The Trump administration has been claiming their immigration “reform” proposals create a “merit-based”, “skills-based” immigration. That has, of course, always been a feint.
It was never about skills.
The Republican immigration proposals are all about reducing the number of immigrants coming to the US each year. Remember when the Trump administration said their immigration plan was “like Canada’s points model”?
Except it isn’t in an important respect.
Canada takes in 260k immigrants per year. Their population is 36 million. The US population is 323 million. We currently take in about 1 million people. If the Trump-Bannon-Sessions-MIller plan copied Canada’s system it would raise immigration to 2.33 million people per year. Instead, it drops immigration to 500k.
In reality, the bill is all about reducing immigration. It also takes a stab at shredding the 1965 Immigration Act, which outlawed discrimination in immigration based on race, gender, nationality or place of birth. Trump’s stated policy preference for people from Norway over people from Haiti was literally outlawed by the 1965 Act. The Civil Rights Movement campaigned against the racial immigration quotas because they saw the immigration laws as a piece with the laws that discriminated against black/brown people within the country.
And white nationalists have hated the 1965 Immigration Act ever since.
The thing is, we already have a skills-based immigration system. It’s called an employer-sponsored visa. Employers can petition for green-cards for individuals who have skills required by businesses. Over 140,000 people (plus their immediate families) immigrate to the US under this mechanism. This is how I immigrated. There are other categories for entrepreneurs, and a special category for people willing to invest at least 500k (this provision is heavily used by real-estate developers, including the Trump-Kushners to sell apartments).
If you’re wondering why the alt-right has suddenly latched onto the term ”chain migration”. “Chain migration” is a term invented by white nationalists to describe family-based immigration. The reason we have family-based immigrant visas is that over decades and centuries of experience with immigration, our country has found that new immigrants tend to be more successful in America if they have an existing family network to help them get started. We also have an interest in allowing families to stay together, so we have immigrant visa categories for spouses, children, parents, and siblings.
It’s also worth noting that a “skills-based” immigration system is designed to discriminate against poor and working-class Americans who may want to sponsor family members without advanced degrees. Incidentally, this is one of the many reasons I don’t think immigrants should tout the “contributions” made by themselves and their families. It opens up attacks by Republicans who cherry-pick crimes by immigrants. It also raises questions about basic humanity and decency. Should parents be prevented from sponsoring disabled children because they can’t “contribute”. And this discussion ignores the fact that many working-class immigrants, without college degrees, end up raising children who do go onto acquire higher education and advanced skills.
There’s another reason the Trump administration is attacking family-based immigration. We currently have 4 million people waiting for an immigrant visa. These are folks who would qualify for immigration under our current rules but don’t receive immigrant visas because we have a cap on the number issued each year. Some have been waiting for over 15 years (wait times are especially acute for family-members from Mexico). If this bill was an immigration “reform” bill, it would propose clearing those waiting lists by taking in a much larger number of immigrants. Instead it shreds those lists by changing the rules and telling all those millions of people who've patiently waited that the alt-right is now in charge and they aren't wanted anymore. Why doesn’t the alt-right want them? Well, the largest number of people on the wait list are from Mexico, Philippines, India, China, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Haiti, El Salvador, Cuba.
I’ll take a wild guess here. If the largest numbers on the wait list were from Norway, Sweden, Poland, Austria and Denmark, I’m sure Republicans would be running not walking to pass a bill that increased immigration.
We can’t do very much to overcome Republican distaste for black/brown immigrants. Though it should be noted not all Republicans think this way. Lindsey Graham for example said this to Trump:
“America is an idea, not a race,” Mr. Graham said, according to three people familiar with the exchange on Thursday. Diversity was a strength, he said, not a weakness. And by the way, the senator added, he himself was a descendant of immigrants who came to the United States from “shithole countries with no skills.” — www.nytimes.com/...
But we know that Republican senators like McCain and Graham are always principled and moral when they first encounter the unfairness of their party’s policies. When it comes time to actually vote, after a few discussions with donors and lobbyists, they usually find a way to rest their qualms.
What we can do is beat them at the polls.
There were 13.2 million permanent residents in the US in 2014. The vast majority of them (over 10 million) are eligible for citizenship. We should encourage them to acquire US citizenship and register to vote.
Support the New Americans Campaign, which encourages and supports legal permanent residents who wish to become citizens.
There are a number of great immigrant-rights organizations you can support:
— @subirgrewal