The Washington Post - 17.02.2020

friday, february 21 , 2020. the washington post eZ re a23

S

tarting next week, green card ap-

plicants can be denied green cards

partly on the basis that they are

applying for green cards.

Yes, you read that correctly.

On Monday, t he Trump administration

begins enforcing a new rule supposedly

designed to make sure any immigrants

let in are self-sufficient and not a drain on

government resources. That m ight sound

reasonable enough. The rule is based on a

series of flawed premises, though, and

even more flawed processes.

For instance, immigrants already pay

more in taxes than they receive in federal

benefits. In fact, they use fewer benefits

than their native-born counterparts.

Even those who arrive with relatively

low incomes — people who might be

suspected of one day becoming a burden

on Uncle Sam — tend to have a steep

earnings’ trajectory as they gain skills,

greater English-language proficiency and

professional networks. Census data and

reams of academic research show that

poor immigrants generally do w hat politi-

cians advise them to: work hard, pull

themselves up by their bootstraps and

become productive members of society.

Ye t the Trump administration is bar-

reling ahead, keen to catch those imag-

ined hordes of lazy, benefit-guzzling for-

eigners.

Thanks to what it calls the “public

charge” rule, immigration officials are

permitted to deny green cards (among

other visas) if they suspect that the

applicant might use government benefits

someday — “at any time in the future.”

Exactly what this means, or how one

might make such a prediction, is frustrat-

ingly vague.

The Trump administration admits as

much: As it acknowledges in its rule,

divining whether a person might, say,

apply for food stamps or Medicaid in

30 years is “inherently subjective in

nature.”

Immigration officials have wide dis-

cretion when making these “inherently

subjective” f orecasts. The rule, however,

includes factors that officials are sup-

posed to consider when assessing the

“totality of the circumstances presented

in an applicant’s case”: current earnings,

credit score, age, education and so on.

This month, U.S. Citizenship and Im-

migration Services published additional

“guidance” on implementation in its in-

ternal policy manual. It elaborated on a

particular red flag.

Among the “negative factors” it says

employees should consider when assess-

ing whether an immigrant could some-

day become a public charge: whether the

immigrant is applying for a green card.

You know, the very reason the official is

evaluating the immigrant.

Now, a reasonable person might ob-

serve that people with green cards (which

grant work authorization, among other

perks) have more job opportunities than

other immigrants. Therefore, green-card

holders are probably better able to

achieve and maintain self-sufficiency, t he

quality this administration is allegedly

seeking out.

But the USCIS manual tells its officers

to conclude the opposite. It s ays getting a

green card makes an immigrant a greater

risk for someday becoming a “public

charge” because “they intend to reside

permanently in the United States and

[green-card holders] are eligible for more

public benefits than” foreigners without

green cards.

Because USCIS employees will have

wide discretion in evaluating an appli-

cant’s “totality of circumstances,” per-

haps a generous officer might place little

weight on this supposed red flag. But a

venal officer could legally deny an appli-

cant a green card because, among other

things, the applicant committed the sin

of applying for a green card.

Truly, it’s a policy only Joseph Heller

could love.

This ludicrous, self-contradictory poli-

cy is just one of many ways the Trump

administration is weaponizing the ad-

ministrative state against immigrants

(amongst other disfavored groups). It h as

engaged in a slew of backdoor policies to

slash levels of lawful immigration, with

neither consent nor input from Congress.

The administration has also, among

other recent actions, expanded the travel

ban; ratcheted down refugee admissions;

increased rejection rates of skilled-work-

er visas; tried to place other impossible-

to-meet prerequisites upon immigrants;

and begun rejecting asylum applications

on bogus grounds, such as leaving blank

the field for “middle name” when the

applicant doesn’t have a middle name.

Still, this public charge rule is likely to

have the biggest effect on levels of legal

immigration as its vague criteria could

designate hundreds of thousands of non-

citizens as future economic burdens.

This rule, together with other recent

policy changes, could push down legal

immigration levels by as much as 30 per-

cent in fiscal 2021 compared with fiscal

2016 (the last year before President

Trump took office), according to Stuart

Anderson of the National Foundation for

American Policy.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick

Mulvaney recently acknowledged that

the U.S. economy is “desperate” for more

people and that “we need more immi-

grants” to power economic growth, ac-

cording to a secret recording obtained by

The Post.

He might want to tell his boss.

[email protected]

catherine rampell

Trump’s

green card

Catch-22

M

any commentators have ar-

gued that the big winner in

Wednesday’s poisonous Demo-

cratic Party debate was Presi-

dent Trump. But as the world assesses the

United States in this 2020 election sea-

son, the long-term political beneficiaries

may be foreign rivals such as China’s

President Xi Jinping.

The circular firing squad in Las Vegas

probably raised expectations abroad that

the Democrats won’t unite behind a can-

didate with wide popular appeal who can

beat Trump. People throughout Eastern

Europe and Asia who have struggled to

escape from socialism must find Sen. Ber-

nie Sanders’s enthusiasm for it — and the

fact that the Vermont independent is

leading the field — especially bizarre.

The Democrats’ lack of interest in the

world will also be noted. Foreign policy

was barely mentioned in Las Vegas. As

the candidates shouted at each other,

they seemed unaware that voters would

be judging them in part on their fitness to

be commander in chief. Rather than

discuss rational global climate policies,

such as a carbon tax, they talked about

putting U.S. energy executives in jail.

But the world moves on. If a sensible,

moderate Democrat seems unlikely to

emerge from the scrum, then U.S. allies

and adversaries will prepare for the

likelihood of four more years of the

erratic, bullying, “A merica First” i ncum-

bent. Countries will hedge their bets,

knowing that Trump’s p romises are unre-

liable. Even for the closest U.S. allies,

friendship is not a suicide pact. They will

adjust, accommodate and distance.

This concern about a United States

adrift from its traditional leadership role

was evident last weekend at the Munich

Security Conference. German President

Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke for many

at the conference when he complained:

“Our closest ally, the United States of

America, under the current administra-

tion, rejects the very concept of the

international community.”

Europeans are realizing, too, that the

United States’ turn inward goes much

deeper than Trump. Steinmeier be-

moaned Trump’s r etreat from transatlan-

tic ties, but he recognized, “We know that

this shift began a while ago, and it will

continue even after this administration.”

A former top national security official

in Republican and Democratic adminis-

trations summed up the implications of

the U.S. political morass for foreign

allies: “They understand now that wait-

ing it out is not a good strategy. They

know that the backstop is no longer

there.”

Europeans feel a nostalgia for the old

order, summed up in the “Westlessness”

theme of the Munich conference. But

there’s opportunism, too — a desire to

expand influence as America’s contracts.

You could see the gleam in the eye of

French President Emmanuel Macron as

he discussed onstage with Wolfgang

Ischinger, the conference’s chairman, the

possibility that Germany might soon look

to France’s n uclear deterrent, rather than

depending solely on U.S. pledges.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acted

as though this European disaffection

doesn’t exist. “I’m happy to report that

the death of the transatlantic alliance is

grossly overexaggerated,” he told the

conference. “The West is winning, and

we’re winning together.” That bland reas-

surance didn’t find much traction, even

among Americans in the audience.

What puzzles Europeans is that the

United States seems to want to have it

both ways. “A merica wants to retrench,

but it also wants to remain a hegemon

and tell people what to do,” s ays a former

senior European intelligence official.

“That isn’t going to work.”

Anxiety abroad about Trump’s reelec-

tion was probably augmented by

Wednesday’s announcement that he

would appoint Richard Grenell, ambas-

sador to Germany and a ferocious politi-

cal loyalist, as acting director of national

intelligence.

Allies worry that Grenell’s appoint-

ment signals an expanding campaign to

control the intelligence community and

retaliate against Trump’s perceived ene-

mies. If allies decide that a second-term

Trump will compromise the indepen-

dence and professionalism of U.S. intelli-

gence agencies, they may begin to recon-

sider their liaison relationships.

Who benefits in a world where Repub-

licans trumpet “A merica First” and Dem-

ocrats don’t even debate foreign policy?

The answer is painfully obvious to for-

eign officials. As the United States re-

treats, China steps forward. Since Xi’s

accession in 2013, China has advertised

its plans to dominate global technology

and business.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper talk-

ed in Munich of making the world

choose between being America’s tech-

nology partner or China’s. But he isn’t

going to like the answer: Even Britain,

the United States’ closest ally, has said it

plans to continue its relationship with

Huawei, China’s flagship technology

company.

The Democrats seemed poised on the

edge of a cliff Wednesday night, heading

toward nomination of a candidate who

could be as polarizing as Trump. Maybe

the Democrats will find a way back from

the brink and pick a winner. But the

world is adjusting to the prospect that

Trump’s v ersion of America may be here a

good while longer.

Twitter: @IgnatiusPost

david ignatius

U.S. influence

isn’t as vital

as it used to be

T

he great big tell lurking in the

brawl of a presidential debate

Wednesday night was rules:

when they should be en-

forced and when tossed aside. This

question arose in very different ways

for two very different men: Mike

Bloomberg’s insistence on hewing to

nondisclosure agreements with fe-

male employees who sued his compa-

ny, and Bernie Sanders’s rejection of

the Democratic Party’s requirement

that the nominee win a majority of

delegates.

Each candidate — surprise! — ad-

opted the position most beneficial to

himself. Bloomberg argued that his

hands were tied because the parties

to sexual harassment and discrimina-

tion lawsuits against his company

had agreed to keep the settlements

secret: case closed, literally. Sanders

asserted that the Democratic Party’s

rules should be ignored, and the

nomination awarded to the candi-

date with the most delegates, period.

Both candidates — the one who

wants to live by the rules and the one

who wants to junk them — are wrong.

Bloomberg argued, unconvincing-

ly, that that there was no way to lift

the secrecy pledges. “There’s agree-

ments between two parties that want-

ed to keep it quiet and that’s up to

them,” he said. “They signed those

agreements, and we’ll live with it.”

Actually, we shouldn’t, and we

don’t need to.

Certainly, no woman should be

forced into the spotlight involuntari-

ly. But others might well want to

speak out about what they experi-

enced while working for Bloomberg

but fear the legal and financial conse-

quences of violating confidentiality

pledges. Why should they be si-

lenced?

Bloomberg is running for presi-

dent; his conduct toward women in

the workplace over which he presided

matters. If he has nothing to hide —

there are “a very few nondisclosure

agreements” and “none of them ac-

cuse me of doing anything, other than

maybe they didn’t like a joke I told,”

he asserted — then why not release

the information?

No doubt there are privacy issues

involving the conduct of Bloomberg’s

employees beyond the boss himself.

But there are ways of addressing

those concerns without allowing

Bloomberg to hide behind the phony

shield of nondisclosure agreements.

“The company and somebody else...

decided when they made an agree-

ment they wanted to keep it quiet for

everybody’s interests,” Bloomberg

said.

Yes, but voters now have a compet-

ing interest. “A deal’s a deal” isn’t an

acceptable response.

Which brings us to Sanders’s oppo-

site, yet similarly self-interested, as-

sertion: The rules shouldn’t be al-

lowed to interfere with my winning.

If anyone is now positioned to

assemble the necessary majority of

1,991 delegates, it is Sanders. Indeed,

the party’s rules operate in his favor.

Candidates who win less than 15 per-

cent of the vote (statewide or in a

given district) receive no delegates.

That means Sanders, leading in the

polls, is poised to win even more

delegates than his share of the overall

vote, because he is dividing a pie that

excludes those who fail to achieve

15 percent. Sanders further benefits

from the fact that t hose w ho fall below

th at threshold are likely siphoning

votes from his more moderate com-

petitors. If the rules are rigged, they

are rigged in Sanders’s favor.

Four years ago, when Hillary Clin-

ton enjoyed a healthy delegate lead,

Sanders thought she should have to

play by the rules — which required

her to win a majority. And Sanders

lobbied for and celebrated the cur-

rent rules, which maintained the

majority requirement but prevented

superdelegates — party insiders and

elected officials — from being able to

vote on the first ballot. “A n impor-

tant step forward in making the

Democratic Party more open, demo-

cratic and responsive to the input of

ordinary Americans,” Sanders said

when the rules were changed in

2018.

Now, conveniently, Sanders see

things differently. “Well, the process

includes 500 superdelegates on the

second ballot,” Sanders said Wednes-

day night, undercounting their num-

ber. “So I think that the will of the

people should prevail, yes. The per-

son who has the most votes should

become the nominee.” At other

points, Sanders has been even more

ominous, warning of “a very divisive

moment for the Democratic Party” if

the candidate with the most dele-

gates is denied the nomination.

It’s one thing if a nominee is just

shy of a majority and their competi-

tors are far behind. It’s different if the

other candidates are bunched togeth-

er — and it appears that a significant

majority of delegates would prefer a

more moderate nominee.

Bloomberg maintains that “rules

are rules” because relaxing them

would be inconvenient — and per-

haps damaging to his candidacy.

Sanders’s argument amounts to say-

ing that rules aren’t rules when they

get in his way. Both candidates are as

wrong as they are self-serving.

[email protected]

ruth marcus

Two ways to be self-serving

david Becker/reuters

Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appear on s creens in the media

center during the ninth Democratic presidential candidates debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

knuckles debate, it was political mal-

practice for them to give the front-run-

ner such a free pass.

And speaking of political malpractice,

how is it even possible that Bloomberg

did not come prepared to answer the

tough questions he had to know he

would face? On the stop-and-frisk policy

Bloomberg once championed, he mum-

bled a imlessly about the New York mur-

der rate before finally saying, as if he’d

just remembered, that “I’ve apologized.

I’ve asked for forgiveness.”

Bloomberg was even more f lummoxed

when Warren pressed him relentlessly

about his history of sexist remarks and

the nondisclosure agreements that si-

lenced women who received financial

settlements from his company. “Maybe

they didn’t like a joke I told” is hardly

exculpatory.

On climate change — which

Bloomberg Philanthropies last year

pledged half a billion dollars to combat

— Bloomberg was sharper and more

specific than any of the others. Overall,

however, he had a pretty awful night.

But did Bloomberg’s shaky perfor-

mance disqualify him in the eyes of

Democratic primary voters, as his com-

petitors seemed to hope? I doubt it. He

made a mess, but he has until March 3 to

clean it up. He can far outspend all the

other campaigns put together on televi-

sion, online and social media advertising

in California, Texas and the other Super

Tuesday states. All he has to do is avoid

another fiasco at next week’s debate in

South Carolina.

All Sanders has to do, though, is stay

on track and count the delegates that are

A

t Wednesday’s debate, the Demo-

cratic candidates totally ignored

my advice, offered in a recent

column, not to go s corched-earth

on one another. Fine, that’s their prerog-

ative, no hurt feelings. But folks, at least

acknowledge what you just did: You

spent two hours bashing the wrong

piñata.

I’m talking especially to you, S en. Eliz-

abeth Warren (Mass.). And also to you,

former vice president Joe Biden, former

South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg

and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.). You

spent most of the evening throwing

punches at f ormer New York mayor M ike

Bloomberg. And though quite a few of

those haymakers connected, it’s not

Bloomberg who potentially could build

an uncatchable lead in the delegate

count on Super Tuesday, less than two

weeks away. It’s Sen. Bernie Sanders

(I-Vt.) who threatens to run away with

this thing — and you let him come

through the melee with barely a scratch.

Sanders, who is 78 and recently had a

heart attack, was asked about his refusal

to release all of his medical records, but

was hardly pressed aggressively on the

subject. Biden slammed Sanders for

voting to kill the 2007 immigration

reform bill, but none of the other candi-

dates took the opportunity to pile on.

And Sanders wasn’t a sked at a ll about his

numerous votes against modest and

reasonable gun-control measures sup-

ported by most Democrats.

I’m not arguing that Sanders has to be

denied the nomination or that he can’t

possibly beat President Trump. But if his

competitors decided to have a bare-

likely to come his way. Let’s say he wins

the caucuses in Nevada on Saturday, as

polls suggest. And assume Biden’s solid

and energetic debate performance was

enough for him to win in South Carolina

a week later, but Sanders finishes sec-

ond.

Sanders would then go into Super

Tuesday with a delegate lead and a head

of steam. Bloomberg is the only other

candidate with the money to be competi-

tive everywhere. But unless he or some-

one else manages to beat Sanders in one

or more of the big states on March 3,

Sanders could emerge with a lead that’s

almost impossible to erase.

The most important question of the

debate came at the end. If no one comes

to the convention with a majority of

pledged delegates, moderator Chuck

To dd asked, should the nomination go to

the one who comes closest? Bloomberg,

Warren, Biden, Klobuchar and Buttigieg

all said no. Instead, they argued that the

party’s “superdelegate” rules, which al-

low certain elected officials and party

insiders to throw their support to anoth-

er candidate of their choice i f there isn't a

first-ballot winner at the Democratic

convention, should be applied. Only

Sanders maintained that whoever has a

plurality should be given the nomina-

tion, because that would reflect the will

of “the people.”

That stance directly contradicts the

position he took in 2016. That’s because

Sanders thinks he’s going to have that

lead going into the convention. And

nobody did anything Wednesday night

to stop him.

@Eugene_Robinson

eugene robinson

The Democrats let Sanders off easy

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