What Can Donald Trumps’s Immigration Policy Learn from Australia?

Faced with the prospect of a Trump Presidency, the world has reacted with alternating amusement at the idea that he thinks he can win, and horror at the fact that he might. For the duration of the Republican primaries, we're all pretty much going to look like this.

But if there's one thing more frightening than the idea of Trump winning with no policies, it's the idea of him winning with policies. But just how plausible are they? Could his thoughts on border control—seen by many to be his most outlandish—actually work?

Well, Donald, lucky for you Australia has already tried it. Let's look through some of your immigration policies and, using Australia as a focus group, figure out why they might not work, and what you can do about it.

1. PUTTING UP A WALL

Why It Won't Work: Look, we thought about building a wall. We even drew up plans for a wall that was TWO THOUSAND METERS HIGH. Unfortunately, the Indian Ocean is about four thousand meters high, and no asylum seekers were prepared to swim down that far to climb over it. Basically, it suited nobody.

But we did build a metaphorical wall, cutting off every single way any refugee could possibly access Australia. We refused citizenship, put them in indefinite detention, sent many back to the countries they'd came from, and even paid people smugglers to not bring any refugees over! And did it work? You better believe it didn't. Yeah, they pretty much kept coming.

The Solution: Australians believe that the boats have stopped, and that's because our Prime Minister keeps telling everyone they've been stopped. And he's stopped telling us when they do arrive. So if you tell your citizens that America has built a wall and that no more Mexicans are coming in, then that should do the job. And you'll save lots of money on the wall. Unless, of course you were going to get someone else to pay for it.

2. MAKE MEXICO PAY FOR THE WALL

Why It Won't Work: Ah. Okay, so saving you money on a wall isn't a big incentive because you're planning to make Mexico pay for it anyway.

Sure, we haven't had much experience with walls, but we know a lot about countries paying other countries to take care of their refugee problem, and brother, it ain't them that do the paying.

As of June, we paid Cambodia alone $55.5 [$40.67 US] million to take four refugees, which probably sounds like a decent per capita amount to you, given this line from your Presidential announcement: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China." Depending on the exchange rate, four somebodies from China would come to about $55.5 million. So we're definitely on the same page here.

The problem is that the money's going in the wrong direction. Bottom line, nobody's going to pay you for the honor of enacting dumb policies.

The Solution: Build more apartment buildings and house the refugees there. That way, if you have to pay someone to take refugees, you're paying you and you get to keep the profits. Yay!

3. AMERICAN JOBS FOR AMERICANS

Why It Won't Work: Come on, we've all seen Wall-E. Americans are lazy fuckers.

We've also seen all the evidence that Americans don't like doing the jobs that immigrants typically take. And although the idea of immigrants being the ones that society deems worthy of picking fruit in the sun all day for ten bucks an hour or cleaning toilets in your shitty hotels isn't exactly ideal, that's the level of racism we need you to work back UP to. That's how far from reality this policy is.

The Solution: Continuing to let them take jobs will actually improve the economy, leading to more jobs for Americans. This is one we've actually tried, and it's worked. One hundred and sixty Karen refugees from Burma settled in the country town of Nhill, and have added $40 million to the economy and 70 new jobs. If it helps, think of this tactic as an elaborate trap. You're luring them in, playing the long game, letting them settle, until one day… BANG! You realize there's actually no real problem.

4. DEPORTING CRIMINAL ALIENS

Why It Won't Work:

You've promised to deport 11 million immigrants who are in the US illegally. VICE recently interviewed Duncan Wood, director of Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute and asked him if this was possible. He said this:

"You couldn't do it all at once. It would take time, and you would have to go through due process here. So this is assuming you can bypass all the procedures of the American legal system, the court system, the appeals process, and all the other things. But supposing that you could sort of wave the magic wand and get past all of that and say, 'Today we're going to start deporting people!', you've got to work out where they come from. You can't just deport them across the border into Mexico. Not all of them are Mexicans."

Well, actually you can wave a magic wand. Australia has done it.

And we didn't have to figure out where they came from. We just stuck them in detention centers first. We'll figure out where they came from later.

The difference here is that we got rid of them as they came. It's way harder to find them once they're in the community and working and giving back to the economy and all that weird immigrant shit they do. Far too much effort. You should have thought of this plan ages ago. Why didn't you run in 2012?

The Solution: Look, people come to America because it's filled with freedom and opportunity and flags and stuff. If you can somehow tone down that rhetoric and get your economy, healthcare, and education standards down, then they'll all leave for South America of their own free will. And from what I've seen of your policies, you're well on your way. Kudos!

5. DEPORTING ANCHOR BABIES

Why iI Won't Work: Your stance against "anchor babies"—and I don't mean Megyn Kelly, hahahahahahahahaha, but rather children of immigrants born on US soil and therefore afforded protection as citizens—is impressive. Not many politicians are brave enough to get tough on babies. "I'd much rather find out whether or not anchor babies are citizens because a lot of people don't think they are," you said.

A lot of people haven't read your constitution's 14th amendment and don't realize that, yes, they are citizens. It's okay, I wouldn't expect a candidate for President to bother with that.

Luckily, we don't have such an amendment, which means we can deport two-year-olds without any problem whatsoever. Even though they were born here and would be rendered stateless, that's apparently not an obstacle.

(I know most of my "why it won't work" examples have been showing you that we've tried it and failed, but this one is more "it won't work because your system is set up to prevent people from doing shitty things like this.")

The Solution:

Look, if the anchor baby is welded to the patch of land they were born on, why not try selling those patches of land to foreign governments? You're in real estate, it shouldn't be too hard. Tell Mexico they have to move their embassy to the maternity ward at New York Presbyterian, thus making it technically foreign soil. That way, no child will ever be born in the USA, and you can grant instant citizenship to any baby you see fit. The right kind of baby, if you get my drift.

White. I'm talking about white babies. Sorry, I wasn't sure if it was clear.

Follow Lee on Twitter.