Should we change U.S. immigration policy?
In his February address to a joint session of Congress, President Trump suggested the U.S. change its immigration policy from one based on family reunification to one based on “merit,” similar to the points system used in Canada and Australia. Here are four views on how the U.S. immigration system works now and what a transition to merit might mean for our nation.
By Leti Volpp
In his call for the U.S. to change its policy of immigrant admission to a “merit-based system,” President Trump alleged that the current system of “lower-skilled immigration” costs America’s taxpayers “many billions of dollars a year” — an allegation that has been refuted. But what else lurks behind the call to shift away from our system prioritizing family reunification? Racial demographics. Evidence for this is borne out both in statistics and in the statements of Trump’s advisers. Our system of admission of lawful permanent residents was created in 1965, when Congress ended the nakedly racist era of national origins quotas. The 1924 Johnson-Reed Act had limited how many immigrants were admitted and restricted which ones could enter, in order to replicate the “founding stock” of the early American nation. The 1965 Immigration Act enacted a system of formally equal per-country quotas, while simultaneously establishing how many visas could be granted on the basis of family reunification or occupational skills. Typically, the United States admits about 1 million people per year as lawful permanent residents. allocating 64 percent of visas for family reunification and 14 percent for jobbased preferences. Remaining visas are allocated to refugees, and other programs. A “merit-based” system, which selects immigrants solely according to their human capital, would reduce visas allocated because of family ties, or human need. It would also dramatically alter the national origins of who is admitted to the U.S. A look at the 2015 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics is illuminating. Of Mexicans who obtained lawful permanent resident status that year, 6,523 were admitted for employment preferences; 139,090 were admitted for family reunification. Of Canadians, 9,655 were admitted for employment preferences; 9,103 were admitted for family reunification. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in a 2015 interview, praised the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act on this basis: “It slowed down immigration significantly, we then assimilated through the 1965 and created really the solid middle class of America, with assimilated immigrants, and it was good for America.” Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue have introduced the RAISE Act, which would halve the number of lawful permanent residents admitted, through restricting family reunification. They report that Trump likes their plan. The push for a “merit-based” system cannot be understood as merely an economic question, decoupled from the administration’s other attacks on immigrants. It is about “America First” — a nativist project of making America white again. — Leti Volpp is a professor at UC Berkeley School of Law.
By Caleb Zigas
We are what we eat. In America, we are spaghetti and meatballs, carne asada tacos, rammen, and corn bread and collard greens. The culinary innovations sweeping our nation — from food trucks to pop-up restaurants to new delivery services — often come from the creative minds (and kitchens) of immigrants. Immigrants create pathways to suc themselves. I see the results every day in our food. As Congress and the president push to close our borders and continue to deport millions, we must think about not just the politics but also the benefits of diversity. To stifle immigration is to stifle innovation.
Yes, stagnant,our immigrationoperating on outdated laws. Imnt system is faulty and migrants face significant barriers to entry in the American marketplace, but an immigray tion system that falsely assigns merit as a basis of entry is one designed to fail immiwell. grants and America as well
We’vecore leave value home,built thatour flee American identity around aconsideor aspirs all those who would as their land, too. And so they bring their recieir pes, their hopes and their businesses here. Given that opportunity, they contribute far above the average. Immigrants are 28 percent more likely to become entrepreneurs than those of us who were born here, according to New American Economy, a bipartisan nonprofit organization focused on imses migration reform.
Among the 34 business we’ve helped to incubate is Alicia’s Tamales Los Mayas. Aliicia Villanueva moved to the Bay Area when Mexico’s drug wars intensified in 2009. She would clean houses during the day, watch her kids in the afternoon, and spend evenings walking door to door in Berkeley selling tamales. Now her family business employs 16 full-time workers at her 6,000Hayward square-foot factory in Hayward
Nite Yun, who was born in a refugee camp, now cooks Cambodian street food at her Emerryville market stall. Fernay McPherson went from serving her mom’s mac and cheese in her Fillmore district apartment to running a Zagat-rated food trailer, Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement.
Immigrants pay nearly $ $17 billion in annual taxes and boast $40 billion in spending power. None of this is possible without the free movement of people and an economy that encourages our new arrivals to invest and innnovate locally. If we shut this down, we become less diverse and less uniquely American.
— Caleb Zigas is the executive director of La Cocina, a nonprofit that works with low-income and immigrant women to start food businesses in the Bay Area.
It is about ‘America First’ — making America white again.