The Ugly Origins of "Chain Migration"

There's a lot of talk in the news these days about "chain migration" or "family reunification," if you prefer.

Almost no one writing about this aspect of U.S. immigration policy knows the sordid history behind this immigration preference.

Nor have either side of the "chain migration" debate observed the rich irony that Melania Knauss came to the U.S on a tourist visa, became an illegal alien when she worked on that visa, adjusted status to "green card holder" in 2001 when she married Donald Trump, became a citizen in 2006, and promptly petitioned for the admission of her mother, father and older sister, all of whom moved into Trump Tower.

In short, Melania Trump is a walking example of everything wrong in U.S. immigration policy.

"Family unification" sounds like a nice thing, doesn't it?  It sounds like it was forged in the fires of compassion. But it wasn't. Nor was it forged in the era of schooners and candles when it took 35 days to cross the Atlantic.

America's family reunification immigration policy was cocked up in 1965 at a time when transatlantic jets and telephone calls meant no one was more than a few hours, or a few minutes, from talking to family "back in the Old Country".

The very idea of family reunification immigration preferences is (mostly) nonsensical. Why should someone who voluntarily splits up their own family through immigration be afforded special "family reunification" rights when they themselves caused the action that they now claim is a hardship?  Are we also going to reduce penalties for those who murder their parents because "now they are orphans"? It seems obvious that if  someone really wants to live down the block from their extended family they can buy a ticket back home and do that.  Otherwise, is it such a terrible burden to "make do" with iPhone FaceTime, instant messaging, and occasional visits back to the country you voluntarily left?

Where did this idea of a "family reunification" based immigration preference system come from?

As is so often the case when it comes to U.S. immigration policy, it was forged in the fires of racism.

In the 1960s, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson proposed a skills-based system for immigrant admissions. The idea was not warmly embraced by all parties.

Many Americans (and more than a few congressmen) were wary of the possibility that the proposed laws might admit large numbers of Asian and African immigrants. For many Americans, Asia conjured up images of “yellow hordes” and the bitter enemies of two previous wars (Japan and Korea), one current war (Vietnam), and a Cold War adversary in China, while African immigration promised to increase the number of blacks in the U.S. at a time when the nation was struggling withr civil rights legislation.

In the end, the “50 percent skills-based“ immigrant selection system proposed by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson was replaced by legislation that, in practice, has admitted over 90 percent of all immigrants on the basis of "family connections".

A family reunification immigration system was expected to result in only a modest increase in Asian and African immigration. By mandating that over 90 percent of all immigrant admissions be based on “family connections“ rather than education or job skills, it was thought that few Africans or Asians would be able to immigrate to the United States, as few had immediate relatives oversees thanks to a long history of earlier racist policies.

In debate on the House floor, Congressman Emmanuel Celler, the 1965 immigration bill's chief sponsor, noted that:

“Since the people in Africa and Asia have very few relatives here, comparatively few could immigrate from those countries because they have no family ties in the US.”

When asked how many Asian immigrants would immigrate under the new law, then Attorney General Robert Kennedy replied:

“5,000 (Asian) immigrants would come in the first year, but we do not expect that there would be any great influx after that.”

For it’s part, the Japanese American Citizens League argue that the new law was explicitly designed to preserve the national origin system and to exclude Asian entrants.

“Inasmuch as the total Asian population of the United States is only about 1/2 of 1 percent of the total American population, this means that there are very few of Asian-Pacific origin in this country who are entitled to provide the specific preference priorities to family members and close relatives residing abroad, even if all qualified family members and close relatives desire to emigrate immediately to the United States. Thus, it would seem that, although the immigration bill eliminated race as a matter of principle, in actual operation immigration will still be controlled by the now discredited national origins system and the general pattern of immigration which exists today will continue for many years to come.”

How then did Asian immigration come to represent 40 to 50 percent of current legal immigrant admissions to United States despite a selection system that was presumed to effectively block their entry?

The answer is that early Asian entrants dominated certain immigrant channels.

A common entry method was as a “skilled“ immigrant entering under the Third and Sixth Preference categories, or as a "Non-preference" immigrant requiring labor certification for the US department of labor.

Between 1966 in 1975, 14 to 46 percent of Asian immigrants entering the US entered on the basis of Third and Sixth Preference occupational visas or Non-preference visas requiring labor certification.  Many Third or Non-preference entrants were former foreign students who originally entered the U.S. to attend college.

Relatively large numbers of Asian immigrants also entered the U.S. through marriage to U.S. servicemen stationed in the Philippines, Korea, and Japan. In addition, beginning in 1975, large numbers of Southeast Asian refugees fled to the U.S. following the fall of Saigon and the invasion of Cambodia.

A final factor shaping the rapid increase of immigration from Asia has been a high naturalization rate of Asian immigrants: 50.4 percent of Asian immigrants admitted in calendar years 1970 to 1979 naturalized between fiscal years 1970 and 1986. Just 16.2% of Mexican immigrants and 27 percent of the equivalent South American immigrants naturalized during the same period of time.

Because U.S. citizens are able to bring in immediate family members outside the numerical restrictions on legal immigration, the high naturalization rates of Asian immigrants worked to ensure continued high levels of family-based immigration.

Everything that was true for Asian immigration, was even more true for African immigration.

Here, refugee flows were much smaller, and there was little or no marriage to American servicemen.

As a result, almost all early African immigrants to the United States entered on the basis of skills-based selection criteria, or were foreign students who subsequently adjusted status, often after getting advanced degrees.  The table below summarizes the data:

• US Born
  College Graduate: 23.1 percent
  Advanced Degree: 2.6 percent

• African Immigrants
  College Graduate: 43.8 percent
  Advanced Degree: 8.2 percent
  
  
• Asian and Pacific Island ImmigrantsCollege Graduate: 42.5 percent
  Advanced Degree: 6.8 percent

So what's the kerfuffle about family unification today?

The main objection is that it is driving total immigration numbers up, and admitting people who are (gasp!) not necessarily white or with skills.

While the first objection is legitimate for a country that is running out of energy and water and which is about to enter an increasingly automated world of driverless cars and robotic brick-laying machines, racial discrimination is not.

And let us have no illusion that it is racial discrimination that is driving the Trump Administration's obsession with  immigration. 

Trump is not a man with principled beliefs or a deep understanding of U.S. immigration policy or demographics. Like a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, his articulated immigration policy is a grunted "White people good, Brown people bad."

Melania, of course is white, and so she gets a free pass from race-obsessed Donald Trump and his Republican accolytes.

She obviously has SKILLS say the salivating pre-pubescent numbskulls closely studying her nudie photos.  Just look at those advanced degrees! 

In fact, Melania Trump never went to college past a single semester, and she has no skills that are in short supply in this country.  Her only claim to fame is that she's white and tall and has good teeth and big breasts thanks to the miracle of dental veneers and silicone implants.

Apparently those flimsy credentials are good enough for Donald Trump and the Republican Party, whose only guiding light when it comes to U.S. immigration policy is skin color and Islamaphobia.

And so the great irony is that the racism that forged the current family reunification preference system back in 1965, is the same force that is now calling for its end in 2018.

In the U.S., it seems, the more things change, the more they stay the same.