Arizona Republic: Plans to Cut US Family-Based Immigration

As candidate, Donald Trump rejected conventional wisdom that immigration strengthens the United States and promised limits. Harsh policies targeting and separating families have followed. In the spring, US agents stopped asylum seekers at the border, separating children from parents, without explanation or a system for reunification. The courts blocked that policy, but more than 400 children are still separated from their parents. Trump also disrupted protections for the so-called Dreamers, 690,000 young adults brought to the country as children. The administration is now considering plans to revise a longstanding system that allows US citizens to petition for close relatives to apply for green cards and eventually citizenship. “For generations, family reunification has been the cornerstone of the U.S. immigration system under the guiding principle that immigrants assimilate better when they have the support of their families,” explains Daniel González for the Arizona Republic. “But Trump derisively calls the nation's family-based immigration system ‘chain migration.’ He has fought to replace it with a merit-based system that largely grants green cards to immigrants based on their abilities instead of their family ties.” The United States issues about 1 million green cards each year, and most go to family members. – YaleGlobal

Arizona Republic: Plans to Cut US Family-Based Immigration

Trump administration continues to try and limit US immigration, targeting the system that allows US citizens to seek green cards for close family members
Daniel González
Friday, September 7, 2018

Read the article from the Arizona Republic and Arizonacentral.com about Trump administration proposals to limit immigration.

Daniel González writes about immigration, Latino issues and minority communities for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com and travels regularly to the US-Mexico border and Mexico. Gonzalez has worked for The Republic since December 1999. A native of Chicago, he is a graduate of the University of Iowa’s journalism school and studied Spanish literature at Syracuse University. He has won numerous local, state and national awards for his work. In 2014, he was a finalist for the American Society of News Editors Distinguished Writing on Diversity Award.   

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