On Wednesday, President Trump used the bully pulpit to call on Congress to pass the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (“RAISE”) Act, sponsored by Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.). The RAISE Act would shift our legal immigration system away from admitting unskilled immigrants toward admitting highly skilled immigrants, end the diversity visa lottery, reduce the total number of green cards from over a million to about 500,000 per year, and require sponsors of immigrants seeking to become U.S. citizens to reimburse the federal government for welfare benefits the immigrants received. All of these reforms are badly needed.
Author: Kris W. Kobach
Kobach: A Victory for Public Information
On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied temporary restraining orders (TROs) sought by the ACLU, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and others. The plaintiffs were attempting to prevent the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, of which I am Vice-Chair, from having its first meeting on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Kobach: Why States Need to Assist the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity
Last Thursday, the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity officially asked each state’s chief election official for a copy of their state’s publicly-available voter information, in order to better investigate voter fraud across the nation. I’m the Vice Chair of that Commission, and the letter went out under my signature.
Kobach – Refugees and Terrorism: A Massive Vulnerability in Our Immigration System
The left-leaning Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled against the Trump Administration’s “travel ban” and kept in place the preliminary injunction that prevents President Trump’s executive order from going into effect. In a classic case of judicial activism, the three Clinton-appointed judges declared that the president’s order “does not offer a sufficient justification” to satisfy them. Never mind that the relevant statute does not require the president to satisfy federal judges (or anyone else, for that matter) that his decision is a good one.