The Trump administration has in some ways been less good at direct results when it comes to immigration than in creating the perception of results. And while that sounds negative, it’s not. One of the reason we got mass migration under Biden was social media. Conservatives often attributed the mass migration to Soros or large organizations, the reality was that it was mostly potential migrants seeing other migrants on social media, especially Facebook and YouTube, talking about how easy it was to come to America. So why not do it? There was nothing to lose.
Under Kirsti Noem, DHS rolled out an aggressive social media presence that made America’s immigration system look like El Salvador. It doesn’t reflect everyday reality for the majority of illegals, but social media image matters more than reality. Most of the potential migrants took a look at deportations to Africa and El Salvador, videos of chained men being marched onto military vehicles, and decide that America wasn’t a good option anymore.
There were also good policies that the Trump administration did, don’t get me wrong, but much of it was a matter of perception.
Ditto for foreign students. The Trump administration’s ability to actually deport open terrorist enthusiasts here on visas who committed crimes has run into legal lawfare, but many more have self-deported, others have had visas denied and still more never bothered to come. And so the media is mourning a drop of 17% in new foreign students.
(The number of existing foreign students only fell 1%.)
The decline is concentrated exactly where it should be. “The largest drops occurred among applicants from Asia and Africa.”
This is how we got Obama and Kamala. We don’t need any more Obamas and Kamalas.
According to the New York Times breakdown, the number of Iranian students fell 86%, the number of Syrian students fell 63%, the number of Lebanese students fell 31%, the number of Qatari students fell 21% and the number of Pakistani students fell 20%.
Meanwhile the number of European students remained steady or actually increased, with Greek students up 2%, Australian students up 4%, Israeli students up 8%, Belgian students up 15% and Solvenian students up 11%.
Chinese students however are down 12%.
This is how you do it.
