Gallego's Plan

Since this blog is pretty tough on Ruben Gallego, I wanted to give his immigration plan [pdf] a fair hearing. It has 5 “pillars”:

1. More enforcement

2. Reform (read: eliminate) asylum

3. Expand legal immigration and pathways to citizenship

4. “Bring people out of the shadows” - explained below

5. Address root causes of migration (more work with our allies to the south to host asylum seekers, limit fentanyl production, etc.)

The fact that (3) is included, and it’s pretty good, is a real change from the total defensive crouch on immigration. (1) is going to be a tough sell after ICE has been wilding through the population in ski masks. There’s some logic to (2) if it is really coupled with (3) because what’s happened is that the only legal immigrants in the US are asylum seekers, because the quotas for legal immigration are ridiculously small and the backlogs are effectively infinite.

But the real issue with this immigration reform plan is (4). Gallego makes the case that throwing out dreamers by ending DACA will cost us billions. But his “pillar” is pretty weak since it only addresses Dreamers and the undocumented spouses of legal residents. What about the millions of undocumented immigrants living and working peacefully in the US? Gallego’s proposal is silent on that. His pillar (3) talks about expanding pathways for legal immigration, but says nothing about immigrants already in the country.

Gallego’s plan has zero chance of becoming law, but it’s at least a start. I’m guessing that the techbros and techbro remoras that he hangs with are all about a reasonable immigration plan. From what I can tell, most of them aren’t as invested in white supremacy as Musk. And it’s way, way past time that we make our immigration quotas reasonable. So, 5 points to Slytherin, I guess.