Trump touted legal immigration, but he’s cutting the numbers
White House approves fewer visas, refugees
During a 2016 campaign stop in Illinois, then-candidate Donald Trump invited to the stage a man wearing a shirt that read: “Legal Immigrant For Trump.”
Asked to say a few words to the crowd, the man chastised the media for missing a fundamental aspect of Trump’s candidacy: that he was opposed to illegal immigration, not legal immigration. Trump patted the man on the back and told him, “I totally support it.”
“People are going to come into our country,” Trump said. “We want people to come in. But they’ve got to come in, like you, legally. My man.”
Despite his campaign rhetoric, nowPresident Trump has acted very differently since moving into the White House. His administration has granted fewer visas, approved fewer refugees, ordered the removal of hundreds of thousands of legal residents whose home countries have been hit by war and natural disasters and pushed Congress to pass laws to dramatically cut the entire legal immigration system.
The White House has argued the moves are necessary to protect national security and American workers.
“These are measures that will make our community safer and more prosperous,” Trump said while laying out some of the proposals in January. “These reforms are supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued the latest volley Monday when he limited the ability of foreign victims of domestic and gang violence to seek asylum in the U.S.
“That’s further confirmation that the administration’s official policy toward legal immigration is restriction by any means necessary,” said David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. “They’re looking across all programs for ways that they can reduce the number of new legal permanent residents and other foreign workers in the U.S. economy.”
Here’s a look at ways the Trump administration has cut or proposed cuts to the nation’s legal immigration system.
The Trump White House has taken aim at the nation’s asylum program, which protects foreigners fleeing persecution.
Sessions has complained the program is being abused by “dirty immigration lawyers” who coach applicants on how to game the system.
He has pointed to massive increases in asylum claims at the southwest border as proof it is being taken advantage of.
Human rights activists say the rise in applications simply shows how dire the situation has become in Central America, where most are coming from.
The first major move from Trump was the controversial travel ban, which the president signed a week into his tenure.
Trump said the temporary ban was needed to give his administration time to overhaul the country’s vetting systems to ensure terrorists don’t infiltrate the U.S. through legal channels. Critics blasted it as nothing more than the “Muslim ban” he called for during his campaign. The travel ban, which barred immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, was struck down by federal courts.
The Supreme Court allowed a watered-down version of the ban to go into effect, and the administration was later able to implement “enhanced vetting” procedures on people coming from countries with ties to terrorism.
The latest version, which targets nearly 150 million residents of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, is back before the Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a ruling this summer.
The president has also been able to severely limit the admission of refugees, just as foreign countries are overwhelmed by the largest global migrant crisis in decades.
Despite the court rulings against him, Trump was able to halt the Refugee Resettlement Program for seven months last year. Once it restarted in October, the Department of Homeland Security said it would conduct “extreme vetting” of people using the program.
Trump also lowered the annual cap on refugee admissions to 45,000 – the lowest figure since Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980. One of the largest groups of legal immigrants hit by Trump’s efforts have been those allowed under the Temporary Protected Status program. Created by Congress in 1990, the program is intended to let people from countries ravaged by war, famine and natural disasters remain in the U.S. as their countries recover.
More than 310,000 people from 10 countries were on the list when Trump came into office.
But Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has been cutting down the program country by country, arguing it has long outlived its mandate and ruling the countries have recovered enough to welcome back their citizens.
Every time the White House has tried to negotiate with Congress over an immigration bill, it has requested one change: the end of so-called “chain migration.”
That is a derogatory term used to describe the long-standing practice of family immigration to the U.S. The White House says it allows foreigners to sponsor too many extended relatives for permanent placement in the U.S. But critics argue it’s unfair to ask immigrants to leave behind their parents, brothers, sisters and other relatives who would be cut out by the White House proposals.
Congress hasn’t moved on that plan, but the administration has still lowered the number of legal immigrants.
In fiscal year 2017, the U.S. approved 559,536 foreigners for legal permanent residence, a 9 percent drop from the previous year.
So far this year, the numbers are even lower, falling an additional 6 percent, according to State Department data.