Column: Trump’s immigration ban is ridiculous

Chris Picazo, Opinions Editor

Donald Trump has said a lot of things during his campaigning for the GOP ballot, but one thing that seems to stick out is his promise to ban immigration and deport any illegal immigrants.

The most surprising thing about his thoughts and proposals on the matter is that there are actually people out there who agree with him banning all immigration and building a wall along the border.

I see people sharing Trump’s ideologies on social media all the time. While I would like to think they are sharing the images ironically, there are people out there who legitimately think Trump would make a good presidential candidate.

First of all, Trump is a not a good candidate.  People who argue that his tax plans would do good for the U.S. have not truly looked into his plans that would cost the U.S. trillions of dollars and add more debt to the already staggering amount it is.

Cutting taxes is good and all, but according to Fortune, the outcome of his tax plan would cost the federal government $9.5 trillion from 2016 to 2026 and an additional $15 trillion the decade after that.  You cannot say that plans would be successful with figures like that.

When it comes to how Trump feels about immigration, I won’t even go in-depth about how ridiculous building a wall along the U.S. and Mexico border is. I’ll let season four of “Arrested Development” explain how crazy the idea when they used it as a plot three years ago.

If people are curious though, The Telegraph in the United Kingdom reported that building a wall and deporting approximately 11 million illegal immigrants would cost an estimated $935 billion.

The real issue of immigration in Trump’s proposal during his campaign is that he wants to completely shutout all Muslims from entering the United States.

This is completely unconstitutional as it discriminates an entire group of people based on religion.  It also punishes many people who have done nothing wrong.

I have seen people on social media and have even spoken with people who agree with Trump about immigration.

I always get the excuse that it for the betterment of the country and also protection.

People who truly agree with Trump don’t agree because they it’s better or for protection. They agree out of prejudice and discrimination.

Why would people want to affect the lives of innocent people who have done nothing wrong?

The Washington Post reported that Trump wants to ban all 1.6 million Muslim from entering the U.S. to stop a much small number of terrorists, who also happen to be Muslim.

Banning that many people solves nothing.  It just an act of racism and discrimination towards people.

As I type this column, I am reading comments on the Facebook group “Donald Trump for President 2016.”

It took less than five seconds to find something that says people who are not American do not belong in the U.S. and everyone who does not speak English should go back to their native home country.

These are the people that agree with Trump claiming that banning immigration is for national security purposes.

If the reasons are truly for national security and not out of racism and ignorance then I must have not learned something in school or haven’t been reading up on the news.

Chris Picazo is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or cepicazo@eiu.edu.