President Donald Trump vowed to pause Third World immigration. Here’s how to ensure it stands up to inevitable legal challenges.
First, the president must use his authority under 8 USC 1182(f), but with a twist. That law authorizes the president to suspend the entry of “all aliens or any class of aliens” if he determines that their entry would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” The plain language is broad and includes economic and social interests, not just national security. Every president since Ronald Reagan has invoked it. The Supreme Court upheld it in 2018, noting that the statute “reflects respect for the president.”
However, targeting specific countries brings unnecessary challenges: discrimination based on national origin, demands for statistical justification, examining the details of how the target list was developed. Courts can make endless distinctions between countries.
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A universal pause bypasses all that and there is a compelling justification.
It is “harmful” to American interests to admit more immigrants when our mechanisms for filtering out welfare cases and asylum fraud are so broken. It might not be so bad if we could fix mistakes quickly, but it now takes forever to deport someone.
Mention asylum. A DHS study shows that 70 percent of asylum applications involve fraud or suspected fraud. It was so shocking that the Obama administration refused to release it until a whistleblower testified before Congress. Even the New York Times admits it’s a problem. In 2023 alone, more than 1 million asylum applications were submitted, which amounts to roughly 700,000 fraudulent applications.
Then there is the public charge disaster. Since 1882, immigration law has explicitly prohibited the admission of anyone “who would at any time be likely to become a public charge.” The logic is simple. There is no point in importing welfare issues. Yet 54% of immigrant-headed households use at least one form of government assistance. The reason is that bureaucrats are undermining Congress’ intent by interpreting the bar to apply only if the alien is “primarily dependent” on the benefit and it is paid in cash, meaning taking Medicaid, public housing or food stamps does not count. Attempts to restore the original meaning are being stalled in court by activists. Today, more than 11% of social benefits are claimed by immigrants who were admitted on the explicit premise that they would never claim social benefits. It costs taxpayers $109 billion annually.
And that doesn’t even include outright fraud. Federal prosecutors in Minnesota recently charged members of the Somali community in massive fraud schemes totaling hundreds of millions of dollars in child nutrition programs, housing services and autism treatment. Law enforcement sources confirm that millions in stolen funds were returned to Somalia, where some of it “likely ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab,” a terrorist group.
If the screening mechanism cannot prevent benefit dependency despite explicit legal prohibitions and cannot detect fraud on an industrial scale, continued mass admission is demonstrably harmful to the national interest.
The government’s second line of defense is injunctions. Federal law requires plaintiffs seeking preliminary injunction to file a bond. The bond must be in an amount “appropriate to reimburse the costs and damages” wrongfully imposed by the defendant. Given the social spending at stake, the value of real bonds should be in the tens of millions. Circuit courts have called adequate bonds “a condition precedent” to the issuance of a warrant and its absence “reversible error.” The Department should insist on adequate bonds in all cases challenging these immigration restrictions and take action to void any bans without bonds.
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Third, while the legal battle plays out in the courtroom, a strong defensive strategy should be waged behind the scenes: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should withdraw delegations from the Immigration Approval Authority. Congress vested the power to grant green cards, work permits, and other benefits in the hands of the Secretary of Homeland Security personally. 8 USC 1255 states that an alien’s status “may be adjusted by the [DHS Secretary]Even cases handled at consulates start at DHS. In practice, the Secretary has delegated this authority to immigration officers located throughout the USCIS field offices. If she revokes these delegations, green card and other select benefit applications would require her personal signature, slowing processing to a crawl. This is not a solution; it is the Secretary who exercises the very authority Congress has given her.
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More modest solutions have failed for decades. It’s time to end the immigration debate with decisive action.
The president’s recent post calling for stricter immigration measures is a welcome development, but we’ve heard this kind of rhetoric before. The MAGA base has lost confidence in the president’s team’s ability to follow through on its statements. They must think creatively and act with a sense of urgency to turn the president’s truths into reality.
