Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said this week that as president he will work to end illegal immigration and will seek to limit legal migration into the U.S.
The Florida governor made the remarks in an op-ed published in USA Today where he outlined his plan to reignite the American economy.
“I will create a fair labor market by securing the border, enforcing our laws, eliminating chain migration and the diversity visa lottery, and limiting low-skill immigration,” DeSantis wrote.
DeSantis has made immigration and securing the border one of his top issues on the campaign trail, saying that he will stop the flow of illegal immigrants coming into the U.S., build the border wall, destroy the Mexican cartels, and make sure states are cooperating with federal immigration officials.
As governor, DeSantis signed into law “the toughest crackdown” on illegal immigration by any state in the country, according to a report from The New York Times.
The law requires that employers use E-Verify, punishes employers who hire illegal aliens, raises penalties for those caught trafficking, bans local governments and NGOs from issuing documents to illegal aliens, invalidates all out-of-state drivers licenses given to illegal aliens, requires hospitals to collect and report healthcare costs for illegal aliens, and more.
DeSantis’ immigration policies are mostly aligned with the policies of former President Donald Trump. Many of the other Republican presidential candidates also line up close to where Trump and DeSantis — who remain by far the top two candidates for the GOP nomination with Trump ahead of DeSantis — are at on the issue.
One notable exception is Vivek Ramaswamy, who has called for increasing the number of skilled migrants coming into the U.S. every year, saying that he views it as “one of the fixes to economic growth in this country,” according to Breitbart News. Ramaswamy also said that he wants to “re-enter” the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump pulled out of because it was “job-killing” for the American worker.
“‘Merit-based immigration’ refers mostly to the inflow of foreign graduates into the well-paid white-collar careers needed by American graduates,” the Breitbart report added. “Many polls show that Americans — especially GOP voters — are increasingly outspoken against both legal immigration and illegal migration that is used to shift vast wealth from middle-class families to business leaders and coastal investors.”
“The polls show the greatest opposition to migration into corporate jobs,” it added. “Those much-denied populist attitudes fueled Trump’s win in the 2016 election against the globalist-backed Hillary Clinton, who prioritized Wall Street’s economic growth instead of voters’ pocketbook growth.”