Today, as immigration policies come under great scrutiny, there is pressure to use a merit-based system for entry into the United States. One of the more under-attack policies is that of “chain migration”. Chain migration is a pejorative term thought up by people on the right when it comes to immigration. Politicians who do not favor the current immigration policies have been talking in their think tanks for a long time and now they have the President's ear. Chain migration is when a U.S. citizen sponsors their mother or their father who then sponsors somebody else.
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They want to do away with that. Against the backdrop of the current immigration reform, at its core, the people that are advising the president want to not only undo illegal or undocumented immigration, but they want a full-scale assault on legal immigration. They want to get the immigration policies back to the way that they were before these changes in the '60s and '70s. Chain migration, more correctly termed “family migration” is where one person moves to another country, and then other family members follow. Often, the first immigrant will gravitate towards communities that already have social networks that reflect their homeland. Although in a completely different country, the new arrival eventually feels “at home.” They reach out to other family members to join them.
In some form, family unification has been around for hundreds of years. Social scientists refer to the “push/pull factors” that cause people to migrate. A push factor is a reason to leave a familiar place that, say the economy in your homeland is devastated, or perhaps there is drought or famine. Religious or political oppression is also a “push factor” that compels people to seek a better way of life. “Pull factors” are those advantages that draw migrants to a new country - a flourishing economy and growing labor force, for example. The “American dream” has long been a pull factor for immigrants, with an abundance of available jobs, often in the fields of labor and agriculture.
Whatever your reasoning might be for wanting to pursue immigrating to the United States, a lawyer is almost always needed. Government forms are overly-complex and the current political climate makes it hard for anyone to enter. Let one of our attorneys at the Hacking Immigration Law, LLC help you today.
