Trump and two GOP senators announced their sponsorship of an anti-legal immigration bill that's just a worse version of a bill that was introduced seven months ago.
Trump is lending his name to a bill introduced by Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), which is good because everything Trump touches turns to shit and goes nowhere.
The effort, following his campaign pledge to reform the country’s immigration system, expands on a bill introduced by the senators in February to cut the number of legal immigrants into the U.S. by 50 percent over 10 years. That bill, which has stalled for months in the Senate, would eliminate diversity lottery visas and limit the number of refugees offered permanent residency in the country each year.
I think we have pretty good reasons to expect this will go nowhere.
In addition to Trump's death touch, the original was also dead on arrival. Moreover, Trump himself is significantly less popular now than he was in February. There aren't even many Republicans left who are afraid of Trump's wrath tweets.
Curtailing legal immigration is also anti-business and even more nakedly racist than anti-illegal immigration policy.
Tom Cotton and David Perdue should know this better than anyone as the meat packing and agricultural industries in their states increasingly rely on legal immigrant labor. Trump himself employs legal immigrant labor at his golf clubs and resorts.
Congress also has more important things on their plate right now, like avoiding a total government shutdown and defaulting on the national debt.