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Something Trump is getting right, which
Posted on: March 7, 2017 at 08:08:15 CT
GA Tiger MU
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I knew all along.
The president’s proposal to move America to a skills-based visa system is long overdue.
Steven Malanga
President Trump has sparked controversy for his plans to build a wall along the Mexican border, for banning travelers from certain countries from entering the U.S., and for stepping up deportations of those here illegally. But in his address to Congress on Tuesday night, Trump spent more time discussing reforms to our legal immigration system, which currently allows some 1 million people a year to enter the country. Most pointedly, Trump pledged to change the current family-based system to one that is skills- or merit-based—as other developed nations have done. “It is a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially. Yet, in America, we do not enforce this rule, straining the very public resources that our poorest citizens rely upon,” Trump said. It’s an idea likely to spark as much opposition from today’s immigration advocates within the Democratic Party as anything else that Trump is proposing. But if he succeeds, Trump would dramatically transform the flow of newcomers in ways that could boost America’s economic output.
Our current legal immigration system is the result of the far-reaching and somewhat unanticipated consequences of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. That law abolished the national quotas that Congress had enacted in 1921 and replaced them with a framework that gave preference to the relatives of American citizens. One of the bill’s chief backers, Senator Ted Kennedy, proclaimed that the changes were modest and that the legislation, “contrary to the charges in some quarters, will not inundate America with immigrants.” He also confidently predicted that immigrants who came here under the new system would not become a “public charge.”
But by simultaneously lifting bans on immigration from some regions and giving preference to the relatives of U.S. citizens (including the adult parents and adult siblings of those already living here), the law generated a big increase in the number of people wanting to come, and the waiting list grew enormous. Under pressure, Congress consistently began raising the quotas, and legal immigration rose steadily, from 296,697 in 1965 to 1,051,031 in 2015. The demographics of immigration changed, too. Before the new legislation, those from Europe and Canada made up nearly seven in 10 legal immigrants. In 2015, however, Europeans and Canadians accounted for just 10 percent of new immigrants. By contrast, Asians made up 39 percent of legal newcomers, while immigrants from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America constituted one-third of new legal arrivals.
The president’s proposal to move America to a skills-based visa system is long overdue.
Steven Malanga
President Trump has sparked controversy for his plans to build a wall along the Mexican border, for banning travelers from certain countries from entering the U.S., and for stepping up deportations of those here illegally. But in his address to Congress on Tuesday night, Trump spent more time discussing reforms to our legal immigration system, which currently allows some 1 million people a year to enter the country. Most pointedly, Trump pledged to change the current family-based system to one that is skills- or merit-based—as other developed nations have done. “It is a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially. Yet, in America, we do not enforce this rule, straining the very public resources that our poorest citizens rely upon,” Trump said. It’s an idea likely to spark as much opposition from today’s immigration advocates within the Democratic Party as anything else that Trump is proposing. But if he succeeds, Trump would dramatically transform the flow of newcomers in ways that could boost America’s economic output.
Our current legal immigration system is the result of the far-reaching and somewhat unanticipated consequences of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. That law abolished the national quotas that Congress had enacted in 1921 and replaced them with a framework that gave preference to the relatives of American citizens. One of the bill’s chief backers, Senator Ted Kennedy, proclaimed that the changes were modest and that the legislation, “contrary to the charges in some quarters, will not inundate America with immigrants.” He also confidently predicted that immigrants who came here under the new system would not become a “public charge.”
But by simultaneously lifting bans on immigration from some regions and giving preference to the relatives of U.S. citizens (including the adult parents and adult siblings of those already living here), the law generated a big increase in the number of people wanting to come, and the waiting list grew enormous. Under pressure, Congress consistently began raising the quotas, and legal immigration rose steadily, from 296,697 in 1965 to 1,051,031 in 2015. The demographics of immigration changed, too. Before the new legislation, those from Europe and Canada made up nearly seven in 10 legal immigrants. In 2015, however, Europeans and Canadians accounted for just 10 percent of new immigrants. By contrast, Asians made up 39 percent of legal newcomers, while immigrants from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America constituted one-third of new legal arrivals.
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Something Trump is getting right, which - GA Tiger MU - 3/7 08:08:15
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