Trump's wall standoff has brought immigration issue to the forefront

Trump's wall standoff has brought immigration issue to the forefront

By: Rachel Marsden

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- U.S. President Donald Trump has shown that he's willing to shut down the government to get funding to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Regardless of whether you agree that a wall would solve America's immigration problems, what's notable is that Trump is the first president to truly bring the immigration issue to the forefront of the national agenda as opposed to just paying lip service to it.

Trump's modus operandi is to shock with an outrageous demand, pound his fist hard on the table, flip conventional wisdom on its head and try to force the reconsideration of the immigration issue. Critics should view this as an opportunity, not as an outrage.

There's one person who could push back effectively against Trump by seeing how the president handles a taste of his own medicine, and this person is not in Washington or even in America. It's Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau .

Since taking office, Trump has cancelled the temporary residency permits issued to immigrants by previous administrations for humanitarian reasons. Many of those immigrants have tried to obtain asylum in Canada by entering the country illegally at unofficial crossing points.

Trudeau should insist that the U.S. pay to house, feed and support the displaced migrants who flee to Canada, because that's exactly what Trump has demanded of Mexico with migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. from the south.

Fortunately for Trump, it's not very likely that he would face such a demand. Instead, migrants entering Canada from the U.S. are welcomed, sheltered and paid by Canadian taxpayers.

Immigration has become a key pillar of globalist orthodoxy. Adherence to that orthodoxy supersedes the chance to test Trump for hypocrisy while defending the principle of national sovereignty that borders represent.

Trump has dug in his heels even though a lot of establishment figures treat the immigration issue like political kryptonite. Late last year, Trump ordered troops to the border to prevent caravans of asylum seekers from crossing. Under previous administrations, migrant caravans probably would have been allowed to cross into the U.S. and disappear into the ether.

It's especially ludicrous to not have a clue about who's crossing the southern border when you consider what foreign citizens in the employment-based "extraordinary ability" immigration category have to go through to live in America. These aspiring immigrants must hire lawyers at considerable expense, compile multiple letters of reference and proof of background, pay thousands of dollars and then cross their fingers that the U.S. government deems them worthy of the temporary right to live and work in the U.S. What's the point of having extensive vetting processes -- or any immigration policies at all -- when the back door is wide open?

Trump's pushback on longstanding globalist policies, including immigration, has critics in both parties complaining that the president's actions represent an affront to American values. What Washington elites never seem to reflect upon is the role that establishment conventional wisdom has played in creating the immigration problem.

Whenever Trump has expressed a desire to reel in U.S. foreign intervention, there has been significant resistance from the establishment. Critics should be doing some soul searching, asking themselves why constant meddling in Central American and South American affairs has failed to bring stability and economic prosperity to that part of the world. People don't abandon their homes when they're content with life.

Establishment types on both the left and right demand that the U.S. continue to meddle in other countries' affairs despite the absence of a true threat to the U.S. homeland. This is a major cause of the global migration crisis, and Trump's aversion to foreign intervention is a way of attacking the problem at its source.

As Trump's critics continue to support U.S. intervention in the Middle East and Africa, will they also take responsibility for creating new migration problems that not only place legitimate asylum seekers in a precarious position but also force Americans to adopt an increasingly defensive view of the world?