Our real work begins after the election.

Get ready for the Lame Duck! The effort to expand immigration even further after the election is already underway, with reports of a group of House Republicans and Democrats working on a bill that would combine some border measures with an amnesty and a "focus" that sounds like increases in legal immigration.

Tell your Representative what you think about that.

In the meantime, take a look at the immigration positions that Harris and Trump are running on.

Let's recap the country's circumstances at this moment.

President Biden has overseen the largest wave of immigration in U.S. history, on pace to add 35 million people over a single decade. American communities have been overwhelmed and displaced, border deaths have reached record highs, and child labor is now more prevalent than it has been since the early 20th century.

Sixty five percent of Americans say immigration is on the wrong track. A plurality of voters say immigration is the first issue the next president must address, more than any other issue.

What might the next four years look like?

Vice President Harris is running to continue President Biden's immigration policies

The good news is that Harris and her team have clearly decided that they must project a greater concern about border control and security in order to win the election. When Harris talks about immigration, she emphasizes "security" and "order" and enforcement against transnational criminal organizations. She has changed her position on decriminalizing illegal border crossings. She rarely talks about rewarding illegal immigration. Should she win, the citizen lobby will have to hold her to the hawkish impression she has been running on.

Unfortunately, there is every indication that Vice President Harris would continue or expand on Biden's immigration program.

Harris' central talking point is her support for a failed bipartisan Senate bill, backed by President Biden, that would codify into law the Biden administration's practice of releasing inadmissible aliens into the United States.

Harris also touts Biden's comprehensive bill introduced in the House, the "U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021," which would, through amnesty and increases to legal immigration, issue 37 million green cards over the first decade of its existence. That's roughly the population of the state of California.

Aside from her tough-sounding rhetoric, Vice President Harris is running on the worst immigration platform NumbersUSA has seen in our nearly thirty year history.

Both of the bills Harris supports reward illegal immigration and increase green cards. Both bills would put the U.S. on track to add another California worth of people over a ten year period. The Senate bill (also known as the "Lankford bill") would do so by making catch-and-release at the border permanent while increasing green cards. The Biden bill in the House would do so by giving green cards to millions of people who are in the country illegally while increasing legal immigration.

When asked if she would have done anything differently from President Biden over the last four years, Harris said "there is not a thing that comes to mind."

With one notable exception, Trump is running on a very popular immigration platform

President Trump has a 10-point lead over Vice President Harris on immigration. That's his biggest advantage over the former prosecutor. If Trump wins, immigration will be a big reason why.

Even Trump's political opponents recognize the value of some of his positions. The Biden-Harris administration took a page out of the Trump administration's playbook earlier this year and negotiated a deal to persuade Mexico to push migrants away from the U.S. Mexico border. The bipartisan group we discussed at the beginning of this newsletter are telling reporters that they will likely include Trump's "Remain In Mexico" policy to help pass their amnesty and immigration expansion.

Trump has made enforcement the focus of his immigration platform. He and his running mate, Sen. Vance, talk about how their enforcement policies would help Americans at the workplace and in the housing market. Harris' running mate, Gov. Walz talks about how their approach to the border would help the Chamber of Commerce. Not surprisingly, Trump appears to be siphoning working class voters away from the Democratic ticket as a result.

The Achilles heel of Trump's otherwise popular immigration platform is Trump's repeated comments to the media and on the campaign trail that he wants to radically increase the inflow of foreign workers and legal immigration. Most voters, on the other hand, want to radically reduce the numbers.

Trump says he wants to issue green cards to every foreign national who graduates from a U.S. college or university, a proposal that could quickly DOUBLE legal immigration.

Strong majorities of Americans favor legal immigration levels to be held at less than 750,000 per year; Trump's college green card idea would increase immigration to roughly 2,000,000 per year. Were he to do that, he would end up with roughly the same level of immigration Kamala Harris would, even if he were to successfully end the Biden-Harris practice of releasing a million inadmissible aliens into the country every year. Needless to say, Trump voters are not supportive of mass immigration. Should he win, the citizen lobby will have to discourage him from pursuing this unpopular idea.

Vance and Walz offer a clear contrast

Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, gave the best campaign promise of 2024 when he vowed that a Trump-Vance White House would be "done importing foreign workers. We're going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages." That stance has broad public support.

Walz, on the other hand, said he and Harris support the failed Senate plan in part because the Chamber of Commerce endorsed the bill. Harris and Walz may not be trying to harm American workers, but their vision of more immigration increases, catch-and-release, and parole abuse demonstrates profound indifference to the two thirds of Americans without college degrees who are disproportionately robbed of wealth accumulation by federal immigration policies.

This bears repeating: Voters like immigrants. And most like immigration. But most want less of it.

"American voters keep on voting for less immigration," J.D. Vance said shortly before the GOP Convention, "and our politicians keep on rewarding us with more." The result of the November election will help clarify how great our challenge will be to reverse that trend. And the next battle to achieve lower/credible/sensible/sustainable immigration will likely take place before the next administration and Congress start their work in January.

Whatever happens in November, we are going to tackle these challenges together. At the end of the day, you are the ones we have been waiting for.

Thank you for all that you do,