Trump plan would have closed door to Andy Grove
The current administration’s punitive proposal to restrict immigrants’ eligibility for green cards, based on criteria such as wealth and English proficiency, threatens to block families from remaining in the United States, where they are building productive lives and making valuable contributions to our society.
I know about this firsthand. In the 1950s, my husband and I arrived here with little money and limited English skills, but we had hearts full of ambition, pluck and determination to succeed. However, in today’s world of hostility toward immigrants, the doors to the United States might have been closed to us as well as to my husband’s pioneering work in the manufacture of semiconductors and the charitable foundation we launched together.
In 1957, Andy escaped the revolution convulsing his native Hungary. He had already undergone considerable hardship.
He was Jewish and had hidden his identity in Nazi-occupied Hungary during World War II. When he arrived here, he had $20 to his name. And, despite having studied English as a boy, he barely spoke it. Yet, he would earn a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and rise to be the CEO of Intel in Silicon Valley.
My own immigration experience was not much different except that I did not arrive as a refugee. My family fled Austria for Bolivia after Kristallnacht in 1938, and we came to the United States when I turned 18.
Money was tight, but I managed to graduate from college and earn a master’s degree in social work from Hunter College. Later, Andy and I married, began a family, and established our foundation that has supported research, institutions of higher learning and numerous causes for social justice.
However, under the proposed rule by the Trump administration, our lack of English proficiency, relative poverty and the fact that we received some assistance while we were settling in the United States would count against us. Although the proposed rule exempts refugees, all immigrants who are low- and moderate-income, as Andy and I were, could find it impossible to achieve permanent residence here.
In the past, the government has denied green cards to people who were likely to become primarily dependent on the government for cash assistance or long-term care. Now, the administration is threatening to exclude even families who might use more than just a small amount of assistance for health care, nutrition and housing programs. The only families who would be viewed favorably are those who already earn over 200 percent of the poverty level, more than the median income in this country.
This proposal is fundamentally wrong and cruel. Immigrants work and pay taxes for services that benefit all of us. But if the rule is adopted, immigrants will be afraid to seek critical services for themselves and their children — many of whom are U.S. citizens. That will only serve to increase homelessness and poverty.
Yet, as has been proven time and again, given an opportunity and just a token amount of public assistance, these hardworking families thrive and proudly contribute, just as Andy and I did. Opportunity is the promise America has held out to the world. Our country should not step away from that promise.
Please consider submitting your comments online about this issue by Dec. 10. For more information, go to Protecting Immigrant Families at protectingimmigrantfamilies.org.