Blanket Immigration Bans Are Misguided

In the wake of the Somali fraud story in Minnesota and the ambush shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., President Trump has vowed to “permanently pause” migration from all “Third World Countries,” and his administration is undertaking a broad-based review of asylum cases and green card applications from 19 high-risk nations.

“The instinct to respond to a horrific crime with tougher policy is both understandable and within the president’s authority,” writes Manhattan Institute Cities policy analyst Santiago Vidal Calvo. “But blanket bans would serve only to punish the U.S., along with the rest of the world.”

A better policy response, argues Calvo, would be to improve our immigration filters, selecting for immigrants whose skills, age, education, and legal status align with America’s interests, while also improving the security vetting process.

“Fortunately, President Trump can take several steps short of a ban to enhance both American security and prosperity,” Calvo writes. Read here for his recommendations.

Public universities operate at taxpayers’ expense and should, in principle, pursue the public interest. Conservatives have long been reluctant to exercise political control over these institutions, but in recent years, red states have begun using their power to reshape the left-wing culture at public universities.

Christopher Rufo was a keynote speaker at the launch event for one such effort: the University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom, a conservative research center within Iowa’s flagship campus. In his remarks, Rufo characterized the center’s opening as a watershed, one that finally gives conservatives “a voice on campus and, more importantly, an infrastructure, budget, and community of colleagues that can stand together against left-wing faculty, particularly within the humanities, who have denied students access to the full range of American ideas.”

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to end homeless encampment sweeps late last week positions his administration to the left not only of New Yorkers—three quarters of whom support the cleanups paired with offers of shelter and social services for the homeless—but even of his progressive predecessor Bill de Blasio, whose administration conducted hundreds of sweeps per year.

Stephen Eide notes that Mamdani’s opposition to encampment sweeps may bring him into conflict with President Trump, who issued an executive order earlier this year prioritizing homelessness grant funding for communities that “enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering.” It may also allow potential Democratic presidential contenders like California governor Gavin Newsom to portray themselves as sensible centrists.

Read it here.

“As someone with chronic kidney disease, I find this simply despicable. And for those who don’t have kidney disease and feel, ‘Why should I care,’ don’t worry, this racial-preference-in-medical-treatment insanity is coming for you, too. Do you actually think the lunatics behind it will stop with kidney disease?”

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