Draft executive orders would weed out more immigrants

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is considering a plan to weed out would-be immigrants who are likely to require public assistance, as well as to deport - when possible - immigrants already living in the United States who depend on taxpayer help, according to a draft executive order obtained by the Post.

A second draft order under consideration calls for a shake-up in the system through which the United States administers immigrant and nonimmigrant visas, with the aim of tightly controlling who enters the country and the workforce and reducing the social services burden on taxpayers.

The drafts are circulating among administration officials, and it is unclear whether President Donald Trump has decided to move forward with them or when he might sign them if he has.

The White House would not confirm or deny the authenticity of the draft orders.

If enacted, the executive orders would appear to significantly restrict all types of immigration and foreign travel to the United States, expanding bars on entry to the country that Trump ordered last week with his temporary ban on refugees and people from seven countries.

While last week's move focused on national security and preventing terrorism, the new draft orders would be focused on Trump's campaign promises to protect American workers and create jobs, immediately restricting the flow of immigrants and temporary laborers into the U.S. workforce. The administration has accused immigrants who end up receiving social services of eating up federal resources, and it has said that immigrant workers contribute to unemployment among Americans.

'Our country's immigration laws are designed to protect American taxpayers and promote immigrant self sufficiency. Yet households headed by aliens are much more likely than those headed by citizens to use Federal means-tested public benefits,” reads one draft order obtained by the Post.

The draft order provides no evidence to support that claim, and there is no consensus among experts about immigration's impact on such benefits or on jobs.

The administration would seek to 'deny admission to any alien who is likely to become a public charge” and to develop standards for 'determining whether an alien is deportable ... for having become a public charge within five years of entry.”

The second order calls for 'eliminating” the 'jobs magnet” that is driving illegal immigration to the United States, according to a copy obtained by the Post.

The order weighs how to make the country's immigration program 'more merit based,” calls for site visits at companies that employ foreign workers and tasks the Department of Homeland Security with producing a report twice a year on the total number of foreign-born people - not just nonimmigrant visa holders - who are authorized to work in the United States.

It also instructs DHS and the State Department to submit a report on 'the steps they are taking to combat the birth tourism phenomenon,” meaning instances in which noncitizens come to the country to have children who in turn gain citizenship, a popular conservative refrain but one dismissed by immigration experts as a minor problem.

Long-standing U.S. law already makes it difficult for noncitizens to receive most forms of public assistance.