Immigration proposal a loss for families, U.S.

My immigrant Chinese grandmother loved Bob Barker.

Every weekday morning, she’d turn on the television in time for “The Price Is Right” game show. We were thrilled when the prizes were unveiled in the final round. “A new car!” we’d shout together — one of the phrases she knew how to say in English. What could symbolize the abundance and fortune of America more than a big, shiny, brandnew car?

She’d come here after her husband had passed away, to help take care of me, my brother and my sister while my parents worked. My parents had arrived in the 1960s to attend graduate school on science and engineering fellowships. My mother wanted to feed the world, and my father dreamed of designing towers. Eventually, they became U.S. citizens and petitioned to bring my grandmother.

But she didn’t speak English and had left school after getting married, which would have been strikes against her in the new “merit based” immigration plan backed by President Trump.

In an attempt to cut legal immigration by half, the plan gives priority to those who speak English and have advanced degrees, among other factors.

While citizens could still apply to bring spouses and minor children here, the plan would get rid of preferences for siblings and adult children. I’ve drawn much strength, encouragement and inspiration from my immigrant aunts, uncles and cousins, who have contributed greatly to this country, working in technology, science, health care, business and law, and taking part in their communities.

Under the proposal, older parents could come on renewable temporary visas for caretaking, but what of the families who might need a brother or sister to help instead? Besides, my grandmother taught me so much about love and sacrifice long after my childhood. After graduating from college and while working at my first newspaper job in Los Angeles, I spent many weekends getting dim sum with her; by then, she’d moved in with my aunt. I started piecing together family history and felt more deeply connected to my ancestral culture, which helped inform my writing as a journalist and novelist, and opened my heart and mind beyond our borders — all of which would have been denied to me if my grandmother hadn’t been able to settle here.

At present, slightly more than a million immigrants are granted green cards each year, mostly to relatives of citizens, while 140,000 are sponsored by employers. The proposal is the administration’s latest attack against immigrants and the children of immigrants, blaming us for stealing jobs, lowering wages and straining public resources, and making the specious argument that the plan puts needs of “American families” first.

In the eyes of Trump and his supporters, families like ours aren’t American — or not American enough. Those viewed as eternal foreigners get turned into scapegoats, as in the case of the Chinese Exclusion Act or the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in World War II, and this plan is more of the same.

The president is trying to cover up his incoherent attempts at economic reform with his calls for a wall along the Mexican border, the Muslim travel ban, and now these proposed cuts.

Experts along the political spectrum say that enacting the plan would hurt the economy. We need low-skilled workers, in restaurant kitchens, the vineyards or elsewhere, and immigrant consumers help expand the economy, paying for goods and services.

Stuart Anderson, the executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy and a former senior immigration official under President George W. Bush, told the New York Times that there’s a rationale for increasing the number of green cards to people with the skills that American employers want to hire. “But there’s no reason that can’t be accomplished without still allowing people to bring family members in,” he said. “This is more of a political rationalization for just cutting out family categories.”

The word’s best and brightest will have one less reason to stay, if they can’t sponsor their extended family, and America will lose out if they return to their country of origin with the expertise they developed on our shores.

Alex Tom’s immigrant grandparents helped raise him and his siblings while his parents worked long hours at their small business. “These are American values — to unite families and keep families together,” said Tom, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, a Chinatown advocacy group that organizes low-income workers. “It’s contradictory to cut that in half.”

A half that America would be poorer for without.

“These are American values — to unite families and keep families together. It’s contradictory to cut that in half.” Alex Tom, executive director, Chinese Progressive Association