The Trump administration is working on a proposal that, honestly, sounds like something you would come up with after five minutes of thinking about immigration policy and then wonder why nobody did it already. According to USA Journal, the State Department is developing a plan to require green card applicants to post a $100,000 bond before entering the United States, refundable only after they become citizens.
The bond amount could vary by case and country, and officials are reportedly looking at running a pilot program in select nations before rolling it out everywhere. Think of it as the government doing a soft launch, like a restaurant that wants to make sure the kitchen doesn't catch fire before inviting the whole neighborhood.
The logic here is almost painfully straightforward. People who immigrate to the United States should be able to support themselves financially. That is not a radical position. That is a position your grandmother would describe as "common sense" before going back to her crossword puzzle.
Milton Friedman laid this out decades ago with the kind of clarity that makes you wonder why we are still debating it. When America had no welfare state, open immigration worked just fine because there was no safety net to fall into. You showed up, you built something, or you starved. Harsh? Absolutely. Effective as a self-selection mechanism? Also absolutely. Friedman put it this way: "If people immigrate under circumstances where they are all promised a prorated share of the pot, then free immigration would mean a reduction of everybody to the same uniform level."
Now we have an extensive welfare apparatus, and you cannot combine unlimited immigration with a generous safety net without the math eventually catching up to you. A bond requirement is one way to restore that natural filter without dismantling the welfare state entirely, which, let's be honest, nobody in Washington is going to do because that would require courage.
Daniel Di Martino, an immigration policy commentator, called the proposal "an excellent idea to ensure immigrants are highly skilled and don't depend on the government," noting he had proposed something similar a year earlier. Always nice when somebody gets to do a victory lap.
Critics will argue this is unfair to poor immigrants. That is a sympathetic point right up until you ask a follow up question: does the United States have an obligation to absorb unlimited numbers of people who will immediately need government support while American citizens who need those same services are already waiting in line? The answer to that question has never been yes, no matter how loudly someone insists otherwise.
The existing public charge rule, which was supposed to handle this problem, has been litigated and watered down to the point where it filters about as effectively as a screen door on a submarine. A bond is concrete. It does not depend on some bureaucrat gazing into a crystal ball and guessing whether an applicant will be financially stable in ten years. It requires actual money, right now, on the table.
The policy is still being developed. The dollar amount could change. A pilot program will likely come first. All perfectly reasonable. The principle, though, is solid. Legal immigration should benefit the country. Requiring people to prove they can stand on their own two feet before they arrive is not cruelty. It is just good bookkeeping.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
