.” Instead of uniting the nation on race, by 2012, Obama engaged in a divide-and-conquer approach for political gain, often along racial lines.

For eight years, Barack Obama divided us for political gain. Obama insulted Americans who “cling to their guns and their Bibles” and demoralized the police officers who risk their lives to protect us. It will take time to repair the damage he and the radical left have caused.

Policies like President Trump’s tax reforms and deregulation that create jobs and grow wages will create wealth and opportunity for all Americans, including African-Americans and Hispanics.  Unemployment, at 4.1 percent, is down to its lowest level since 2000. 

In cities with low unemployment, the wage stagnation of the last eight years is finally ending, but there are still pockets in America that lag, with the worst effects experienced by minorities without college degrees. 

The people still struggling in our economy are directly impacted by our unfair immigration system. The approximately 250,000 people we bring into the country each year through chain migration and the approximately 50,000 that arrive through the visa lottery compete directly with the unemployed and underemployed.

Eliminating the job competition from these two programs will benefit Americans at the bottom rung of the economic ladder more than any other group.

Chain migration of extended family beyond spouse and minor children and the visa lottery provide lifetime work permits to more than 300,000 new immigrants each year, and these immigrants are all brought here without any regard to their effect on the wages or the ability to obtain a job of American workers with whom they compete during their lives.

The unconstitutional Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has dominated the news lately. President Trump has shown great compassion for these immigrants here illegally who were brought here as children by their parents.

He has allowed the program to stay in place until March and has asked Congress to come up with a permanent and legal solution. While the economy is in great shape after Trump’s first year, he has made it clear that compassion for DACA recipients must be linked to compassion for those Americans still struggling.  

He recently rightly tweeted: “The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc”

With the elimination of chain migration and the visa lottery as part of the a DACA “fix”, unemployed and underemployed minorities will see immediately relief. More workers will enter the workforce, and part-time workers will move on to full-time positions. Wages will rise and neighborhoods will be restored.

Liberals can continue their name calling. Those words will fall on deaf ears as Americans see more jobs, safer streets and higher wages. 

Ken Blackwell is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He served as a domestic policy adviser to the Trump presidential transition team. Blackwell is also the former mayor of Cincinnati and the former secretary of State for Ohio.