Immigration Bills

H.R. 692, Nuclear Family Priority Act, would eliminate current green card categories for adult brothers and sisters, married and unmarried adult sons and daughters, and create a special non-working visa for parents. By not providing an increase in any other category, overall immigration would decrease by more than 111,800 per year (1.118 million a decade). The numbers would also be indirectly reduced by this bill because there would be fewer spouses or parents of U.S. citizens that would be brought into the country by immigrants.

To establish requirements for any health reform legislation enacted by the Congress or the President during the 111th Congress.

The bill would eliminate the extended family visa categories (e.g., married sons and daughters of citizens, etc.), thus ending “chain migration” as recommended by the bi-partisan Barbara Jordan Commission in 1997. Chain migration is the process where seemingly endless “chains” of foreign nationals are allowed to immigrate to the United States, since our laws allow citizens and lawful permanent residents to bring in their non-nuclear, adult family members. It is the primary mechanism that has caused legal immigration in this country to quadruple since the 1960s.

H.R. 1430, the SAFE for America Act, would end the visa lottery, which gives out 50,000 green cards each year and does not take into account humanitarian need, family connections, or potential contribution to the United States.

S. 703 would expand chain migration by expanding the definition of "immediate relative" for purposes of exemptions from the numerical cap. It would include children of U.S. citizens' parents accompanying or following them to join the parent.