Don’t reduce legal immigration to get a new plan for DACA kids
Keep family reunification as cornerstone of U.S. policy
In their negotiations with President Trump over the future of almost 800,000 young people who agreed to join the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer should vehemently resist entreaties to drastically reduce legal immigration. Ending “chain migration” has been a coveted goal of anti-immigrant leaders for the past 30 years. Instead of making America “greater,” it would destroy family reunification as the cornerstone of our immigration policy and close the door to people who have followed rules and waited in line legally for up to 25 years.
Trump’s initiative to work with Democratic leaders and provide legal status to DACA recipients represents a significant (although perhaps temporary) departure from the anti-immigrant base that fueled his campaign. In response, his supporters have taken to Twitter and Facebook to post ritualistic burnings of the famed red Trump campaign caps. To reassure them, the president tweeted, “CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!”
In any negotiation, particularly one as sensitive as immigration where both sides believe they are defending deeply held principles and values, each side is asked to go beyond its comfort zone. Trump appears to have made the first move. House Minority Leader Pelosi and New York Sen. Schumer have been cautious and correct in their public statements that increased border security from unauthorized entrants is a legitimate part of a bipartisan compromise. Drastic reductions in legal immigration are a price too steep to pay for granting legal status to DACA recipients.
Comprehensive immigration reforms should await thorough discussion at all levels of American society. Every country is entitled to decide for itself who enters and, once it does so, is expected to enforce its laws. We now have an immigration system that makes little sense to natives and newcomers alike and poorly serves the nation’s economic and social needs. In addition to some citizens being forced to wait decades to be reunited legally with family members, employers needing workers are frustrated by waits and paperwork, and some U.S. workers end up training immigrants who are replacing them.
Since 1965, the visa categories now being threatened by the Raise Act introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., have enabled U.S. citizens to bring to America their brothers and sisters who remained in their previous homeland, most frequently Asian nations and Mexico. Citizens who apply for their siblings are well suited to support them and ease their adjustment into American life in part because the backlog is so long and they themselves have had years of experience living in America. Strengthening enforcement of the pledge to support the relatives they petition for and perhaps prioritizing new immigrants with particularly needed skills would be far better reforms than abandoning family members seeking to be reunited in the United States.
Democrats and Republicans already have proposed numerous ways to better manage legal entry, deter overstaying and prevent unauthorized attempts to enter at our airports and the Mexican and Canadian borders. Developing a package of enhancements, some physical and some technological, can satisfactorily prevent future unauthorized immigration, which has been declining in recent years. While the requirements Congress and the president would impose on DACA recipients to adjust their status will be significant, the mechanism for granting legal status is well established in the existing Immigration Registry System, which began in the 1920s but has not been updated in more than 30 years.
A final aspect of a “DACA deal” should be the creation of a national commission, appointed by the president and the leaders of both parties in Congress, to hear from Americans on how we shape our immigration future. With immigration vital to so many of our communities and an array of industries throughout California, including technology, agriculture and hospitality, no state has more at stake. Along with Pelosi, Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee and Sen. Kamala Harris on the Homeland Security Committee are well positioned to include a commission in the DACA deal.
Trump has imposed a sixmonth deadline for Congress to resolve DACA and take other steps to strengthen immigration enforcement. They must act. But insisting on major changes in a short time frame that lack consensus will leave America divided on immigration and weaken the supportive role of families in immigration and all our communities.