Tammy Duckworth: Chain Migration Is ‘A Pillar of American Immigration System’

Chain Migration
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
John Binder
Washington, D.C.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) says the unpopular process of chain migration, whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the United States with them, is “a pillar of the American immigration system.”

In a clip on social media, Duckworth defends the unpopular chain migration system, which has imported more than nine million foreign nationals to the U.S. since 2005, claiming the mass immigration of foreign relatives is somehow related to the country’s founding principles.

“Today, I want to talk about a pillar of the American immigration system, family reunification,” Duckworth says. “Family reunification reflects what is truly great about our nation. It recognizes that what makes a family American is a shared commitment to the values of freedom and equality that are enshrined in the Constitution.” [Emphasis added]

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) explains how chain migration works:

Duckworth also claimed that by pushing to end chain migration, President Trump and his senior adviser Stephen Miller were attempting to destroy family units, though the plan they’ve introduced would allow nuclear family units to emigrate to the country.

“Unfortunately, I fear that a bipartisan legacy of valuing families is about to be thrown away by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller,” Duckworth claimed. “Trump and his followers won’t even utter the ‘family reunification.’ They do this because they fear the truth. Deep down, they know that there is nothing American about tearing families apart.”

Duckworth further said that chain migration is “an American value.”

Like Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), other Senate Democrats, and the Republican establishment, Duckworth’s support for chain migration is backed up by billionaire mega-donors the Koch brothers, who oppose chain migration as well, despite immigration reductions having massive support among Americans.

As Breitbart News reported, a recent Harvard-Harris poll found that nearly 80 percent of Americans said they believe “immigration priority for those coming to the U.S. should be based on a person’s ability to contribute to America as measured by their education and skills—and not based on a person having relatives in the U.S.”

Trump, along with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), has urged the Republican-controlled Congress to end chain migration, thus reducing legal immigration levels and raising Americans’ wages, and replacing the system with a merit-based process where legal immigrants are admitted based on their skills and English proficiency.

The Harvard-Harris poll found that even with black Americans, who are hit the hardest by mass immigration, and Democrat voters, a merit-based legal immigration system is wildly popular.

A total of 85 percent of black Americans said they supported a merit-based immigration system, rather than the current flow of chain migration. Another 72 percent of Democrat, former voters for Hillary Clinton agreed that the legal immigration system should be based on skills, not family ties.

Black Americans also remain the most supportive demographic group in the nation for reducing legal immigration levels down from the current annual inflow of more than one million low-skilled foreign nationals to annually admitting between one to 250,000 legal immigrants, as Breitbart News reported.

Democrats, many of which once opposed chain migration, are expected to make major electoral gains if the current legal immigration system is not changed over the next two decades to 50 years.

In the next 20 years, Breitbart News reported how chain migration is expected to import between seven to eight million new foreign-born voters, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Director of Research Steven Camarota revealed.

The chain migration importation of eight million new foreign-born voters in the next two decades would be double the size of the annual number of U.S. births; about four million American babies are born every year.

Overall, including all legal immigration and not just chain migration, the U.S. is on track to bring in about 15 million new foreign-born voters in the next 20 years, as the country continues admitting more than one million legal immigrants every year.

In 2016, the legal and illegal immigrant population reached a record high of 44 million. By 2023, CIS estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population. Chain migration has brought more than nine million legal immigrants to the U.S. since 2005.

Democrats are expected to make enormous gains, politically, as University of Maryland, College Park researcher James Gimpel has found in recent years that more immigrants to the U.S. inevitably means more Democrat voters and thus, increasing electoral victories for the Democratic Party.

In 2014, Gimpel’s research concluded with three major findings:

  • Immigrants, particularly Hispanics and Asians, have policy preferences when it comes to the size and scope of government that are more closely aligned with progressives than with conservatives. As a result, survey data show a two-to-one party identification with Democrats over Republicans.
  • By increasing income inequality and adding to the low-income population (e.g. immigrants and their minor children account for one-fourth of those in poverty and one-third of the uninsured) immigration likely makes all voters more supportive of redistributive policies championed by Democrats to support disadvantaged populations.
  • There is evidence that immigration may cause more Republican-oriented voters to move away from areas of high immigrant settlement leaving behind a more lopsided Democrat majority.

Democrats like former San Antonio, Texas mayor Julian Castro admit that mass immigration to the U.S. will result in Democrat dominance for generations in swing states.

Every year, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 foreign nationals, with the vast majority deriving from family-based chain migration, whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. In 2016, the legal and illegal immigrant population reached a record high 44 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.

Mass immigration has come at the expense of America’s working and middle class, which has suffered from poor job growth, stagnant wages, and increased public costs to offset the importation of millions of low-skilled foreign nationals.

For blue-collar American workers, mass immigration has not only kept wages down, but in many cases, decreased wages, as Breitbart News reported. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues importing more foreign nationals against whom working-class Americans are forced to compete. In 2016, the U.S. brought in about 1.8 million mostly low-skilled immigrants.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.  

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