The establishment media have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel this election, in their desperate search for mud to fling at their arch-nemesis Donald Trump.
From the wailing and gnashing of teeth that ensued when Trump’s half-a-billion dollar bond was reduced to $175 million by the New York appellate court, to the pearl clutching over the willful misunderstanding of Trump’s “bloodbath” metaphor, the establishment media types have been tying themselves in knots in their quest to smear Trump’s name.
And now, The Washington Post has increased its contribution to this embarrassing enterprise by trying to manufacture some conflict between Trump and his wife, Melania.
The Post began the attempt right in the title, which alleged that “Trump’s mother-in-law came into the country by a process he derided.”
What exactly did The Post mean by this headline?
Based on an analysis of immigration records released on Monday, The Post was able to track the steps by which Trump’s mother-in-law, Amalija Knavs, who died in January at the age of 78, came into the country.
The Post reported that Knavs was able to enter the country and eventually become a citizen thanks to the family-based process of immigration which, the Post noted, Trump publicly spoke out against and sought to overhaul during the course of his presidency.
Meaning, as The Post explained, according to United States law dating back to 1965, citizens can apply for their parents or minor children to come into the country without a lengthy visa waiting period.
According to the recently released records, Melania Trump did just that for her parents in 1997, and then again when her parents applied for green cards in 2008. Legal permanent residency was granted on March 16, 2010. Knavs and her husband, Viktor, didn’t became U.S. citizens until Aug. 9, 2018.
Has the Washington Post lost any remaining credibility that it once had?
Clearly, then, what The Post tried to imply was that, had Trump been president in the late 90’s or early 2000’s, then his in-laws could never have become citizens and, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Trump cannot be in harmony with each other as a result.
What The Post missed, however, was that Trump never had anything against immigration in and of itself..
For one, if Trump and his wife ever clashed over thse issues, they presumably dealt with those issues, and subsequently moved on from them, years ago.
For another, what Trump objected to, as president and as a presidential candidate, were the illegal methods of immigration, and the breakdown of a process that once worked, but now has been abused by bad actors to allow unacceptable levels of chain migration.
Trump, via the RAISE Act, wanted to limit this family sponsorship to spouses and minor children, removing parents from the fast track of sponsorship and instating a system that would prioritize skilled workers.
As The Federalist explained at the time, had this act passed, it would have reformed U.S. immigration to follow similar systems that had been standard in countries like Canada and Australia for years.
The point of the bill was not to eliminate the United States’ immigration processes, but to reform them.
What The Post failed to understand was that Trump, and, indeed, conservatives in general, were actually pro-immigration.
Instead, conservatives’ stance on immigration has been to prioritize those immigrants that would be materially good for the United States, and who would actively benefit American society.
Of course, legitimate asylum requests did not fall under that stipulation, but overall, that is what differentiated the conservative position on immigration from that of the left.
Those on the left have been actively advocating for allowing immigrants who are actively harmful to American society, as the tragic series of murders and assaults of American citizens has sadly demonstrated.
And that was what the Post failed to understand in its weak attempt to pit Trump and his wife against each other.
Conservatives never hated immigration.
What Trump and conservatives hated was illegal immigration.
