Posted on August 23, 2023

2024 GOP Candidate Immigration Questionnaire: Hopefuls Explain Vision for Migration Policy Ahead of Debate

Matthew Boyle and Neil Munro, Breitbart, August 22, 2023

Most of the 2024 GOP presidential candidates ahead of the first Republican debate on Wednesday answered an in-depth 10-question immigration policy questionnaire from Breitbart News.

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FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

BREITBART QUESTION #1: Will you order the detention of all illegal migrants who are claiming asylum until their cases are decided? What are the specifics of your plan to handle the astounding number of asylum seekers while their cases are decided?

TRUMP: The policy that we had in place in 2020 — including Safe Third Agreements, Title 42, Transit Ban, etc. — allowed us to immediately remove illegal aliens from U.S. soil and categorically invalidate their asylum claims. This is how we defeated the mass migration machine and, for the first time in history, completely eliminated Catch and Release. In a second term, we will immediately reimplement these policies with the goal of removing all illegal crossers as rapidly as possible from U.S. soil, and as far away from the United States as possible. At no point will any alien be released into the United States but will instead be detained continuously until the rapid ejection from our country takes place. The goal is not merely to stop the release of aliens into the United States, but to stop all forms of asylum shopping by making clear that you must seek asylum elsewhere and you will not be granted any form of entry into the United States.

BREITBART QUESTION #2: Should slots for visa workers—including H-1B workers—be awarded on a highest-salary first rule? Please explain your rationale.

TRUMP: In order to protect American STEM workers, we will reimplement all of our historic actions regarding H-1B workers, including the termination of the visa lottery, the non-displacement rule, and the highest salary first rule.

BREITBART QUESTION #3: Americans are getting poorer in large part due to inflation. Why import new workers to compete with them? Will you support cutting legal immigration levels into the United States until wages stabilize for middle and working class Americans? What do you believe are the criteria to become a legal immigrant?

TRUMP: Yes. We will immediately restore the full suite of policies we had in 2020, which includes the Public Charge regulation, the sponsor vetting and repayment policies (implementing the curbs from the 1996 law), the Travel Ban (which will be expanded further), and the Healthcare 212 Act (barring the entry of new residents who will depend on the state for healthcare). We will also be directing the State Department to implement new ideological screening as well as completing the transformation of USCIS into an agency whose mission is to protect Americans. We will also restore and expand our efforts to ensure integrity and defeat fraud in the naturalization process.

BREITBART QUESTION #4: Will you extend the temporary parole status given to migrants by DHS Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden?

TRUMP: No. All parole will be terminated retroactively and prospectively.

BREITBART QUESTION #5: What is your target number for annual deportations of illegal migrants who are not found guilty of felonies?

TRUMP: To achieve the highest rate of deportation in U.S. history, we will deputize the National Guard as well as state and local law enforcement. We will also invoke the Alien Enemies Act.

In addition, we will resume our historic worksite enforcement and reimplement our Flores regulation to remove family units from the interior. We will also reimplement and expand our policies cracking down on visa overstays.

BREITBART QUESTION #6: Will you implement e-verify nationally?

TRUMP: We must stop people coming illegally into the country from taking jobs from American citizens.

BREITBART QUESTION #7: Will you impose economic sanctions on Mexico—and disturb trade with U.S. companies—if the Mexican government does not cooperate to reduce migration and drugs significantly? What is your target percentage for reduction in the inflow of both drugs and migrants?

TRUMP: YES. The objective of U.S. policy must be to achieve zero illegal immigration, human and drug trafficking.

BREITBART QUESTION #8: Will you reimpose Title 42, Remain-in-Mexico, and the previous administration’s deals with the northern triangle countries to cut migration levels?

TRUMP: YES. We will also be creating a number of new Safe Third Agreements.

BREITBART QUESTION #9: Will you finish the border wall? If so, when is your target date for completion?

TRUMP: YES. All remaining work will be finished immediately. Despite lawsuits and legal delays, almost 500 miles was built—our original goal. We will add another 200 miles which would have been completed in 3 weeks, except for the election results. This was built and ready to place.

BREITBART QUESTION #10: If your policy is to shift immigration towards skilled workers, will you offset any increases in skilled immigration with decreases in unskilled immigration? Do you see a distinction between skilled and unskilled immigration and if so can you explain that distinction?

TRUMP: Whether it’s our H1-B reforms or our Public Charge regulation, our policy will be to prevent any immigration that hurts Americans or American jobs.

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FLORIDA GOV. RON DESANTIS

(Note: The answers below were provided by DeSantis campaign spokesman Bryan Griffin.)

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: Yes. The law requires that, and Ron DeSantis will enforce Remain in Mexico requirements to stop people before they enter. DeSantis will stop the flow of illegal immigration by requiring people to stay in Mexico before they enter the United States. Knowing that asylum claims have been increasingly abused, DeSantis would expeditiously remove all people that the Biden Administration has illegally admitted into the United States.

BREITBART QUESTION #2: Should slots for visa workers—including H-1B workers—be awarded on a highest-salary first rule? Please explain your rationale.

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: Ron DeSantis believes that the H1-B program has been used to undercut American wages and will work to reform the program to ensure that H1-B visas do not displace or undermine American workers.

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: DeSantis will seek to reduce immigration that undercuts American jobs and wages. The immigration system should provide a net benefit to Americans, our economy, and our country. DeSantis will also seek to ensure that immigrants are encouraged to support our values and assimilate into the American way of life.

BREITBART QUESTION #4: Will you extend the temporary parole status given to migrants by DHS Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden?

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: No.

BREITBART QUESTION #5: What is your target number for annual deportations of illegal migrants who are not found guilty of felonies?

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: Ron DeSantis will order that all DHS authorities and available resources be used to remove everybody with no legal basis to be here and to have their cases adjudicated expeditiously.

BREITBART QUESTION #6: Will you implement e-verify nationally?

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: Ron DeSantis just signed an E-Verify measure into law that is being implemented in Florida. House Republicans passed an E-Verify measure within HR-2 earlier this year. When a bill is delivered to his desk as President that would strengthen E-Verify, DeSantis will sign and implement it accordingly.

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: As he has said, Ron DeSantis will declare a national emergency on day one, mobilize all military resources, declare the cartels to be narco-terrorists, and change the rules of engagement on the border. The full force of the federal government will be utilized to ensure that illegal drug flow is stopped, and he will bring to bear every tool he has to this end. He will utilize a variety of leverage points to ensure Mexico works with us to stop the flow of narcotics and human trafficking.

BREITBART QUESTION #8: Will you reimpose Title 42, Remain-in-Mexico, and the previous administration’s deals with the northern triangle countries to cut migration levels?

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: Of course he supports Title 42, but Title 42 is a temporary Band-Aid, and the United States must have permanent turn-away authority. The DeSantis administration will enforce all existing laws and support additional laws to have full turn-away authority at the border. He will enforce Remain in Mexico, stop the flood of phony asylum claims, and detain those whose claims are under adjudication. He will immediately direct the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to reinstate Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Northern Triangle Countries.

BREITBART QUESTION #9: Will you finish the border wall? If so, when is your target date for completion?

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: The southern border has massive gaps and spaces with no barrier at all, and the border wall is nowhere close to being completed. The Biden Administration has clearly exploited this with its open border policies. Ron DeSantis will marshal all necessary resources and begin wall construction on day one. He will build and complete the wall and get the job done.

DESANTIS CAMPAIGN: The United States should not have an immigration system that is going to lower wages for working Americans. The level of immigration permitted, skilled and unskilled, should be that which is best for America—and not set according to the demands of foreign entities or political trends. This will be the outlook utilized by the DeSantis Administration when making such policy determinations.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY

As noted above, Ramaswamy did not answer the specific set of 10 questions Breitbart News sent him, but his campaign did provide a lengthy statement from the candidate in response to them. The statement in full from Ramaswamy is included here.

RAMASWAMY: The sole purpose of immigration policy should be to protect the homeland. The interests of American citizens who live on American soil. That’s it. Not humanitarian. With that in mind, we have to secure our southern border by using the US military to close our swiss cheese of a southern border and end the illegal migration crisis. We must end the incentives to illegal migration by ending federal funding for sanctuary cities, federal aid to Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and other Central American countries until the border crisis is solved. We need these nations to have a sense of urgency to address the problem. When it comes to legal immigration, we need to significantly decrease the number of asylum based applications that are granted. We need to gut the H1-B system, which is bad for everyone involved. The lottery system needs to be replaced by actual meritocratic admission. It’s a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company that sponsored an H1-B immigrant. I’ll gut it. We need to eliminate chain-based migration which is anti-meritocratic because the people who come as family members are not the meritocratic immigrants who can make skills-based contributions to this country. Merit-based immigration has to include an element of national identity. Which is to say even if you’re getting a visa, you have to pass the same civics test that is required on the backend of citizenship.In the context of any immigration at all we need to officially make English the national language of the United States of America. We are a nation founded on ideals. That means nothing unless we have a common language to express those ideals to one another. We need to weed out ingrates like Illan Omar and Rashida Tlaib who come to this country and complain about it. No. It is a privilege to be allowed to live in the United States of America.

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