In its latest move for immigration reform, the Trump administration issued a call Friday for an end to chain migration, the immigration process by which immigrants are able to sponsor their immediate and extended family to join them in the United States.
Chain migration, as defined by the White House, is “the process by which foreign nationals permanently resettle within the U.S. and subsequently bring over their foreign relatives, who then have the opportunity to bring over their foreign relatives, and so on, until entire extended families are resettled within the country.”
What this means in practice is that the admission of a single immigrant—including through the controversial “diversity visa lottery,” which admits immigrants from countries otherwise underrepresented in immigration patterns—can lead to an inflow of other immigrants who are part of the first person’s extended family.
Estimates by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) find that each new immigrant brings an average of 3.45 additional relatives to the United States, which adds up to about 61 percent of immigrants arriving overall between 1981 and 2016. (The White House suggested the number was closer to 65 percent.)
Read more at Free Beacon.
