Do you think Trump is anti-immigration?

Democrats, Marxists, and Social Justice Warriors all claim that Donald Trump is opposed to immigration.  Many libertarians and Objectivists agree.  Many of these people believe that this is obvious because Trump has acted to prevent the flood of illegal aliens from crossing our borders that had taken place during the Biden administration.  Mind you, Congress has created immigration laws which were signed by previous Presidents.  It is the duty of the current President to enforce those laws.

There are good reasons why the immigration laws create a process of evaluation for those we allow to reside in the USA.  Terrorists, murderers, thieves, slavers, rapists, child molesters, and those who would wind up on the welfare rolls of a country already deeply in debt are all very reasonably considered undesirables or even Deplorables.  Many a Democrat believes that most Republicans are Deplorables, so surely the above enumerated undesirable immigrants must qualify as Deplorables.

Wait.  Judgments are made in a context.  Democrats have a different context for their evaluation of immigration.  For Democrats, a Deplorable is someone who is not dependent upon government and therefore not easily controlled.  So these undesirable immigrants are actually quite desirable in the eyes of those who lust for power.  No one lusts for power more than the Democrat, Marxist, Social Justice Warrior elitists.  The quest for power justifies any act.

Is there a basis for people who are not lunatics to believe that Trump is anti-immigration?  On the surface, his implementation of a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas appears to justify a belief that Trump is anti-immigrant.  Let us consider this evaluation with some care.

The H-1B visa program allows people with special skills, generally based on years of education, to reside in the USA for 3 years.  They may renew their H-1B visa for another 3 years.  There is a lottery to apply for an H-1B visa for those who would work for a for-profit company.  Non-profits, universities, and federal laboratory candidates do not have to be filtered and limited by the lottery.  There is a general lottery of 65,000 visa applications for those with a bachelor's degree or higher.  There is a smaller lottery of 20,000 for those applicants with master's degrees or higher which were awarded by U.S. accredited universities.  In Fiscal 2025, there were 343,981 registrations for the opportunity to apply for the H-1B visa.  There were about 120,000 selections.  First off, there are many more nationals of other countries who have master's degrees or higher than 20,000 and there are many more total registrants than there are total slots available.  The $100,000 fee did not apply to these 2025 applicants.  It will apply in 2026, but not to those foreign nationals who are already legally in the USA.  Most of them have graduated from U.S. universities.  One of the main consequences of Trump's changes to the program is that the foreign nationals who are already legally in the USA and who have been educated here, will be much less likely to be forced to leave the USA because someone who is not already here is being brought into the U.S. to work.  About 250,000 international students graduate from U.S. universities each year.  There are almost certain to be more than 120,000 registrants for H-1B visas from these students in 2026.  The number of H-1B visas awarded will not be very different after the Trump changes than before them.

In fact, Trump made it very clear to Laura Ingraham, who hates the H-1B visa program, that he sees a need for the special skills of H-1B visa holders.  I fully agree with Trump on this.  I have sponsored four scientists for H-1B visas over the years to work for my laboratory.  I currently have one Ph.D. scientist on my staff who is awaiting word on his application, which appears to have been delayed by the government "shut-down."

Laura Ingraham, J. D. Vance, and other Republicans who oppose the program commonly cite the idea that there are plenty of American residents who can meet all of our technical and scientific needs without foreign workers.  I have news for you.  Getting a Ph.D. in the hard sciences is a much tougher challenge and much more work than most Americans wish to undertake.  The IQ requirement is very high to begin with and the U.S. population compared to the world population is about 4%.  Laura, this means that there are many more high IQ people in the rest of the world than there are in the USA.  Yes, we more than hold our own on a per capita basis, but we are foolish to not import as much of the intelligence and dedication to professional skill development that the rest of the world can offer us.  The people we keep in the USA under the H-1B visa program have proven to be so productive that they have raised the standard of living for all Americans.  These are people we should welcome with open arms.

There have been abuses in the H-1B program by some companies.  Trump has been addressing some of those abuses.  The $100,000 fee on hires from outside the USA is one way he is addressing the abuses.  There is a claim that companies pay H-1B visa holders less than they pay comparable Americans.  This is not the case for my laboratory.  I am required by the Department of Labor to pay my present applicant more than I pay my American scientists.  In addition to that, I had to pay application fees and lawyer fees and put in tens of hours of my own time to do the voluminous paperwork for his application.  Believe me, if I could find a comparable American citizen scientist, I would find it much easier and more profitable to hire him (or her).

I would like to see the U.S. immigration law be more welcoming of immigrants than it is.  I do believe in a vetting process.  Open borders is not a viable option for a country with concern for the safety of its people and when that country is substantially a welfare state in extreme debt.  We benefit from immigrants who are committed to being productive.  Productivity is a necessary measure of merit. I think Trump realizes this.

Senate Minority Report on Global Warming: Signed by More than 700 Scientists & Economists

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Minority Report on Global Warming has been signed by more than 700 scientists and economists. I am one of the signers of this report. This Minority Report proves that there is no scientific consensus in favor of the idea that man's emissions of CO2 are causing or will cause highly destructive global warming. This Minority Report was the work of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and a member of his staff named Marc Morano.

Many critics of this Minority Report complain that some of the signatories are not scientists. But the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis is:

• Global warming is occurring and will become worse.
• It is caused by increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
• Man's use of fossil fuels is causing much of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
• The consequences for man, animal-life, and crop production will be catastrophic.
  

Economists have important inputs for the third and fourth bulleted items. Their assessments are very important in judging the catastrophic man-made global warming issue. They have a place at the table with scientists because of the nature of the hypothesis being considered. Critics of the report also complain that many of the scientists are not primarily climatologists. Some are, many are not.

The climate is a complex issue, which very much benefits from a multi-disciplinary analysis. For my money, many climatologists do not have a sufficiently long-term perspective on the Earth's history to fully appreciate and understand the many natural factors controlling climate. Despite this, most of them are not convinced by the AGW alarmists. Geologists are very good contributors to our understanding because they do have this perspective. The work of Ian Plimer in putting together the great book Heaven and Earth is an example of this. Then there is the important role of chemists, biologists, and materials scientists and engineers in understanding how CO2 is cycled between the atmosphere, oceans, and the Earth's crust. The role of physicists in understanding the cycles of the sun with its changing irradiance, the changing solar winds, and its changing electromagnetic fields and the interaction of that field with the cosmic ray flux from space is also critical. Their experience with cloud chambers and cosmic ray measurements is also critical. Biologists also play an important role in assessing the effects upon humans, plant, and animal life. They are all needed in the assessment of catastrophic AGW.

Finally, if the catastrophic AGW hypothesis were true and if man could do anything to prevent the worst consequences, then the very importance of the problem should engage a wide range of scientists, engineers, and economists. The actions to be taken would be drastic and have severe consequences for the lives of the entire world population. So, the thesis of AGW ought to be so sound that all of these scientists and economists will be convinced that a unified and determined human response to AGW is justified. Their many talents will likely be called upon to implement that response. So, the catastrophic AGW believers should be very excited to enlist the interest and the support of all these scientists, engineers, and economists. To do this, however, means that their critical assessment of the hypothesis must be welcomed and their judgment should be respected. It is up to the catastrophic AGWs to make a sound and compelling case for their hypothesis so they can enlist the support of the broad scientific, engineering, and economic expert communities.

In comparison to the Senate Minority Report on AGW, the UN IPCC report Summary, which is where the mass of the alarmist claims are made, has only 52 authors, many of whom are also not scientists and many of whom are simply politicians promoting government interests in expanding their power. While hundreds of scientists contributed their scientific findings to the scientific parts of the report, these main parts of the report are also full of caveats that it is not clear that catastrophic AGW is implied by their findings. They are clearly loathe to make the long-term predictions which are made in the Summary of the ICPP reports. Indeed, many scientists have been refusing to participate in the UN ICPP reports over time because they believe the Summaries are such a poor representation of the science in the main parts of the reports.

The catastrophic AGW hypothesis has clearly failed to be convincing to those scientists who have taken the time to evaluate its claims and generally to study the issue of the Earth's climate and the factors controlling it. It is time for the politicians and the public to understand the failure of the catastrophic global warming hypothesis to convince such knowledgeable and rational evaluators as those who have signed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Minority Report.

Media Personalities as Scientific Spokesmen

While most Americans believe the media is rather untrustworthy, most also believe them when they claim that all but a few crackpot scientists, such as me, believe both that man has caused global warming by using fossil fuels and that this will cause a future catastrophe for man and all the animal life of the planet. They commonly believe that drastic action is needed to reduce fossil fuel energy use around the world, or human civilization is doomed.

Because few Americans are willing to actually read the scientific record and to assess it critically, they are dependent upon the word of someone for their opinion on this seemingly important issue. They turn to the media as the experts in assessing the scientific consensus. The media then err due to their lack of understanding of science, their bias for the dramatic and catastrophic, and due to the massive infusions of money into the hands of those alarmist scientists and pretenders from governments and socialists who always want problems only they can solve to increase their power.

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine started a petition for scientists who do not believe that man has caused catastrophic global warming. More than 31,000 American scientists have signed this petition. More than 9,000 hold Ph.D. degrees and many of them are very well regarded scientists in their fields. I have signed this petition, although the website has not yet been updated to include my name, which I sent in weeks ago. If you are a scientist who has not been taken in by the sadly unscientific arguments of the global warming alarmists, please make the effort to sign this petition. Our civilization depends upon the use of fossil fuels and this nonsensical argument that man is thereby ruining the planet is being used to greatly damage the quality of human life and to justify a disregard for the rights of the individual. The socialists and governments are always looking for any excuse to attack the rights of the individual. Protecting those rights is the principal issue of our lives.