Chain Migration
Chain Migration refers to the endless and often-snowballing chains of foreign nationals who are allowed to immigrate because the law allows citizens and lawful permanent residents to bring in their extended, non-nuclear family members.
Chain migration is the primary mechanism that has caused legal immigration in this country to quadruple from about 250,000 per year in the 1950s and 1960s to more than one million a year since 1990. As such, it is one of the chief culprits in America's current record-breaking population boom and all the attendant sprawl, congestion, school overcrowding, and other impacts that reduce American's quality of life.
Chain migration is about family reunification beyond the nuclear family. Until the late 1950s, America's immigration tradition of family unity had only included spouses and minor children. But since then, immigrants can also send for their siblings, parents and adult children. These non-nuclear family members actually get precedence over an immigrant’s nuclear family. This ill-conceived system also creates incentives for illegal immigration because adult relatives of legal residents are known to overstay their visas (becoming illegal aliens) in hopes of becoming legal immigrants. Moreover, since hundreds of millions of people in the world have a relative in the U.S., the migration chain can eventually reach them all.
The claim that chain migration is about “family reunification” ignores the fact that each immigrant who comes to the U.S. “disunites” another family by leaving some new relatives behind. If a person really wants to live near his/her extended family, he/she should remain in the country where that extended family lives. Except for the very small percentage of each year's newcomers who are refugees, nobody is forcing immigrants to leave their families.
On February 8, 2007 Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) introduced H.R. 938, The Nuclear Family Priority Act, which would :
- Eliminate chain migration;
- Expedite reunification of nuclear families (i.e., married couples and parents with their young children); and
- Relieve the workload that overwhelms the immigration system and undermines homeland security.
Currently, 22 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives co-sponsor this critical bill. The list is growing every day.
If enacted, the Nuclear Family Priority Act would implement one of the key recommendations of former Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-Texas), the chair of the bi-partisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The Jordan Commission found that America’s national interests would best be served by eliminating extended family-based immigration categories, and it urged that nuclear family members become the sole family-based priority. To fight economic injustice, the Commission urged a reduction in immigration numbers that are now so high as to harm the most vulnerable American workers and their families.
The Visa Lottery
The visa lottery program was established in 1990 and awards approximately 50,000 permanent resident visas to foreign nationals by conducting a random lottery. According to testimony of the State Department’s Inspector General during the 109th Congress, “the Diversity Visa program contains significant risks to national security from hostile intelligence officers, criminals, and terrorists attempting to use the program for entry into the United States as permanent residents.”
Most visas are issued to foreign nationals who have existing relationships with lawful U.S. residents or employers. However, the visa lottery awards permanent resident visas based on pure luck. This leaves open the door to those who want to enter the United States to harm our citizens. For example, the gunman who killed two people at the Los Angeles International Airport on July 4, 2002 was allowed to legally reside in the United States because his wife won the visa lottery.
The visa lottery also is unfair to law-abiding immigrants. Family-sponsored immigrants currently face waits of years to be reunited with their families. Each year, the visa lottery program pushes 50,000 random immigrants ahead of these family-sponsored immigrants waiting to be reunited with their families.
On March 9, 2007, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-SD) introduced H.R. 1430 -- The Security and Fairness Enhancement for America Act of 2007 – which, if enacted, would eliminate the visa lottery program. Currently, 44 Members of Congress co-sponsor this critical bill. The list is growing every day.
Unskilled Workers
The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended the elimination of the category for unskilled workers. The Commission noted, “Unless there is another compelling interest, such as in the entry of nuclear families and refugees, it is not in the national interest to admit unskilled workers. This is especially true when the U.S. economy is showing difficulty in absorbing disadvantaged workers and when efforts towards welfare reform indicate that many unskilled Americans will be entering the labor force.” The Commission continued, “We see little justification for admitting unskilled foreign workers into an economy that must find job opportunities for millions of unskilled U.S. workers.”
At a time when 14 million Americans are unable to find a full-time job (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and the unemployment rate among the 12 million American adults who do not have a high school diploma is almost 9 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics), the Commission recommendation of eliminating the unskilled workers category seems just as appropriate today as it did when the Commission first made the recommendation in 1996. |
