IMMIGRATION/NATIONAL SECURITY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump is ramping up calls on the U.S. Congress to stop legal immigrants from sponsoring extended family members who want to move to the United States, saying so-called ‘chain migration’ poses a threat to national security.
Even without legislative action, however, the number of immigrants approved for family-based visas has dropped this year to the lowest level in more than a decade, a Reuters review of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data shows. The drop has not been previously reported.
The Trump administration has taken a series of measures to more closely scrutinize legal immigration. These steps have been overshadowed by Trump’s more public efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, such as his calls for a wall along the Mexican border and more arrests of people living in the country illegally.
Lately though, Trump has increasingly been taking aim at chain migration, saying it allows a single immigrant ‘to bring in dozens of increasingly distant relations,’ with ‘no real selection criteria.’ He said a Bangladeshi man who set off a homemade pipe bomb in a crowded New York City commuter hub in December was a prime example of the dangers of the system.
Immigration advocates counter that no one automatically qualifies for a visa because a relative is already in the United States. All immigrants undergo security vetting and can face years-long waits before they are given a green light.”
-Mica Rosenberg, “Fewer family visas approved as Trump toughens vetting of immigrants: Reuters review,” Reuters, Jan. 4, 2018 03:11am