On March 12, the Heritage Foundation posted six words on X: 'We have a legal immigration problem.' That sentence would once have been unthinkable from a major conservative institution. And Heritage is not alone in breaking taboos. Last fall, Vice President Vance told a crowd at the University of Mississippi that the United States needs to get legal-immigration numbers 'way, way down' and attacked high-skill H-1B visas for undercutting American wages. The Republican Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee has proposed legislation that would scrap the H-1B visa program entirely, along with the diversity visa lottery. Analysts at the National Foundation for American Policy estimate that the Trump administration's policies will cut legal immigration by 33 to 50 percent over four years, translating to 1.5 to 2.4 million fewer foreign-born lawful residents. For many years, a robust norm held in American politics: You could be in favor of legal immigration while still opposing illegal...
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