The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, created by President Bill Clinton and chaired by civil rights activist and former U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan, concluded that immigration was too high and that immigration numbers need to be lowered to serve the national interest. The commission also stressed that immigration numbers need to be reduced to protect American workers. New legislation, the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act, will soon be introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton and would fulfill two of the key recommendations of the Jordan Commission: ending the visa lottery and ending chain migration. Passing this legislation into law would help to fulfill the recommendations of the commission by ending the visa lottery and ending chain migration. Please cosponsor this legislation when it is introduced and help to get it passed into law.
American workers are continuing to leave the labor force in record numbers, with many of these being less educated and lower-skilled Americans. Chain migration allows foreign workers to enter the U.S. without regard to their education or skills. Because a disproportionately high number of these new workers are less-educated or lower skilled, they compete directly against America’s most vulnerable workers, lowering wages and making it more difficult to find work.
Wages for Americans with only a high school diploma have declined 2% (in real terms) since the late 1970s, and they have declined by nearly 20% for Americans who didn’t finish high school. This has led to a collapse in working class America and has made it much more difficult for the American dream to be fulfilled.
Ending chain migration by limiting family-based immigration to spouses and minor children would drastically reduce the pool of lower-skilled workers, leading to increased wages and improving job prospects for those Americans most in need of our help. Sen. Cotton’s legislation would also end the visa lottery, which lets in 50,000 new foreign workers each year without regard to their skills or ability to provide for themselves.
The Jordan Commission concluded that immigration must serve the national interest. Specifically, the commission concluded that high immigration numbers would harm less-educated Americans and that chain migration needed to be ended to prevent this from happening. I urge you to follow the recommendations of the commission and help less-educated and lower-skilled Americans by cosponsoring Sen. Cotton’s legislation, the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act.
Phone me if you would like to talk about this,
Greg Raven
P.S. This is absolutely key to regaining control of our immigration situation.
