Latest news with #BorderSecurityandImmigrationCenter
Fox News
05-03-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Trump touts $5 million ‘gold card' as new path to citizenship
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said a $5 million "gold card" would go on sale "very, very soon" and would serve as a new path towards becoming a U.S. citizen. "Its like the green card, but better and more sophisticated," Trump said. "And these people will have to pay tax in our country." Trump said the newest path to citizenship "will allow the most successful job creating people from all over the world to buy a path to U.S. citizenship." The "gold card" visa will also enable wealthier students to obtain permanent residency in the U.S. Trump has previously touted his plan before to attract the world's wealthiest to become U.S. citizens, though it comes at a time when he is both clamping down on illegal migration and as universities are increasingly in the spotlight amid soaring school costs and crippling student loans. Trump announced last week that he expected the newest visa option would go on sale in the coming weeks. Details of the newest visa remain unclear, but Trump said it was just one of his plans to revamp U.S. immigration policies. Following Trump's announcement earlier this month, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, Lora Ries, warned it could invite fraud. "Any immigration benefit draws fraud … people are willing to do anything and say just about anything to come to the U.S.," Ries told Fox News Digital. While Ries acknowledged the goals behind the program, she expressed skepticism that all applicants could be vetted to the extent needed to prevent the type of fraud that exists in the similar EB-5 visa program, which Trump's gold card would replace. "Fraud is rarely detected, let alone enforced … so it's low risk, high reward to commit immigration benefit fraud," Ries said, adding that even Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted to the widespread fraud plaguing the EB-5 program. "So the question is: How is this going to be different," Ries said. "It raised the price from a million to 5 million, but how are we going to prevent the fraud? Are you just inviting wealthier fraudsters and corrupt people to exploit this?"
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Central America steps up to house deported migrants after Trump makes clear U.S. won't be 'doormat': expert
The Trump administration has made deals across Latin America to assist in the U.S. effort to deport migrants who have entered the country illegally, with migrants being shipped to and held in several Central American countries. "Trump's no longer letting the U.S. be treated like a doormat," Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital. The comments come as multiple reports over the last week have detailed President Donald Trump's push for deportations, with the Associated Press reporting that the administration has struck deals with Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and Venezuela that have allowed the U.S. to move migrants away from its southern border. Anti-ice Activists Sound Sirens, Bullhorns To Stop Migrant Deportations In Dem-run State The move has caused Central America to become a "dumping ground" for migrants, according to a report in the Guardian, which pointed to countries such as Panama and Costa Rica which have taken in migrants from the Middle East and Asia. The Guardian reported that in many cases, Trump has been "strong-arming" Central American nations to play by his rules, oftentimes using fear such as threats to take back the Panama Canal or impose tariffs. Read On The Fox News App "It's clear that there's a new order of relations in this matter where things are demanded of countries that are not in a position to refuse," said Marcela Martino, deputy director of Central America and Mexico for the Center for Justice and International Law, told the Guardian. Panama was the first country to agree to a deal with Trump in the middle of February, the report notes, and has since taken on hundreds of migrants from places such as Afghanistan, Iran, China, and Pakistan. Some of those migrants have agreed to be returned to their home countries, while 128 of the 299 migrants that Panama has received have refused. That refusal has put the migrants in a form of "legal limbo," the Guardian reported, pointing to viral photos that showed one young Iranian migrant who scrawled "help" on the window of a Panama City hotel, where migrants were temporarily being held. Ted Cruz Slaps Blue State Authority With Subpoena Over Sheltering Migrants At Airport: 'Reckless' While some critics have raised concerns about the legality of the deportation programs or the conditions migrants face, Ries pointed out that many of these same countries served as hosts for migrants flowing the other direction during former President Joe Biden's term. "Many of these countries viewed the U.S. as a dumping ground as they let millions of migrants traverse their countries just to go to the U.S," Ries said. "And you know, we're a sovereign nation, and sovereign countries have a right to choose who comes here, how many, under what terms and when they have to leave. Migrants don't choose that." Ries argued that Trump's moves to put deportation deals in place are simply an example of the president using American leverage, something not seen under the leadership of Biden. "The U.S. has leverage with other countries, and our last president didn't use it and again, treated our country like a doormat, just let people in by the millions," Ries argued. "The current president is choosing to use that leverage with respect to these other countries." Another benefit of the deals, Ries noted, is they may serve as a deterrent for both migrants thinking about heading north and the countries in the last four years who have allowed them passage, arguing that these countries are also capable of defending their own borders. "They are perfectly able to and should defend their own borders," Ries said. "Prevent the mass migration in the first place, and then prevent many of these consequences."Original article source: Central America steps up to house deported migrants after Trump makes clear U.S. won't be 'doormat': expert
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's ‘gold card' visa could invite fraud, national security risks: expert
President Donald Trump's plan to offer a "gold card" visa to those willing to shell out $5 million could raise new fraud and national security risks, according to one expert. "Any immigration benefit draws fraud … people are willing to do anything and say just about anything to come to the U.S.," Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital. The comments come after Trump announced Tuesday a plan that would give those willing to pay $5 million for a "gold card" lawful permanent U.S. residency status and a pathway to citizenship, which the president argued would lead to several economic benefits. "They'll be wealthy, and they'll be successful," Trump told reporters from the Oval Office on Tuesday. "They'll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it's going to be extremely successful." Trump To Introduce 'Gold Card' Visa For Wealthy Investors With $5 Million Price Tag: 'Route To Citizenship' Trump doubled down on those comments Wednesday while also telling reporters that the program would be a way to pay down some of the national debt. Read On The Fox News App "Companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment," Trump said. "At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt. We're going to pay down a lot of debt with that." But while Ries acknowledged that she understands the goals behind the program, she expressed skepticism that applicants could be vetted well enough to prevent the kind of fraud currently seen in the similar EB-5 visa program, which Trump's gold card would replace. "Fraud is rarely detected, let alone enforced … so it's low risk, high reward to commit immigration benefit fraud," Ries said, adding that even Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted to the widespread fraud plaguing the EB-5 program. Trump's Latest Moves Signals Most 'Hawkish' Approach On China Yet: Expert "So the question is: How is this going to be different," Ries said. "It raised the price from a million to 5 million, but how are we going to prevent the fraud? Are you just inviting wealthier fraudsters and corrupt people to exploit this?" Ries also raised concerns about the potential national security implications of the program, arguing that many of the applications are likely to originate from countries that are not exactly friendly to the United States. "Who can afford this? What countries have many people who can afford this," Ries said. "Russia, China … you're going to get Gulf countries, but China is not exactly our ally – some Russians, the same boat." Ries said the key will be the system used to vet potential applicants, details of which have yet to be revealed by the Trump administration. "It's going to need thorough vetting for national security concerns, espionage and corruption," Ries said. "That's going to be very, very important." The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for article source: Trump's 'gold card' visa could invite fraud, national security risks: expert
Fox News
27-02-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Trump's ‘gold card' visa could invite fraud, national security risks: expert
President Donald Trump's plan to offer a "gold card" visa to those willing to shell out $5 million could raise new fraud and national security risks, according to one expert. "Any immigration benefit draws fraud … people are willing to do anything and say just about anything to come to the U.S.," Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital. The comments come after Trump announced Tuesday a plan that would give those willing to pay $5 million for a "gold card" lawful permanent U.S. residency status and a pathway to citizenship, which the president argued would lead to several economic benefits. "They'll be wealthy, and they'll be successful," Trump told reporters from the Oval Office on Tuesday. "They'll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it's going to be extremely successful." Trump doubled down on those comments Wednesday while also telling reporters that the program would be a way to pay down some of the national debt. "Companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment," Trump said. "At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt. We're going to pay down a lot of debt with that." But while Ries acknowledged that she understands the goals behind the program, she expressed skepticism that applicants could be vetted well enough to prevent the kind of fraud currently seen in the similar EB-5 visa program, which Trump's gold card would replace. "Fraud is rarely detected, let alone enforced … so it's low risk, high reward to commit immigration benefit fraud," Ries said, adding that even Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted to the widespread fraud plaguing the EB-5 program. "So the question is: How is this going to be different," Ries said. "It raised the price from a million to 5 million, but how are we going to prevent the fraud? Are you just inviting wealthier fraudsters and corrupt people to exploit this?" Ries also raised concerns about the potential national security implications of the program, arguing that many of the applications are likely to originate from countries that are not exactly friendly to the United States. "Who can afford this? What countries have many people who can afford this," Ries said. "Russia, China … you're going to get Gulf countries, but China is not exactly our ally – some Russians, the same boat." Ries said the key will be the system used to vet potential applicants, details of which have yet to be revealed by the Trump administration. "It's going to need thorough vetting for national security concerns, espionage and corruption," Ries said. "That's going to be very, very important." The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Today's Migrants Are Just like Your Immigrant Great-Grandparents
"Sometimes I dream that I'm back there, crossing that river or back in the jungle. All those things haunt me," recalls Giranny Colmenares of her journey to the United States. She and her three children fled chaos and hunger in Venezuela—a nation destroyed by the socialist strongman Hugo Chávez. When her mother died from a brain tumor and couldn't get treatment, she decided she needed to leave before the next calamity. In New York City, Colmenares finally found a semblance of security, and she received support from the non-profit Una Carta Salva Una Vida. "At least [in the U.S.], you can go out somewhere and find something to eat. In Venezuela, no. If you didn't have anything, you had nothing. You couldn't ask a neighbor, a cousin—no one. No one was going to help you," says Colmenares. New York City was once known as the "Golden Door" because of its long history of welcoming immigrants like Colmenares. Nearly 40 percent of Americans have at least one ancestor who entered the U.S. through the city. However, today's migrants may be shut out and deported, a humanitarian tragedy that would profoundly damage the U.S. economy. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has been signing executive orders to close the door to new immigrants, fulfilling his campaign promise to conduct the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. Trump has indefinitely suspended the refugee resettlement program, canceling thousands of flights and leaving 22,000 approved refugees stranded. He ordered the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), potentially affecting the legal status of over 1.2 million people. He also ended the CHNV Parole Program, which allowed over 530,000 migrants from dangerous countries to legally travel and work in the United States. And he shut down the CBP One app, which allowed migrants to schedule asylum screening interviews at U.S. ports of entry. Trump has also expanded expedited removal, enabling faster deportations of undocumented immigrants unable to prove two years of residency. And he issued an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for children born after February 19, 2025, which a federal judge blocked with a nationwide injunction. "The difference [with past immigration waves] is essentially that we no longer have the rule of law," Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at the right-wing Heritage Foundation told Reason."We had very few restrictions on immigration in the 18th century, but they were always decisions made by the host country….Countries have a right to determine who comes into the country and what we've what's changed is that in the past few years, the rule of law no longer applies at the border." Hankinson compared crossing a national border without documentation to walking into someone's living room uninvited. This is a bad analogy. The government doesn't own the country. The bedrock of liberalism is that the state doesn't have a moral right to interfere with voluntary transactions between consenting adults that don't harm anyone else. Immigrants are desperate to work for American companies, and American companies are desperate to hire them. "The most important reason for illegal immigration is the fact that the legal immigration system is so constrained," says David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "For most people who are trying to come to the United States, the legal immigration system is effectively closed off to them." Juan Pio, executive director of Plan País, a nonprofit that supports Venezuelan immigrants, says that most migrants he has encountered aren't looking for handouts—they want jobs. Most Venezuelans entering the U.S. seek asylum, a special protection given to individuals fleeing persecution or human rights abuses. However, asylum seekers can't apply for work permits until six months after entering the country. Even then, the federal government often takes longer to issue permits, effectively prohibiting migrants from supporting themselves legally. "I'm looking for a job, but since we don't have work permits, I can't get a job," one migrant told Reason. Many migrants instead turn to illegal employment, risking the rejection of their asylum applications if caught. If Trump gets his way by deporting all of the unauthorized immigrants currently in the U.S., it would be economically devastating. "There would be a huge downshift in the labor market," Bier told Reason." You'd see Americans currently working at the front of the restaurant start moving to the back. A lot of restaurants would close, of course. There would be a huge contraction in the economy as those changes happen." Immigrants are also more likely to start a business, regardless of their legal status. Legal immigrants use 27 percent fewer welfare benefits than native-born Americans, and even undocumented immigrants pay nearly $23 billion dollars to Social Security and nearly $6 billion dollars to Medicare every year. The controversy in New York City has centered on a policy that allows migrants to stay for free for one to two months in city hotels. Bier opposes this policy, citing the incentives it creates by encouraging migrants to come to one of the most expensive housing markets in the U.S. Hankinson cites immigrant crime as a reason to seal the border. "In the last week, I've seen a case of an illegal immigrant from Venezuela murdering a college student. Yesterday, I read about an immigrant from, I think, El Salvador, who murdered a two-year-old," he told Reason. "We see cases of confirmed crime committed by people who were admitted into the United States outside the law." Restrictionists like Hankinson point to cases such as the murder of Jocelyn Nungaray by two Venezuelan migrants and the killing of nursing student Laken Riley at the University of Georgia by a Venezuelan migrant. When asked about violent crimes committed by migrants at a recent public event hosted by Reason, Alex Nowrasteh, the Cato Institute's vice president for economic and social policy studies, argued that "you should punish the people who commit the crimes. You should not punish people with the same legal status who didn't commit the crimes." Nowrasteh also pointed to the empirical data. There's no evidence of a broader migrant-driven crime wave. Violent crime is trending down, even as migration has surged. "When we saw crime spike—[it] spiked in 2020 when immigration was totally bottomed out and hardly anyone was showing up at the border in the summer of 2020, that was driven by mainly native-born residents," says Bier. A Cato Institute study suggests that illegal migrants are less likely to be convicted of crimes than native-born Americans. In Texas, the only state that records criminal convictions and arrests by migrant status, illegal immigrants were convicted of 27 percent fewer homicides than native-born residents. Census surveys show immigrants are about half as likely to end up behind bars than native-born residents. Migrants desperately want to be in the U.S., Bier says, so they "avoid law enforcement because they think that law enforcement could get them removed from this country." Immigration could allow the U.S. to avoid population collapse. Because of falling birthrates, the global population is expected to start shrinking by the end of the century, and everyone from Vice President J.D. Vance to Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling for the so-called "childless cat ladies" to start having kids. Instead of pushing people to procreate, the U.S. could just let in more immigrants who want to raise families here. "At the end of the day, these are human stories," says Pio. "I maintain that liberty and migration are the exemplary part of our history." When their stay at the hotel in Brooklyn ran out, Giranny and her family moved to Chicago to live with a friend. Many recent immigrants are making the same decision, moving to places where it is cheaper to live and easier to achieve the American dream. Allowing people to freely migrate to the U.S. was the policy for most of American history. Then came the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the racist quotas of the Immigration Act of 1924, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Is that the America that Trump wants to bring back? Today, about 40 percent of Americans can trace their ancestry to Ellis Island. That's what made the U.S. so prosperous. And we need a lot more immigration if it's going to stay that way. It was once a radical idea to suggest that black people, gay people, or women should have the freedom to live and work anywhere. Someday, I hope we can take for granted that someone born in Haiti, Venezuela, Mexico, or any other country should have all the same freedoms as a native-born American. Photo Credits: View Amazon Jungle Drone Trees_By_Alejandro_Campollo_Artlist; Drone Trees Rainforest View_By_Alejandro_Campollo_Artlist; Drought Smoke Florida Drone_By_Day's_Edge_Productions_Artlist; Mauricio Valenzuela/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom; Mauricio Duenas Castaneda/EFE/Newscom; Mauricio Valenzuela / Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, New York, 1907 - Immigrant Children, Ellis Island, 1908, New York - PAT BENIC/UPI/Newscom; Carlos A. Moreno/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Qian Weizhong/VCG/Newscom; Carlos A. Moreno/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; U.S. Customs and Border/ MEGA / Newscom/CJMAR/Newscom; Luiz C. Ribeiro/TNS/Newscom; Cristina Matuozzi/Sipa USA/Newscom; United States : Thomas A. Edison, Inc., 1903 - Library of Congress. Music Credits: High Flight Michele Nobler - Artlist; Chance Encounter Gavin Luke - Epidemic Sound; Don't Lose Your Grip Diamonds And Ice - Artlist; Fun While It Lasted Emil Axelsson - Epidemic Sound; A Second To Forget Emily Rubye - Epidemic Sound; Progressive Progress Howard Harper-Barnes - Epidemic Sound; Rewinding Memories Ecobel - Epidemic Sound; The Depths Marten Moses - Epidemic Sound. Producer: César Báez Audio Production: Ian Keyser Color Correction: Cody Huff Camera: Jim Epstein The post Today's Migrants Are Just like Your Immigrant Great-Grandparents appeared first on
