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Time For A Change: Why A Points System Should Replace Family Immigrationby Gary Endelman
We should open up family and business-based immigration to address presently massive backlogs. Illegal immigration is symptomatic of a system that fails to reunify families and address economic needs in the U.S. To ensure a rational and fair system, we must reduce bureaucratic obstacles and undue restriction to permanent legal immigration...We need an earned 'regularization' for undocumented people who work, pay taxes, contribute to their communities, and seek American citizenship. Such people should be given the opportunity to obtain permanent residence, instead of being forced outside the boundaries of the law.Illegal immigration remained unchecked because legal immigration remained out of balance . One cannot be solved without the other. IRCA sought only to punish the employers of the undocumented, but did nothing to rationalize the legal immigration system in an efficient and humane manner. The goal of "earned legalization" should be to unify families and direct a sure and steady flow of skilled workers into legal channels so that they can leave the shadows and strengthen the economy in which we all work and on which we all depend. It is for this reason that a points system for essential workers is not only the best way to legalize the undocumented, but also to reform the legal immigration system. What should such reform consist of? On what bedrock precepts should it rest ? America should have a legal immigration system for only three reasons: (1) to serve as a refuge for the oppressed who flee persecution; (2) to unify the nuclear family and (3) to enrich the domestic economy. This is why any limits that divide the nuclear family are inhumane and must be immediately scrapped. There should be no reason why the families of legal permanent residents are kept apart any longer than the families of American citizens. They should be treated precisely the same . Not to do so, to tolerate the present family-based immigration system is an affront to the human dignity of those who wait and those who keep them separated. At the same time, once we make the nuclear family sacrosanct, America must take the next step and abolish all other forms of family immigration as well as the diversity visa lottery. In its place, adopt a points system based on the same criteria that "earned legalization" articulates: age, English language fluency, ties to the United States, the presence of skills that the economy needs, education, and a willingness to live in places that have been chronically unable to attract migration, whether domestic or international. If America does not need the married children or siblings of United States citizens, the older sons or daughters of Americans, or the over- 21 sons and daughters of permanent residens, they should not come. If they can earn a sufficient number of points , let them in. In the long-run, most people come here to work and chain migration that is unchecked by any labor market controls must be replaced by a system that puts national interest first. Out of fundamental fairness to those who have been waiting for so long, the replacement of the current Family immigration preferences can be phased in on a gradual basis. The beneficiaries of approved immigrant petitions in the curent Family First ( adult sons and daughters of US citizens), 2B ( over age 21 sons and daughters of permanent residents), Family Third ( married children of US citizens) and Family Fourth ( siblings of US citizens) categories should be given a chance to convert their applications to those under the new points system. To clean out the backlog, Congress should authorize a dramatic expansion of these categories to last only as long as the change-over requires. It should be possible to accomplish this in two years if we have the will to do so. Finding ways to bring longtime illegal residents into the sunshine, reuniting nuclear families, and making all other forms of family migration subject to a points system will enhance national security, promote economic vitality, give permanent residents the chance to realize the promise of American life, and avoid the mistakes of the 1986 Amnesty. What's not to like?
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