New Senate bill would cut legal immigration by half

By Sunita Sohrabji
Contributing Writer

(Special from India-West and New America Media) — Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, and David Perdue, R-Georgia, proposed the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act Feb. 7, which aims to cut legal immigration by 50 percent by eliminating several categories of family-based visas.

Most significantly, the bill would eliminate the preference for adult parents of U.S. citizens; the aging parents of Legal Permanent Residents and U.S. citizens would no longer be considered a priority if the measure were to pass. But for U.S. citizens wishing to bring in their elderly parents who need caregiving, the measure does provide a temporary, two-year visa on the condition that the parent does not work and will not need public benefits.

“This is a throw-back to the immigration system pre-1965, which was reformed because it was a racist, white supremacist piece of legislation which excluded Asians and South Asians altogether,” Anoop Prasad, senior staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, told India-West.

“This is a troubling, misguided piece of legislation. It’s pretty clear that they’re putting the racist, xenophobic, white nationalist rhetoric into action,” said the Indian American attorney.

The RAISE Act has not yet been introduced in the Senate. A legislative aide for Perdue told India-West that the senators were planning to introduce the legislation in the Senate in a couple of weeks, after the confirmation for several Cabinet posts has been completed. “There would be no time to debate the bill if it was introduced now,” he explained.

A copy of the bill has not yet been released. But the senators did release an outline of their proposal at a press conference Feb. 7.

The RAISE Act would keep in place immigration preferences for spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. But it would eliminate preferences for the extended and adult family members of U.S. residents, including adult parents and siblings of U.S. citizens; married and unmarried adult children of U.S. citizens; and the unmarried adult children of legal permanent residents.

More than one million legal immigrants arrived in the U.S. in 2015, noted the senators. The RAISE Act would cut immigration by 41 percent in the first year – down to about 638,000 – and by 50 percent by its 10th year – slightly more than 500,000.

“Over the past 25 years, we have allowed immigrants in without consideration of what our American workforce needs,” said Cotton at the press conference, noting that wages for unskilled workers have dropped by two percent. “We’re pulling the rug out from underneath the feet of blue collar workers and creating a permanent underclass,” he said.

Cotton and Perdue advocated for merit-based immigration, which would prioritize highly-skilled workers. Only one out of every 16 immigrants is highly-skilled, noted Cotton, adding that the other 15 are competing with high school graduates and those without college degrees for jobs.

Prasad of ALC told India-West there was no data to correlate Cotton’s statement about immigrants impacting lower wages. “Many studies have shown that immigration just grows the economy. Immigrants contribute to the economy and create jobs for high- and low-skilled workers,” he said.

This article originally published in the February 20, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.