Trump should hire VDH to craft his positions

[133743Hokie]

The below excerpts from VDHs latest column would have been the perfect way to roll out these EOs to the public.
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On immigration...

"Perhaps the Trump plan was, first, to ensure that radical Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers do not enter the U.S., as they so often enter Europe; second, to send a message to the international community that entry into the country is a privilege not an entitlement; and, third, symbolically to reassert the powers of assimilation, integration, and intermarriage as we slow and refine legal immigration. (The U.S. currently has about 40 million foreign-born residents, or a near record 14 percent of the population; one in four Californians was not born in the United States.)

If this was the Trump-administration strategy, then it might have preempted criticism in the following manner with a supplementary communiqué:

1) We wish to extend and enhance prior presidential temporary directives that slowed and monitored unchecked immigration and visitation into the United States from war-ravaged regions in Middle East, by providing a brief breathing space of 90–120 days to ensure we can catch up and properly vet newcomers. In the past, the Obama administration has astutely identified “countries of concern” that might pose problems in visa applications. We wish to refine and calibrate such precedents to ensure the safety of the American people as the displaced-persons crisis in the Middle East expands. We wish to avoid indiscreetly and recklessly admitting persons into our country about whom we have no accurate background information.

2) This act is necessary because we plan to continue prior administrations’ policies of admitting refugees, but we cannot fairly and judiciously screen an anticipated 50,000 entrants this year without allotting proper time and consideration that was often lacking under former policies.

3) This temporary hold on admittances shall not affect those who were previously vetted through the issuance of green cards or those foreign nationals who — as translators, guides, and intelligence operatives — in time of war bravely and at risk to themselves helped the United States military at war.

4) Although the number of current travelers inconvenienced by the issuance of this order will be small, we will do all in our power to clarify implementation of the policy and to expedite problems affecting those in transit at the time of this executive order’s issuance.

Had the administration announced something like the above before or as the edict was issued, and followed up on its provisions, it would have preempted most criticisms and rendered them shrill from the get-go."

The Border Wall...

"Take the wall with Mexico and the campaign promise to make “Mexico pay.” With the issuance of that executive order, Trump might have also issued a communiqué along the following lines:

1) We seek no punitive measures against Mexico or the Mexican people but believe that relations between both countries are enhanced by a clearly demarcated border and the return of international and U.S. immigration legal norms governing lawful travel between both countries.

2) To fund necessary border fencing, we will issue a temporary and modest tax on remittances sent to Mexico from sources inside the United States. Our wish is to avoid placing financial burdens on the American taxpayer and inconveniencing the Mexican people, the vast majority of whom in the past have followed U.S. immigration laws when entering the U.S. The fee will be a small percentage of both the personal amount remitted and the aggregate $25 billion sent out of the United States each year to Mexico. It is designed to alleviate the costs incurred by illegal immigration. Upon completion of the necessary border fencing, the tax will expire. We will do our utmost to ensure that the fence is constructed quickly, cost-effectively, and prudently to reduce the temporary inconvenience of the temporary duty on remittances."

and Sanctuary Cities...

"The same brief preemptory explanations might help clarify long-overdue treatment of sanctuary cities:

1) If the United States is never to revisit the dark past of states’ rights and attempts at nullification of federal law, it must address the epidemic of so-called sanctuary cities. No municipality or local jurisdiction can pick and choose which federal law it is willing to abide by. If local governments did do so, the logical result would be an epidemic of the nullification of national laws. Particular cities, for example, might follow the precedent of sanctuary cities and nullify federal environmental or gun-registration statutes.

2) We recognize that millions of Americans reside in municipalities that have not followed federal law, and we do not wish to punish residents in a haphazard manner by withholding all federal funds to those jurisdictions that have ignored or subverted federal immigration laws. Therefore, the suspensions of federal funds to particular sanctuary jurisdictions that have nullified federal laws is measured and targeted, in hopes that such a dangerous and subversive precedent will not undermine the sanctity of the federal government. If we have learned anything from 1861, it is that state subversion of federal law is a slippery slope that can lead only to chaos and worse.

3) Our efforts at this point are not aimed at using state and local resources to act in lieu of federal immigration officers in the cases of those illegal immigrants who have established long residence, who have not violated U.S. laws, and who are gainfully employed. Rather, the intention at present is to ensure the safety and security of U.S. residents and citizens, by dutifully working with local and state authorities to expedite the removal of non-citizens who have both entered and resided in the U.S. illegally and who have violated U.S. criminal statutes.

The aim again is to remind the country that the action is a reaction to past excess and extremism."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... liberately