The Daily Signal - We Need A Travel Ban, Now | Victor Davis Hanson

Episode Date: January 11, 2025

In this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Hanson, author of “The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation,” explores the unprecedented state of illegal immigration in the US and proposes solutions to restore border security. Some of the solutions mentioned include: “I think that whatever your status is, if you are sending money back to a foreign country from the United States that is singled out as a source of illegal immigration—Mexico, Latin America, for example—then the United States government should put a 10 to 20 or 30% tax on all remittances.” “We’re the only country in the world that gives unqualified citizenship to people who happen to be born here and then anchor an entire family. Why not also put a 10, 20 year ban on people who have been detained here illegally and stop them from applying for a green card or legal readmissions for 20 years, that would be a very powerful deterrent.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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immigration in terms of security, a Sudan, a Syria, countries that scored terrorism like Venezuela, the Middle East, especially Iran, Russia as well, why would we let them send people here that we have no background checks have not adjudicated their status? So we should have a travel ban, an immediate deportation, and immediate consequences for the mother country that knowingly sends these people here, and that too would be a deterrent. Hi, I'm Victor Davis Hansen and I'm reporting today in partnership with the Daily Signal. I want to talk about illegal immigration.

You know, this is the point in our history that we've never been before. We have not a poorest border, but no border at all. We've had somewhere between 10 to 12 million illegal entrance since the Biden administration began, there is no real corpus of immigration law, it's been destroyed. We're at a historical period in our country where 55 million people, never such a large number of people born outside the United States that were residing here. In terms of percentages, almost 16% of the population was not born in the United States. That's an enormous task of assimilation, integration, civic education, and we just haven't been doing

any of that. So what are we going to do? Well, the first thing is we need to stop catch and release. We need to make entrance, legal entrance, go back to their country if they're applying for refugee status. You cannot come here and then say you're a refugee. You must ascertain that and prove that at the consulant overseas. We've got to finish the wall. It's a 2,000 mile border, and we've never quite been able to continue. We've got a wall or fence or somehow obstruct the entire 2,000-mile border. That will save manpower. It will save time and cost, and it will have an enormous deterrent effect.

Next couple of things are a little bit trickier. I think that whatever your status is, if you are sending money back to a foreign country from the United States that is singled out, is a source of illegal migration, Mexico, Latin America, for example, then the United States government should put a 10 to 20 or 30 percent tax on all remittances. That would earn us up to maybe somewhere around $20 billion. And that would also detour Mexico to take one example that depends on remittances at its largest source of foreign exchange, greater than tourism, greater than its oil revenues.

And yet so often the American taxpayer, state, local, federal, through generous subsidies, free up the cash so that the illegal resident can send it back for social necessities that the Mexican government itself is responsible for. So we're subsidizing everybody but ourselves. I think it's very important that we start looking at the countries that are the source of illegal. immigration in terms of security, Sudan, Syria, terrorist countries that support terrorism like Venezuela, the Middle East, especially Iran, Russia as well. Why would we let them send people here that we have no background checks have not adjudicated their status? So we should have a travel ban, an immediate deportation, and immediate consequences for the mother

country that knowingly sends these people here. And that too would be a deterrent. We've got to also look at, we anchor babies. The 14th Amendment didn't really ever say, as sometimes alleged, that if you're born in the United States, then you're an automatic citizen that says if you're born in the United States and not subject to the laws of another country. All the people coming in some sense are subject to the laws of another country. So we have to redefine that either through legislation or renewed attempts in the courts. Europe, the left always looks for guidance. Seventeen countries don't even allow it.

And the other 13 or 14 have restrictions that qualify it. So we're the only country in the world that gives unqualified citizenship to people who happen to be born here and then anchor an entire family. Why not also put a 10, 20-year business? ban on people who have been detained here illegally and stop them from applying for a green card or legal readmissions for 20 years? That would be a very powerful deterrent. In other words, we would announce some time in February and say, we want all of you to know all 12 million who came here during the Biden administration to take the first iteration or cohort. You have 30 days to go

back, if you do not go back to your country and you are detained, arrested here in the United States, you will be deported, but you will not be given any chance to get a green card for 10 to 20 years, depending on how the courts or legislation adjudicates it. And finally, I think it's time to look at how we deport people. The first 500,000 who have committed a crime will be no problem. There's unanimous consent they should be deported immediately. They're wrecking havoc on the American population. The next iteration, the 1.5, 1.7 million people who have already gone through the system,

they've been adjudicated, they failed to show up for the courting hearings. Are they left detention when they were facing deportation? Those would be the next group that would face deportation. The third group, people, as I said earlier, from terrorist countries or terrorist supporting countries, no one is going to sympathize with their residents here. The fourth group is a little trickier, but I think we could pretty easily find hundreds of thousands, if not millions of able-bodied residents who are on public assistance and who have not been here five years. If you haven't been here five years, you came during the Biden Open Borders era.

You were on welfare of some sort and you're able to work. You should go back home. That would leave a large group of people who have been here five years. They've never committed a crime. They're not on public assistance. And they want to get a green card, not citizenship, a green card. I think if we had one public opinion and support by deporting the most egregious offenders, say 10 to 12 million, then I think in a bipartisan fashion we could work out a system for the law-abiding,

the productive, and the long-residing American residents and allow them to pay a fine to recapture legality and stay in the United States. It's going to be a tough road to restore border security because the prior administration didn't believe in it. But I think now that the White House, the Senate and the House are in Republican hands, it's absolutely possible. It can be done rather quickly. Thank you very much. I'm Victor Hanson for The Daily Signal. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Please subscribe to the Daily Signal for our next episode. From that first coffee of the day to dropping off your dry cleaning on the way.

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