Filipino immigrants in the United States are expecting to face hard knocks before they could get their family members to the US and live with them.
With US President Donald Trump’s endorsement of the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act, the waiting game for Filipino families for visa approval will be less likely to happen.
If passed into law, the RAISE Act will substitute the current immigration policy based on family unity into a rigid merit-based system. This will also eliminate visa petitions, including almost 400,000 family petitions filed by Filipino immigrants who are waiting for visa availability.
Now that family immigration petitions for adult children and siblings take decades to be approved and with an increase in backlog employment petitions, the proposal of this bill by Republican Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue is foreseen to worsen the current state of immigration rather than improve it.
The RAISE Act proposes to cut immigration by at least half from current levels. The proposal allows petition only to spouses and minor children. Parents, siblings and adult children will be eliminated as beneficiaries of petitions.
Trump’s reason for supporting the RAISE Act was to demonstrate “compassion for struggling American families” who deserve “an immigration system that puts their needs first and puts America first”.
This rationale is based on the premise that immigrants take jobs away from Americans.
Photo credit: Wikimedia
