The White House launched a campaign on Thursday to convince voters to end Chain Migration. Earlier this year, the White House endorsed the RAISE Act, introduced by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.), that would end Chain Migration and the Visa Lottery.
The campaign will focus heavily on the numerical impact of Chain Migration. Data from the Department of Homeland Security show that 9/3 million of the 13 million green cards issued between 2005 and 2016 were issued to family members who followed the original immigration. That figure includes spouses and minor children, which would be retained under the RAISE Act.
But it also includes the parents, adult siblings, and adult children of the original immigrant and U.S. citizens. The RAISE Act would eliminate those family-preference categories, while creating a renewable visa for parents whose children are caretakers. The alleged New York City subway terrorist was the nephew of an original immigrant who entered through one of the extended family-preference categories in 2011.
The White House effort will also shed light on crime rates and other terror connections of immigrants who entered through the extended family categories.
“The more people know the real numbers, the more they’ll begin to understand that this is bad for American workers and this is bad for American security. And quite frankly, when these numbers come out in totality, we believe it’s going to be virtually impossible for Congress to ignore,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told the Associated Press.
A poll conducted in August by Pulse Opinion Research and sponsored by NumbersUSA found that 55% of likely midterm voters support ending Chain Migration. Only 32% support continuing Chain Migration.
For more on this story, see the Associated Press.
