Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump is fundamentally a xenophobe. He hates all immigrants, especially nonwhite ones. That goes for legal immigrants as well as illegal ones, although there is a special exception for rich, white immigrants. Trump is trying to fight immigration and immigrants on many fronts, from physically locking down the border to sweeping up people in the U.S. illegally (or not) and deporting them.
Another front he is starting to work on is preventing people legally admitted from getting a green card—and thus becoming permanent residents. To do this, he is now proposing a rule requiring legal immigrants applying for a green card to post a $100,000 bond as part of the application process. It is not clear under what conditions, if any, the applicant would get the bond back. The obvious initial impact would be that any legal immigrant who doesn't have $100,000 lying around in spare change couldn't even apply for a green card. To Trump, effectively banning green cards, except for the very wealthy, is a feature, not a bug.
This is not the first time Trump tried to charge $100,000 for something immigration related. Round 1 was imposing a $100,000 fee for companies applying for an H-1B visa for a skilled worker, often in tech, finance, or medicine. Nominally, this was to protect American workers from losing jobs to immigrants from India and other countries who were willing to work for far less than the prevailing salary in their industry. In reality, Stephen Miller hates people with skin browner than his own, no matter what valuable skills they have, often skills acquired on someone else's dime. A federal judge shot this project down.
Yet another way Trump is trying to use money to curtail immigration is to require visitors from 50 African countries to post a $15,000 bond when applying for a visa. If the applicant later overstays the visa time limit or applies for a different kind of visa while in the U.S., the bond is forfeited. The applicant gets the bond back only if he or she leaves the country within the allotted time span. (V)