Asian-Americans Have A Lot To Lose If GOP Legal Immigration Bill Is Passed

“The overwhelming message is that these Congressmen and the administration want to marginalize immigrants and people of color,” John C. Yang, president & executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC, told HuffPost. “They are attempting to legislate hate and discrimination and frankly keep America majority white.”

Yang pointed out that RAISE would disproportionately affect the Asian-American community. The minority is the fastest growing racial group in the U.S. and two-thirds of the community are immigrants. The overwhelming majority of Asian immigrants come to the U.S. through the family-based system, reports show. Those who come to the country on employment-based visas often rely on the family-based system to reunite with other family members.

However the bill would cut family-based immigrant visas to 88,000 each year ― compare that to the 673,000 people who received green cards through the family based system during the 2015 fiscal year alone. These restrictions feel particularly painful for Asian-Americans as the proposed policy hearkens back to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first significant U.S. law to restrict immigration, Annie Wang, staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense And Education Fund explained. By putting a moratorium on Chinese immigration, the act kept immigrants from reuniting with their families in the United States.

In addition, many in the Asian-American community who have applied to sponsor family members have already been enduring separation from their families because of the backlog for visas, Yang said. India and the Philippines have among the highest number of waiting list registrants. And some prospective immigrants have been waiting decades to be with their families again.

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