The Costs of Dismantling Family Migration

Elizabeth Cohen, Associate Professor of Political Science and a researcher of immigration and citizenship at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, is available to discuss the issues of family migration, where US citizens and immigrants to sponsor family members for visas, also known as chain migration.  In recent days, the Trump administration has shown a desire to change this immigration policy.

“There are costs to the Trump administration’s campaign to eliminate the core immigration principle of family reunification,” says Cohen. “When immigrants, even highly educated so-called skills based immigrants arrive, they need help navigating unfamiliar bureaucracies, finding housing, learning how to get around, improving language skills, getting healthcare and even absorbing some of the norms of their new workplace. When families sponsor family members, they usually do most of that work. They house, acculturate, transport, and care for their relatives.”

“This is an invaluable free service to new immigrants but also to our society. In the absence of family reunification, the burdens associated with all of these processes will have to be taken on by some other agent, and that will probably come with costs to the government and taxpayers,” says Cohen.

Cohen is available to talk with the media about the issues of immigration and family migration. Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, director of news and PR at Syracuse University, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 315.443.1897 or Keith Kobland, media manager at Syracuse University, at kkobland@syr.edu or 315.443.9038.