John Oliver speaks onstage at HBO Summer TCA 2018 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, ... [+]
John Oliver is a comedian who understands America’s legal immigration system. He understands it better than the president of the United States.
In a recent – and quite brilliant – segment on his HBO show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the British-born host explained the practical difficulties foreign nationals must overcome to immigrate legally to America. Oliver used a comic foil – Donald Trump.
Oliver divided the U.S. legal immigration system into four categories – Family, Employment, Good Luck (Diversity visas) and Bad Luck (refugees and asylum seekers). Let’s take a look at how John Oliver and Donald Trump understand the workings of these four categories.
Family: John Oliver is correct that approximately two-thirds of legal immigrants are family-sponsored. He’s also right that family immigration is limited to close family members: spouses and minor children (about half of all family immigrants), parents, siblings and adult children.
In contrast, Donald Trump stated incorrectly, as seen in clips: “Guy comes in, a stone-cold killer in many cases, a guy comes in and then you have to bring his aunt, uncle, his father, grandfather . . . his third niece by a different marriage.” Oliver is on strong grounds to label this an untrue description of family immigration and, for fact-checking purposes, a “Bottomless Pinocchio.”
On numerous occasions, Trump has decried “chain migration,” which is a contrived term used to criticize something that has always happened in American history – immigrants who succeed later help out their family members. Oliver notes that Melania Trump immigrated and sponsored her parents for immigration, and it is difficult to argue Melania’s parents spending time with their grandchild harms the country.
Oliver could have used two other examples of “chain migration” – Donald Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, and grandfather, Friedrich Trump. In 1885, Friedrich Trump, immigrated from Germany at age 16 to join his oldest sister, who “had immigrated to New York a year earlier,” according to Gwenda Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President. In 1930, at 18 years old, Mary Anne MacLeod immigrated to America from Scotland to live in Queens with her married sister, who had immigrated earlier. She later married Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump. Columbia University historian Mae M. Ngai told me in an interview, “Donald Trump is a product of ‘chain migration.’”
Utilizing the State Department Visa Bulletin, John Oliver correctly points out that due to per-country limits (and low annual limits) it can take many years for one relative to sponsor another one: In 2019, the U.S. government is only now admitting Mexican brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens who first applied for them back in 1997.
Employment: Oliver was right to focus on the per-country limit and its harmful impact on applicants in the employment-based categories. Oliver showed a clip of a child reacting to the news his father might be over 100 years old before receiving a green card because of the per-country limit. This conforms with a National Foundation for American Policy estimate that Indian-born professionals can expect to wait potentially many decades for green cards.
A bill to eliminate the per-country limit for employment-based immigrants passed the House of Representatives in 2019. However, it has been held up in the Senate by Trump allies, first Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and later Sen. David Purdue (R-GA). Perdue cosponsored the RAISE Act, which Trump endorsed and would have reduced legal immigration by 50%.
Good Luck (Diversity Visas): One of Donald Trump’s favorite immigration targets is the Diversity visa lottery. Oliver is correct that Trump’s description of how the lottery operates is (wildly) inaccurate. At an August 2, 2018, rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump said, “We got to get rid of visa – how about that? – visa, visa lottery. You know what a lottery is? You pick it out of a hat.” He regularly says foreign governments pick their “worst people” – often murderers – to enter the lottery to be shipped to the United States.
“President Trump’s statement mentioned ‘convictions for death’ and such a conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude would make them ineligible for an immigrant visa,” said Jeffrey Gorsky, senior counsel at Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP and a former attorney in the State Department’s Visa Office, in an interview. “Individuals apply for the lottery online and selections are made randomly in the U.S., so other governments have no role in determining who wins a DV visa.” (Emphasis added.)
Bad Luck (Refugees and Asylum Seekers): Oliver is correct that in his last year in office Barack Obama set the annual number of refugees at 110,000. Oliver notes Donald Trump lowered the annual refugee level to 30,000 in FY 2019, and has sought to eliminate any realistic opportunity to apply for asylum in the United States. Trump has argued, “America is full.” No one sincerely believes the United States lacks enough land for new people to enter, live and work.
Oliver concedes there is room to debate the balance of categories in the legal immigration system, though he supports higher numbers. He jokes, “Trump has made it clear his ideal system would be in two tiers, split equally between Rich Norwegians and Future Wives.”
John Oliver closed by discussing the human toll the current legal immigration system takes on immigrants. “I have been through this system and it is rough.” He said when he finally received his green card, “I was so relieved I nearly burst into tears.” If this is how one of America’s most successful television entertainers feels, then just imagine what it’s like for other immigrants who try to achieve the American Dream.
