I was enjoying a perfectly seared branzino at Cafe Milano yesterday when a source close to the administration leaned over the white tablecloth and whispered the news. President Trump had just executed a "pocket rescission" to claw back nearly $1 billion in federal funding, neatly bypassing the tedious pearl-clutching of congressional approval. The mainstream media, predictably, has spent the last forty-eight hours hyperventilating because the canceled funds largely targeted Health and Human Services programs for undocumented immigrants and unaccompanied minors facing immigration court.
My dining companion sighed, bracing for the inevitable public outcry. But as I took another sip of a rather robust 2018 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, I realized someone had to step up and say the quiet part loud. It is time we admitted that stripping taxpayer-funded legal counsel from unaccompanied migrant children is simply good fiscal sense.
Let's be honest: we have coddled the undocumented toddler demographic for far too long.
For years, the American taxpayer has been expected to foot the bill every time a non-English-speaking eight-year-old needs to decipher Title 8 of the U.S. Code before a federal immigration judge. We are told this is a matter of basic human rights. But I ask you, what is more fundamentally American than walking into a courtroom, looking a seasoned federal prosecutor in the eye, and arguing your own pro se asylum defense using only hand gestures and a coloring book?
The intricate beauty of the American judicial system is built on adversarial combat. If a nine-year-old from Guatemala cannot properly object to hearsay evidence introduced by ICE prosecutors, that is not a failure of the state. It is a failure of preparation. By forcing them to act as their own legal counsel, we are preparing them for the harsh realities of the free market.
When I was a boy, my father refused to pay for a tutor when I was struggling with elementary Latin. He told me I had to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and leverage the family's extensive private library. It built character. By denying these unaccompanied minors a government attorney, the Trump administration is offering them the exact same opportunity for personal growth. If they truly want to remain in this country, they will figure out how to cross-examine a border patrol agent regarding the credible fear standard.
Critics are particularly enraged by the mechanism the President used to achieve this. The so-called pocket rescission is a procedural maneuver that allows the executive branch to quietly defund programs without asking Congress for permission. Pundits on the left are calling it anti-democratic. I call it a triumph of management.
Have you ever tried to get a committee of 535 people to agree on anything? I once sat on the board of my co-op on the Upper East Side, and it took us six months just to finalize the upholstery for the lobby chairs. By sidestepping the legislative branch entirely, the White House has mercifully spared us the tedious theater of floor debates and committee hearings where bleeding-heart senators parade charts showing the psychological toll of deporting unrepresented orphans. Efficiency should be applauded, not investigated.
If we continue to provide lawyers for children, we create a perverse incentive where every minor who enters the country expects a free law degree by proxy.
This administration understands that the national debt is an existential threat. A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, and suddenly you are talking about real money that could be better spent extending the corporate tax cuts, which, I might add, allowed my portfolio to expand enough to purchase a second home in Telluride. When you look at the big picture, whose future is really being protected here? The temporary comfort of a migrant child in federal custody, or the enduring stability of the American equity markets?
I am told the rescission also targeted the HHS Minority Health office, another bloated initiative that operates on the flawed premise that structural inequities exist in our medical system. I have visited some of the finest concierge medical facilities in this country, and I assure you, the doctors there do not ask about your race. They only ask for your platinum charge card. The great equalizer in American healthcare has always been capital.
Furthermore, the canceled funds zero out federal support for interpreters at rural health clinics. This is being painted as a tragedy, but I view it as an immersive language-learning opportunity. When I traveled to Tuscany last summer, I didn't demand the locals speak English while I was trying to order a truffle risotto. I simply pointed at the menu and spoke louder. If an undocumented immigrant wants a prescription for antibiotics, they should embrace the exact same spirit of cultural immersion.
It is frankly insulting to the intelligence of these youths to suggest they cannot master the federal rules of civil procedure without help.
It is easy for the coastal elites to sit in their ivory towers and demand that we throw money at every undocumented child who crosses the border. But true leadership requires making the hard choices. It requires looking at a vulnerable six-year-old sitting all alone at a heavy oak defense table and saying that their motion for a continuance is denied because we need this money to subsidize a soybean farmer.
We must stop treating the federal budget like a charity fund. The next time a liberal commentator tries to make you feel guilty about this $1 billion rescission, ask yourself this: when was the last time a migrant child offered you a stock tip? When did an unaccompanied minor ever sit on a corporate board and vote to authorize a dividend payout?
They haven't. And until they start contributing to the macroeconomic fabric of this great nation, they can learn to file their own habeas corpus petitions. I, for one, will sleep perfectly soundly tonight, knowing the republic's ledger is balanced, executive overreach has saved my tax bracket, and I have finally secured a reservation at Per Se for Friday evening.