<i> Legal</i> Immigration, Too, Needs a Policy Overhaul

It was 15 years in the making, but at the close of the 99th session of Congress an immigration-reform bill finally was passed. And when the President signed it into law the United States had its first major overhaul of immigration policy in more than two decades.

The Simpson-Rodino bill, however, is just the first step in establishing an immigration policy that deals effectively with the situation that confronts us. It addresses only the problem of illegal immigration. It does nothing to establish a new set of priorities for admitting legal immigrants. The current preference system under which we admit legal immigrants is unfair, outdated and not in the best interest of the United States. It, too, needs reform.

Our current immigration policy is firmly based on the principle of nepotism. It puts much weight on whether the applicant has relatives here. The applicant’s potential to make a positive contribution to American society has almost no bearing on whether he or she will be admitted.

Such a system would not be tolerated in any other area of American life. If our government, as an employer, based its hiring decisions on whether an applicant had relatives working in the public sector, government would properly be condemned for that policy. Yet our immigration decisions continue to be based on family connections, not individual qualifications.

For most of our history, America’s immigration policies were discriminatory. Until 1965 non-Europeans were the victims of a racist policy. Ironically, reforms passed in 1965 that were intended to rectify this injustice have led instead to discrimination based on nepotism and a new pattern of discrimination by nationality.

The 1965 reforms were intended to give people of all nations an equal opportunity to immigrate, and there followed an influx of Latin Americans and Asians. Because current policy favors immediate relatives of recently established immigrants, newcomers now are almost exclusively from a dozen or so countries; virtually all others are shut out.

A look at immigration data points up the inequities. Mexico, a nation of about 80 million people, sends 3 1/2 times more legal immigrants each year than the entire continent of Africa, with a population of about 600 million. Africans are excluded for the simple reason that few of them have family members here.

Though one-quarter of all Americans can trace their ancestry to Ireland, in 1983 we admitted only 1,100 Irish immigrants. Most Irish-Americans have been here for several generations, and family connections today are at best distant cousins.

It is not as if a demand to immigrate to the United States does not exist outside the dozen nations with high levels of immigration. Worldwide, there is a backlog of nearly 2 million applications. We can only speculate, but there are probably millions more who would like to immigrate but have never applied because they stand no chance of gaining legal admission to this country.

Immigration is not a one-sided affair. Our policy should not only benefit the immigrants; decisions about who will be allowed to settle here should also serve the best interests of the United States. So long as the demand to immigrate greatly exceeds the number of people that we can accept, we should base admittance on an immigrant’s potential to make a positive contribution to our society.

Family preferences should not be extended beyond spouses and minor children. There is no reason to grant special considerations to extended-family members. This leads to a never-ending chain of immigration as each newly arriving family member petitions to have his or her extended family brought here as well.

The Canadian system is one that makes sense and that we ought to look at in formulating a new policy. Canadian immigration is based on points, which are awarded on the basis of what each applicant can bring to Canada in terms of needed professional and entrepreneurial skills. Some credit also is given for family ties, but it is not the most important criterion, as it is in the United States

Canada also considers general economic conditions in deciding how many immigrants it will accept. In times of economic prosperity the ceiling is more generous; during times of recession the number of immigrants is reduced. The first consideration is always given to the interests of people already in Canada.

The United States has taken the first step toward a more workable immigration policy by addressing the problem of illegal immigration. We should now build on that momentum and reform the process for admitting legal immigrants as well. The immigration issue will not go away just because Congress finally decided to deal with part of it. If anything, migratory pressures will increase, and we are going to find that a more equitable and sensible means of choosing immigrants is essential.