Dep. of Homeland Security publicly warns ‘Chain Migration’ is a national security danger
December 26, 2017
Elvert Barnes / CCL
“Trump was right” seems to be a theme in recent months. With the Russia investigation falling apart at the seams, the President can check off another thing about which he was correct. This time it’s the chain migration process he has criticized in recent months.
The Department of Homeland Security just blasted chain migration as a national security risk, linking it to the most recent terror attack, in which a gunman targeted police officers in Pennsylvania. DHS Press Secretary Tyler Houlton confirmed that the Pennsylvania gunman came to the U.S. as a result of the chain migration policy, and said that both chain migration and the diversity visa lottery “makes it more difficult to keep dangerous people out” of the U.S.
Read his full statement below:
The Pennsylvania incident is the third recent terror attack on U.S. soil to be linked to chain migration.
Trump’s Immigration Reform
During his campaign, Trump was criticized for taking a very skeptical stance regarding immigration from at-risk countries. “At-risk” meaning countries where the predominant ideology and norms, be they religiously or politically based, are hostile to American and Western values.
Such is the case in Muslim-majority countries where the controlling religious authority stems from Wahhabist or Salafist (ultra conservative) interpretations of Islam.
When then-candidate Trump rightly said that a temporary pause in immigration from those countries would be a wise policy for the U.S. to enact, the Left became apoplectic.
When Trump called the Diversity Lottery program into question in late October following a New York terrorist attack, and the logic of his immigration policy became demonstrably correct, the Left denouncedhim.
When he criticized the chain migration program that brings to American shores thousands upon thousands of loosely associated family members along with those permitted through typical immigration procedures, the Left cried racism.
But now, the Department of Homeland Security has come to agree with President Trump, and it has good reason to do so. Of the last three terrorist attacks on American soil, each one has been linked to the Diversity Lottery program, the chain migration system, or both.
The Lottery and Chain Migration
Briefly, the Diversity Lottery program exists to permit a pool of immigrants who would otherwise be of low-value or little interest in the American immigration system — to the tune of 50,000 per year. Chain migration is the process whereby family members (often non-immediate members) are allowed to enter the country ‘chained’ to the initially permitted immigrant. The Diversity Lottery program often brings in a single immigrant and large swathes of their family — but it’s not only the lottery program that employs the chain migration option.
In sum, a single vetted migrant can bring more than just his immediate family to the United States with them. When these families are emigrating from at-risk countries, there is a very serious security risk.
The last three terrorist attacks, including the October truck attack in New York, the Subway attack a few weeks ago in New York, and this weekend’s Pennsylvania attack on police officers all were committed by migrants who entered the country through one or both of these programs.
If that’s not sufficient evidence that the program should be ended, at least temporarily, then what more could reasonable people require?
Houlton said that the most recent attack in Pennsylvania “highlights the Trump administration’s concerns with extended family chain migration.”
In his statement, Houlton wrote:
Both chain migration and the diversity visa lottery program have been exploited by terrorists to attack our country. Not only are the programs less effective at driving economic growth than merit-based immigration systems used by nearly all other countries, the programs make it more difficult to keep dangerous people out of the United States and to protect the safety of every American.
Houlton probably could have gone further. For instance, the temporary travel ban from eight nations (which prevents the creation of all new visas) overlaps with the countries permitted in the Diversity Lottery program.
Those countries are:
- Chad
- North Korea
- Venezuela
- Iran
- Libya
- Somalia
- Syria
- Yemen
The End of Chain Migration?
Is this the end of the extended-family facet of chain migration? Only time will tell, but the president has been advocating for broad immigration reform since his campaign took off last year.
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This isn’t about disdain for a religion, for any particular group of people, or even an ideology. It’s about declining to invite more danger into an exceedingly complicated country that already enjoys an enormous amount of diversity.
Why wouldn’t taking a temporary pause, and looking toward assimilation and security for a time be anything but a smart and prudent policy?
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