Immigration is Not a Foreign Policy Tool

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. The purpose of DHS was to bring the disparate agencies with operational jurisdiction over immigration enforcement under one umbrella. This was after many 9/11 hijackers were waved into the United States as tourists and as students seeking to learn how to fly (but not land) airplanes. Some of them had been flagged by U.S. intelligence agencies, and some by local law enforcement, but none of that was communicated to immigration officials. DHS was created to ensure that no future failure of information sharing on immigration matters would cost Americans their lives. That made it all the more baffling to see President Biden’s DHS using immigration policy to rush unvetted Afghan nationals into the United States to clean up a foreign policy mess in the country where 9/11 originated. When immigration policy is made to serve foreign policy interests, Americans end up paying the price when those policies inevitably backfire. 

Recent headlines are full of examples of this, with the tragic terrorist attack on National Guard members in Washington, D.C., and the vast criminal fraud conspiracy unfolding in Minnesota. The terrorist in Washington, D.C., was one of the nearly 100,000 Afghan nationals rushed into the United States following the chaotic and bloody withdrawal of our troops after two decades of war. Another Afghan brought over during the chaos was caught before he could carry out a terrorist attack in Texas. Meanwhile, Somali nationals in Minnesota are being arrested, and some have already been convicted, of the largest fraud scheme yet discovered regarding Covid-era welfare programs. 

A common denominator for both Afghanistan and Somalia is that they are essentially failed states, and have been for decades. They do not have functioning governments with accurate records of their citizens for purposes of verification of identity and vetting of criminal histories and associations. While there can be no doubt that the United States government played a role in contributing to the dysfunction within these two countries, this cannot be remedied by simply importing all of their mistakes to this country. Certainly, no American interest is served by using our immigration policies as an escape hatch for government failures abroad. It simply exacerbates the failure by bringing it to our doorstep.

This theme of using our immigration system as a foreign policy tool, as opposed to a tool to serve the interests of ordinary Americans, is pervasive in our government. Another area where our homeland is used as a bargaining chip is in trade negotiations. Both NAFTA and President Trump’s renegotiated trade agreement, the USMCA, included uncapped TN visas for Mexican and Canadian professionals. The Visa Waiver Program, which allows nationals from designated countries to enter the United States without a visa, has been used as a carrot in negotiations with various countries. Even President Trump is reportedly using immigration policy as leverage with both India and China. 

Whether as an emergency prophylactic after a foreign policy misadventure or a bargaining chip in backroom trade negotiations, the American people and their interests are discarded. That’s because the foreign policy or economic interests of the federal government too often clash with the interests of the American people. President Biden, for example, unsuccessfully tried to limit the fallout from his withdrawal from Afghanistan by using immigration policy to import those fleeing the mess he made. Most, if not all, of those imported Afghans were inadmissible to the United States under our existing laws and policies, and for good reason. Biden brought them in anyway.

Immigration policy can only serve one master. It will either serve Americans’ interests in economic well-being, public safety, and national security, or it will serve special interests. 

We must acknowledge that immigration policy is not a magic bullet that cures all ills. Importing people to the United States is the equivalent of inviting people into our home. Why would we invite in people who don’t like us or our family, who share no commonalities, or who are likely to overstay and become burdens? Looking at immigration policy as a path of noble charitable deeds by a virtue-signaling elite generates policies that hurt the very people our government has a duty to protect. 

Americans want and deserve an immigration policy designed and directed to serve our interests. Current U.S. immigration policy is failing us at every level. If immigration policy exists to grease the global wheels of negotiation, then it cannot reliably identify threats or serve American domestic interests. When vetting requirements are relaxed or ignored to serve some other purpose, the probability of terror attacks and crime in the interior of the country increases exponentially. 

We must be crystal clear regarding the primary mission of immigration policy: Immigration policy must be focused solely on the economic security and safety of the American people.