IMMIGRATION/NONTRUTHS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump on Tuesday [1-30-18] delivered his first State of the Union address, and CNN’s Reality Check Team was there to vet his claims.
The team of reporters, researchers and editors across CNN listened throughout the speech and analyzed key statements, rating them either true, true but misleading, or false.
Family-based migration…
The President claimed that under what he calls ‘chain migration,’ or family-based migration, ‘a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.’ But that isn’t quite the case when the limitations of the programs are factored in.
It is true that the majority of green cards given out annually go to family members of US citizens and legal permanent residents, not based on employment. Family visa categories include spouses, children and — with decreasing degrees of preference — parents, unmarried adult children, married adult children and their families and adult brothers and sisters and their families. The Trump administration has proposed limiting family-based visas to spouses and minor children, which could be a cut of roughly 40% annually to green cards, according to estimates based on DHS statistics…
Family-based migration also has its benefits, some experts say. While the process does not pre-select immigrants based on their skillset or professional experience, connecting immigrants with family already in the US does help with assimilation into the culture and gives them a social network to welcome them in the country. Studies have also shown that the second and third generations of immigrant families are a net boon to the economy — a Center for American Entrepreneurship analysis of the Fortune 500 list for 2017 found that 43% of those companies were founded or co-founded by a first- or second-generation immigrant.
Verdict: False.”
-CNN’s Reality Check Team, “CNN’s Reality Check Team vets Trump’s State of the Union,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Jan. 31, 2018 09:46am