Melania's parents will soon be citizens. They can thank 'chain migration.' - WaPo Editorial Board

Melania Trump’s parents will soon be citizens. They can thank ‘chain migration.’

By Editorial Board February 23 at 6:40 PM

CONGRATULATIONS ARE in order for the parents of first lady Melania Trump, who, The Post reports, will soon be sworn in as citizens of the United States. Like tens of millions of immigrants before them, the first lady’s parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, left their homeland (in their case, Slovenia) and made a fresh start in America despite the obstacles of an unfamiliar culture, customs and language.

As it happens, the Knavs are probably the beneficiaries of a policy their son-in-law, President Trump, has disparaged as “chain migration,” otherwise known as family reunification. A bedrock of the legal immigration system in this country for more than half a century, family reunification has accounted for tens of millions of immigrants, and nearly three-quarters of all legal immigrants who have entered the United States since the mid-1960s.

With scant evidence, the president has scorned the policy as a threat to national security and the economy, and made scrapping it a pillar of his immigration plan. Drawn up into legislation, that plan failed in the Senate last week on a vote of 39 to 60. It is not yet known whether Mr. Trump will attend his in-laws’ swearing-in ceremony, which will probably feature many other so-called chain migrants waving flags, pledging allegiance to the United States, and hearing a talk on their rights and obligations as citizens.

The point here is not only the evident hypocrisy of the president, who, as a businessman in New York, employed illegal immigrants to work at the Trump Tower site on Fifth Avenue. It’s also to ask whether Americans want to live in a country where immigrant citizens such as Ms. Trump would be forbidden from sponsoring their parents, their adult children and other relatives for legal residency in the United States. That would be the effect of the president’s policy.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/melania-trumps-parents-will-soon-be-citizens-they-can-thank-chain-migration/2018/02/23/920eca48-1750-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html