In a speech to a joint session of Congress tonight, Donald Trump said, among many other things, the following [1]:

I am going to bring back millions of jobs. Protecting our workers also means reforming our system of legal immigration.

The current, outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers and puts great pressure on taxpayers. Nations around the world, like Canada, Australia and many others, have a merit-based immigration system.

It’s a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially. Yet in America we do not enforce this rule, straining the very public resources that our poorest citizens rely upon.

According to the National Academy of Sciences, our current immigration system costs American taxpayers many billions of dollars a year. Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration, and instead adopting a merit-based system, we will have so many more benefits. It will save countless dollars, raise workers’ wages and help struggling families, including immigrant families, enter the middle class. And they will do it quickly, and they will be very, very happy, indeed.

I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nation's security and to restore respect for our laws.

If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens, then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.

If you're a Trump supporter, please pretend for a minute you're Nancy Pelosi or Charles Schumer and read the last part again. If you're Pelosi, Schumer, or other Democratic Party leaders, any time a GOP leader wants to work with you on "immigration reform" that means some form of mass legalization. The support for merit-based legalization rather than family ties-based chain migration is a change from George W Bush or Barack Obama, but the rest could have been easily said by them.

Bush, Obama, and countless other politicians all wanted to work with those across the aisle on some form of "reform". All of them said how great it would be for Americans, just like Trump says. All used increasing border security as a carrot. And, all presented rewarding massive law-breaking as a way to "restore respect for our laws". For just one example, a few years ago Cardinal Timothy Dolan said "immigration reform would... restore the rule of law".

Aside from the merit-based immigration part, Trump didn't say anything that I haven't heard countless times from other amnesty supporters in the 14+ years I've been writing about immigration over thousands of posts. He's just better at fooling certain people than George W Bush was.

What Trump should have done instead was used massive and illegal immigration to undercut its supporters to their base. Just as tens of millions are fooled by Trump, tens of millions are tricked by Dem leaders and others into enabling massive and illegal immigration. Tens of millions end up supporting illegal immigration simply because the loudest opposition to it present dumb arguments that don't appeal to them. There are smart and powerful arguments Trump could use that would turn them against their leaders, yet Trump supports working with those leaders on "reform" instead.

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[1] nytimes · com/2017/02/28/us/politics/trump-congress-video-transcript.html