Trump says immigration deal should end chain migration

By Will Racke

President Donald Trump said Friday chain migration should not be preserved in future immigration bills, suggesting that a deal to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program would have to include more than unspecified border security measures.

Trump demanded that any immigration bills, presumably to include a DACA deal, should end practice of allowing recent immigrants to bring members of their extended family into the U.S as well.

“CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!” Trump tweeted.

Though he did not refer to the DACA program, Trump’s statement came a day after reports that he had reached a deal with Congressional Democrats to give legal status to the program’s recipients, commonly known as Dreamers.

Conservative Republicans and immigration hawks were outraged that Trump had reached an agreement that didn’t include tighter immigration restrictions. One of their favored immigration policy reforms is to sharply reduce chain migration by limiting which family members newly minted U.S. citizens and legal permanent resident can petition for immigrant visas.

Trump said Thursday that any DACA deal would have to include “massive” border security provisions and, later, funding for his proposed border wall. That failed to reassure immigration hawks, who say a deal that only includes border security would be a missed opportunity to force Democrats to go along with deeper immigration reforms to address the long-term consequences of DACA amnesty.

Trump has previously expressed support for legislation that would curtail chain migration. The White House last month endorsed a bill proposed by GOP Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue that would cut legal immigration levels in half over a decade and move the U.S. to a skills-based system. The bill, called the RAISE Act, has widespread backing among conservative Republicans in Congress but failed to gain traction when a previous version was introduced earlier this year.

Following Trump’s decision to end the DACA program, Cotton said he would be open to folding amnesty for Dreamers into the RAISE Act as part of a broader immigration deal with Democrats.

Without limits on chain migration, immigration hawks say amnesty for the DACA-eligible population would open a path to immigration for millions of Dreamers’ relatives. A DACA legalization bill currently under consideration would make up to 1.8 million illegal immigrants eligible for conditional legal status and, potentially, U.S. citizenship, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute.

Under current immigration law, U.S. legal permanent residents and citizens can petition to get visas for their parents, siblings and married adult children. Cotton’s bill would restrict that eligibility to spouses and minor children.

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Image courtesy of The White House/Public domain

4 thoughts on “Trump says immigration deal should end chain migration

  1. Railing against Trump is fashionable among media types.

    However, Trump’s stand on stopping illegal immigration and returning illegals back to where they came from is entirely correct.

    Rewarding millions of illegals, with a stroke of the pen, with a path to citizenship is turning the US, a nation of laws, upside down.

    It should not even be considered, except on a case by case basis.

    Look what happened Sweden.

    There is a new bridge over the Ostlund, from Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmo, Sweden.

    The native Swedes have all fled downtown Malmo to escape the influx of Muslims from Denmark.

    The elementary school in Malmo has one thousand students.

    Total number of native Swedes: two.

    You walk around downtown and you might as well be in Cairo or Mogadishu or Damascus.

    I think the European leadership, such as Merkel of Germany, has made a huge mistake, which the US should not repeat.

  2. The man is brilliant! He is forcing Congress to do their job and, at the same time, tackle one of the most pressing problems facing our country….immigration reform. Finally, it will get done. He has basically forced it upon them. They can’t afford to back out on this; it IS their job. Only they don’t do their job. Too many vacations interrupt their work ethic. And now, the public sees that. Brilliant, Mr. President.

  3. Chain Migration is about constituency building, about having reliable votes for Democrats, about cementing a permanent Democrat majority, about having Democrat government workers managing immigrant benefit programs. The list is endless.

    Democrats want those migrants to be citizens so they can legally vote. Democrats will invest any reason to gain their objective. Call them Dreamers to get them to stay. Never mind the American Dream has been shattered for the majority of US citizens.

    A wall to stop them? Are you kidding? Democrats don’t want to stop them. They want more of them.

    Republicans want a merit based system similar to some other countries. That would bring brainpower to the US, which would come up with good ideas to improve US international competitiveness.

    Democrats are opposed, because those smart folks likely would not vote for Democrats.

  4. It is about time so called “Chain Migration” issue has finally risen to the general publics attention for a few minutes. It has been around quite some time.

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