Tag: chain migration

Melania Trump’s Parents Become U.S. Citizens, Using ‘Chain Migration’ Trump Hates Image

The following article by Annie Correal and Emily Cochrane was posted on the New York Times website August 9, 2018:

Melania Trump’s parents, Amalija and Viktor Knavs, flank their lawyer, Michael Wildes, heading to their naturalization ceremony in Manhattan on Thursday. Credit: Holly Pickett for The New York Times

President Trump has repeatedly and vehemently denounced what he calls “chain migration,” in which adult American citizens can obtain residency for their relatives.

On Thursday, his Slovenian in-laws, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became United States citizens in a private ceremony in Manhattan by taking advantage of that same family-based immigration program.

Asked if the Knavses had obtained citizenship through “chain migration,” their lawyer, Michael Wildes, said, “I suppose.”

View the complete article here.

Debunking 3 myths behind ‘chain migration’ and ‘low-skilled’ immigrants

The following article by Raquel Aldana, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Diversity and Professor of Law, University of California/Davis, was posted on the Conversation website February 2, 2018:

President Donald Trump has embraced the rhetoric of “chain migration” to spread the message that the United States is legally letting in too many of the wrong kind of immigrant.

That term, however, distorts the facts.

As a scholar on U.S. immigration law and policy, I’d like to correct and contextualize the numbers on the now maligned “family-based immigration,” and uncover the biases that underlie the preference for the “highly-skilled” immigrant. Family immigration is subject to significant limitations and it exists because American values include ideals such as family unification. Continue reading “Debunking 3 myths behind ‘chain migration’ and ‘low-skilled’ immigrants”

Trump’s Mainstreaming of ‘Chain Migration’: A White Supremacist’s Dream

The following commentary by Dean Obeidallah was posted on the Daily Beast website February 1, 2018:

It began life as a neutral sociological term. Then white supremacists started using ‘chain migration’ in a polemical way. Now the president of the United States uses it, too.

Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast

Donald Trump may have historically low approval ratings with Americans at large but there’s one group that loves him bigly: white supremacists. Trump truly is the great white supremacist hope. Just look at how they praised Trump after Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, in which the man who unilaterally ended DACA last fall spoke the line, “Americans are dreamers too.” (Trump uttered a similar racist dog whistle during the campaign with his remark, “We’re always talking about ‘DREAMers’ for other people.” Adding, “I want the children that are growing up in the United States to be dreamers also.”)

Sure enough Trump’s real message about “Americans are dreamers too” was heard loud and clear by white supremacists with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and white nationalist Richard Spencer both taking to Twitter to praise that specific line of the SOTU. Continue reading “Trump’s Mainstreaming of ‘Chain Migration’: A White Supremacist’s Dream”

Trump Benefited From The ‘Chain Migration’ He Blamed For Attempted New York Terror Attack

The following article by Roque Planas was posted on the Huffing Post website December 15, 2017:

The practice of bringing immigrant families together in the United States likely made the president richer and happier.

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a speech on tax reform legislation at the White House in Washington, U.S., December 13, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

President Donald Trump used the attempted New York terrorist attack this week to renew his call to end “chain migration.” That’s the term immigration restrictionists use to describe allowing U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to help their family members immigrate to this country.

The president and his allies insist ― without evidence ― that this kind of immigration is a threat to the nation because it lets in suspect people. They argue that limiting Americans’ ability to bring in family members will help prevent attacks like Monday’s incident, which was allegedly perpetrated by a legal permanent resident from Bangladesh whose uncle, a U.S. citizen, had sponsored him to come to the U.S. in 2011. (The investigation so far suggests he became radicalized some years later.) Continue reading “Trump Benefited From The ‘Chain Migration’ He Blamed For Attempted New York Terror Attack”