President Donald Trump is shaking up the nation’s green card process by warning legal immigrants and citizens not to recklessly “sponsor” foreigners who cannot pay their way in the United States.
The warning reflects the White House’s emphasis on curbing the award of green cards and citizenship to unskilled and poor migrants who will burden Americans by consuming more government aid and welfare than they produce in taxes.
Under prior presidents, including Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, migrants in the United States have been allowed to freely apply for green cards via the “Adjustment of Status” process.
This “AoS” process is a continuous, unrecognized amnesty because it gives green cards to roughly 550,000 people each year, including many illegals and people who overstay their legal visas. Illegals also use the AoS process to get temporary work permits. In 2018, for example, 257,376 work permits were handed out to a variety of people who applied for AoS.
One of the few curbs on the AoS amnesty is a requirement that applicants find a sponsor who will repay the taxpayers for any aid and welfare consumed by the AoS applicant. This curb, however, is unused because officials rarely require the sponsors to repay taxpayers when the would-be immigrants do not earn enough wages to stay off welfare.
But officials will now enforce the sponsorship rule, says Ken Cuccinelli, the new head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. On June 14, he issued a warning statement on Twitter (emphasis added):
On May 23, 2019, the President issued a Presidential Memorandum on Enforcing the Legal Responsibilities of Sponsors of Aliens.
…
Officers will now be required to remind individuals at their adjustment of status interviews of their sponsors’ responsibilities under existing law and regulations. Our officers must remind applicants and sponsors that the Affidavit of Support is a legal and enforceable contract between the sponsor and the federal government. The sponsor must be willing and able to financially support the intending immigrant as outlined by law and regulations (see INA 213A and 8 CFR 213a). If the sponsored immigrant receives any federal means-tested public benefits, the sponsor will be expected to reimburse the benefits-granting agency for every dollar of benefits received by the immigrant.
Over the next several months, federal agencies will develop and implement guidance on the presidential memorandum to make sure that agencies enforce these requirements.
The policy may deter immigrants and citizens from sponsoring unskilled migrants, thus reducing the scale and cost of low-skilled immigration that is imposed on Americans, said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies. “A normal person will think twice and say ‘Whoa, I don’t think I want to take on that [financial sponsorship] responsibility,'” she said.
“This is a really good change. … It is about making people qualify [for green cards] based on their likelihood of being self-supporting, and [about] not approving people who will go to the nearest welfare office,” she told Breitbart New Tonight on June 14.
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Originally Posted by Dienekes
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