After referring to family-based immigration as “chain migration,” the president said in his 2018 State of the Union speech that “a single immigrant could bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.” To address this, the president outlined a vision also present in the proposed RAISE Act, which would greatly reduce authorized immigration to the US.

But the justifications for reversing this long-standing immigration policy are rooted in misconceptions that are not supported by evidence.

  • Misconception: Family-based visas lead to an overwhelming influx of immigrants: Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, has noted how the term chain migration “shifts our mental images away from families reunited in a country offering a fresh start, and gets us to think instead of immigration as a malign chain reaction, an overwhelming and unstoppable process.” In this way, rhetoric can depict family-based immigration and reunification as an immediate process with explosive effects. In reality, the process is painfully slow.
  • Misconception: Family-based immigration leads to a low-skilled labor force dependent on government benefits:  Another assumption behind the White House immigration framework is that family reunification in immigration policy “increases the deficit.” That is, family members of US citizens will, on average, be a burden to the US and its taxpayers by leaning on “federal welfare and government benefits.” While we need more information and research on the economic contributions of family-based immigrants, we do know that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) of 1996 created a five-year ban on social services so that new immigrants are excluded from federal welfare programs in their first five years living in the United States.

Read the full article about misconceptions about immigration in the U.S. by Charmaine Runes at The Urban Institute.