Karl W. Smith, Columnist

Trump’s Latest Immigration Offer Is Too Good for Democrats to Pass Up

Even if it’s not serious, his proposal to allow more legal immigrants is appealing both as policy and as politics.

February 8, 2019 at 12:00 PM UTC

Karl W. Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Previously, he was vice president for federal policy at the Tax Foundation and assistant professor of economics at the University of North Carolina.

Make that deal, Madame Speaker.
Photographer: Doug Mills/Pool The New York Times

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There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that President Donald Trump actually wants to increase legal immigration to “the largest numbers ever,” as he claimed this week. Yes, he backed up that (apparently ad-libbed) remark the day after his State of the Union address, but not even Trump’s own aides take his comments seriously. Is there any reason anyone else should?

In this case, yes: Democrats should take Trump up on his offer — and make it a centerpiece of their 2019 congressional agenda. More immigration would do enormous good for the U.S. economy, the U.S.’s long-term fiscal deficit, the U.S.’s looming retirement crisis and — not incidentally — the lives of the immigrants themselves.