On Feb. 6, the Trump administration announced plans to ban Global Entry for New York state residents. This latest move comes amid growing tensions between both ends of the political spectrum and all it is doing is harming New York state residents.
The Trump administration has long strived to punish sanctuary states and cities. President Donald Trump already announced plans to execute such penalties during his State of the Union address.
While many believe that illegal immigrants are the ones to blame for any and all crimes, it seems as if it is as inaccurate as it can get when looking at the crime statistics.
Per factcheck.com, there is no absolutely accurate information in regards to Trump’s claim. However, some approaches to the research suggest that it is indeed native-born Americans who commit the highest rate of crimes, with a total of 815,689 committing a crime in the year 2015. Illegal and legal immigrants do not even get close to that number, with 37,776 illegal immigrants and 20,323 legal immigrants committed crimes in 2015, adding up to 58,099 total.
Not long after, the state of New York filed a federal lawsuit on Monday, Feb. 10.
The current administration argues that this comes as a response to the recently-passed Green Light law, which allows New York residents over the age of 16 to apply for non-commercial driver’s licenses or learner’s permits, regardless of their citizenship or legal status in the United States. The law also prevents the federal government from accessing state DMV records for immigration purposes, which is the reason the administration decided to block New Yorkers from Global Entry programs.
The administration argues that if they cannot access the database for background information on those applying for Global Entry, then they cannot authorize Global Entry for New York residents.
This is where it gets tricky. All federal travel programs require that applicants hold a valid machine-readable United States passport or a lawful permanent resident cards.
The question for Oswego State is how such measures will affect the Syracuse Hancock International Airport. With so many international students taking part at Oswego State’s various exchange programs, the move by Trump’s administration could and most likely will affect international Oswego State students as they head back home for spring break in one month’s time.
The Trump administration should become better aware of the positive impact that immigration, both legal and illegal, has on the economic system, and must be aware that if they hinder state residents from Global Entry programs, it will impact the financial markets in a negative way.
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