FAIR
One State Takes a Stand on Legal Immigration
While most of the attention is focused on the problems of mass illegal immigration, the nation's bloated and ineffective legal immigration system is equally in need of an overhaul. Rather than "legal immigration," a more accurate term for the current policy ought to be "government mandated immigration." And like most government mandates, it has become an expensive and self-perpetuating program that has little relevance to the national interest.
One of the biggest issues related to government mandated immigration is the growing public cost of providing services and benefits to people who have been granted entry to the United States based on a policy of extended family reunification, or chain migration. Family-based immigrants, who constitute the vast majority of the government mandated immigration flow, are admitted irrespective of their skills and education, or their sponsor's ability to take care of their needs.
One state, Connecticut, has had enough. Burdened with escalating costs for services and benefits for government mandated immigrants, Connecticut's Department of Social Services has decided to bill the immigrants' sponsors, rather than force everyone else in the state to pay. Immigrants who settle in this country to join family members must be sponsored by their petitioning relatives who sign declarations which commit them, not the public, to be responsible for the needs of the people they bring here. Such sponsorship commitments are routinely ignored by both the sponsors and the government while immigrants who are unable to make it on their own wind up relying on a variety of government programs and services.
The growing burden on state and local government illustrates the need for key reforms to our legal immigration policies. These reforms include:
- Ending family chain migration. Extended family immigration is the driving force behind ever-higher levels of legal immigration. Family-based immigration must be limited to the nuclear family, i.e., spouses and unmarried minor children.
- Merit-based immigration. The individual qualifications of a prospective immigrant to succeed in the United States-not having a relative here-should be the primary basis for admission.
- Enforcement of sponsorship commitments. The federal government must assess the financial ability of a sponsor to honor a sponsorship agreement; require the sponsors to purchase heath insurance policies for those for whom they petition; and compel sponsors to cover costs for services provided to the immigrants they bring to this country, rather than turning to the taxpayers.
Immigration is first and foremost a public policy and must serve the interests of the nation and the American people. While the federal government has failed to formulate a policy that meets these criteria, Connecticut is demonstrating that state and local governments have the ability to act on their own to protect the public interest.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization of concerned citizens who share a common belief that our nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest. FAIR seeks to improve border security, to stop illegal immigration, and to promote immigration levels consistent with the national interest-more traditional rates of about 300,000 a year. FAIR, 1666 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20009. Tel: (202) 328-7004.
