Trump Immigration Speech Plan Precedents: Arizona, ‘Worker Shortages,’ Washington, Crops ‘Left To Rot’

Seemingly in response to an apparent perception in the media that the Republican nominee for President of the United States had been “softening” his stance on immigration, as reported by The Inquisitr, last night’s fiery Donald Trump immigration speech at a Phoenix, Arizona rally would seem to have the potential to put an end to such talk.

The Trump immigration plan included several points the candidate feels will help “make America great again.”

• Build an “impenetrable” wall along the Mexican border that Mexico will pay for with “above and below ground” sensors.
• Abolish “catch and release” programs for undocumented immigrants and insist that they return to their home countries.
• Undocumented immigrants with criminal records will be deported starting on Trump’s first day in office, “day one,” if he wins.
• “Issue detainers for illegal immigrants arrested for any crime whatsoever” who will then face “immediate removal proceedings. If we even have to do that.”
• Abolish President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty currently allowing “5 million” undocumented workers to be employed in the United States. All current immigration laws will be enforced.
• Increase the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers threefold and hire 5,000 border agents.
• End funding for “sanctuary cities” perceived as refusing to “cooperate” with federal agencies.
• Citizens of countries that are deemed to have unknowable national security threats will no longer be issued visas. The candidate referred to this as “extreme vetting.” He cited Syria and Libya as examples of countries’ citizens that will not accepted.
• Begin administering an “ideological certification” for all those seeking to legally enter the United States.
• Insist that the “at least 23 countries” who currently refuse to take back citizens deported from the United States, begin accepting them.
• The creation and implementation of a new “biometric” system to track the entry, travel, and exit of those who enter the United States.
• Insist that E-Verify use is expanded.
• “Reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers.”

The Trump immigration speech was fact-checked by AP via Yahoo and NPR.

In February, the Wall Street Journal examined the effects of the 2008 introduction of legislation requiring that Arizona employers check the eligibility of each employee hired using the E-Verify system.

The flow of immigration into Arizona was said to “reverse” with the introduction of the system. The Journal described the Arizona construction industry suffering from a coincidental “collapse.”

According to data cited from the Pew Research Center, from 2007 until 2012, the estimated “illegal-immigrant population” in Arizona declined by 40.0 percent. Over the same period, the population in Texas was estimated to have risen by 4.5 percent.

Examination of GDP figures from each state reveals a striking difference. While both Arizona and Texas entered recessions in 2008, along with the rest of the nation, annual Texas GDP was back at new highs by 2010, while Arizona GDP lagged, only striking new high ground again in 2012, as reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Further, Arizona suffered a deeper peak-to-trough total decline of 7.2 percent than Texas, whose GDP declined a more mild 5.8 percent through the same period. GDP growth in Texas has also been stronger overall.

The Journal quoted Moody’s data indicating that the loss of labor provided by undocumented immigrants has cost Arizona about two percent of its GDP growth per year.

Some Arizona farmers are reported to have been able to adapt to more efficient methods of harvesting produce, increasingly relying on mechanization. Worker shortages were also described.

A 2012 Washington crackdown on undocumented immigrants was featured by Time.

“In their wake, thousands of acres of crops have been left to rot in the fields, as farmers have struggled to compensate for labor shortages with domestic help.”

“The enforcement of immigration policy has devastated the skilled-labor source that we’ve depended on for 20 or 30 years,” Ralph Broetje, the owner of a Washington State apple farm, said to produce six million boxes annually, was quoted.

Time reported similar situations in states that had instituted plans like the one outlined in the Trump immigration speech, such as New York and Georgia. Each was said to be “reeling” from labor shortages in the wake of undocumented immigrant crackdowns. This led to President Obama introducing an executive amnesty in 2014, currently “blocked” by the Supreme Court, as reported by CNN.

[Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images]