Family Unity Ranks First in Immigration

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act dealing with illegal immigration. Now it is closely examining legal immigration.

The ongoing debate has raised fundamental questions of our fairness, national interests and family values.

Should job skills replace close family ties as the priority in our immigration policy? How should we develop a method to allow more Europeans, referred to as our “seed” immigrants, to come to the United States? How should we respond to xenophobic fears concerning the large percentage of Asians and Latinos who have made full use of our family unity policies and now comprise more than 80% of legal immigrants to the United States?

Our system of giving preference to close relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents has worked well, both for these immigrant families and for the country as a whole. It would not be in our national interest or be consistent with our family values to severely alter our system of family preference immigration.

Current law provides that spouses, parents and minor children (immediate relatives) of U.S. citizens may come to America without numerical limitation. But in six other categories dealing with family or employer-sponsored applicants, the ceiling is 270,000 a year.

Changes are indeed needed. For example, skilled immigrants can make a positive contribution to our economic vitality--provided their skills do not have a negative impact on American labor. This reform should be encouraged. Because skilled workers would not need to have close relatives in the United States in order to apply to immigrate, this would also encourage diversity in the pool of immigrants.

Yet family unification should remain the cornerstone of our legal immigration policy. As Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) has stated, “To cut back on the ability of new Americans to be with their family members betrays the core American value and tradition of emphasizing the integrity of the family.”

Immigration policies based on family unification have not always been fairly applied. The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and subsequent laws directed at diverse Asian groups virtually halted Asian immigration to the United States until 1965.

Then, amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act allowed Asians to immigrate on an equal footing (20,000 persons per year from each country, in addition to immediate relatives). With the implementation of these fair immigration laws, not only Asians but Latinos, Greeks, Lebanese, Soviet Jews and others also have thrived.

Many Americans, not just immigrants, have reaped the benefits of these new sources of energy, skill and capital.

It has recently been estimated that Asian American high-tech entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area alone generate more than $1 billion in sales annually, creating thousands of jobs, enhancing the nation’s competitiveness, spurring innovation and increasing tax revenues. Many of these entrepreneurs are products of family or employer-sponsored immigration.

With the increasing internationalization of the American economy, such diversity in population can only benefit the United States. Our addition of language abilities, skills and cultural understanding can be an invaluable contribution in global trade and commerce.

While the number of immigrants has more than doubled between 1950 and 1988, a Labor Department study has concluded that the increase has not adversely affected American workers.

And sponsoring families have supported and anchored newly immigrating relatives through employment, loans and educational assistance.

In July, the Senate passed a bill that takes some positive steps to address needed changes in U.S. immigration policies. Yet the measure would also have a negative impact for immigration based on family unification. For example, it does not provide for remedies to the already severe backlogs and waiting lists that potential immigrants seeking family unification must face. It also contains a provision setting new per-country ceilings for family preference immigration.

Over the next several years, this would reduce by about half the number of family-based visas for certain Asian and Latin American countries. That would mean, for example, that waiting times could double--from 10 years to 20 years--for brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens who have applied for legal entry.

The House has the opportunity to recognize the importance of family-based immigration and to address the important issues not adequately dealt with in the Senate bill. Its deliberations should be guided by the importance of the family in American values, the anchor for a system that has benefited all of our national interests.