David Perdue: DACA Amnesty Without End to Chain Migration 'Is Not Going to Go Anywhere in Senate'

Senator David Perdue (R-GA) told President Trump on Tuesday during a White House meeting on immigration that any amnesty plan for nearly 800,000 illegal aliens would not “go anywhere in the United States Senate” unless it is attached to a plan that ends chain migration, which has imported more than nine million foreign nationals to the U.S. in the last decade.

Under the process known as “chain migration,” newly naturalized citizens are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S., a system that has brought millions to the country without a requirement that they have any skills or English proficiency.

Perdue, as well as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), said that any deal giving amnesty to illegal aliens shielded from deportation by the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program must include an end to chain migration, which would likely cut legal immigration levels in half to benefit American workers.

“The chain migration is so insidious. It is the fundamental flaw in the immigration policy of the United States,” Perdue told Trump in the meeting. “If any conversation about DACA is being held without that consideration — I agree with border security as well — but any conversation about that is not going to go anywhere in the United States Senate.”

“And if we think we’re going to divide one side versus the other, that’s just not going to happen on this issue,” Perdue said.

Trump told Perdue that he believes the American people want an end to chain migration, saying, “David, I think chain migration has taken a very big hit over the last six months.”

“You know, people are seeing what’s happening,” Trump said.

Perdue cited a recent poll which found that the overwhelming majority of Americans want to see chain migration ended, thus limiting the relatives newly naturalized citizens can bring to the U.S. down to their nuclear family members.

“Seventy percent of Americans want the immigration policy to be the family, the nuclear family and the worker, 70 percent,” Perdue said.

Since 2005, 9.3 million foreign nationals have been able to resettle in the U.S. for no other reason than they had extended family members already living in the country. This huge inflow outpaces two years of American births, which amount to roughly four million babies every year.

Even after discounting normal immigration, the number of chain-migration arrivals at the nation’s airports during five years exceeds the number of babies born during each year. In percentage terms, foreigners deliver one in five, or 20 percent, of all new arrivals at the nation’s airports or maternity wards every year.

The number of extended-family foreign nationals who have resettled in the U.S. in the last decade is greater than the total combined population of Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Cleveland, the White House has noted in a new ad campaign that seeks to explain and end chain migration.

In recent polling by Pulse Opinion Research, nearly 60 percent of Americans said they wanted to see chain migration ended included in any deal that gives amnesty to the nearly 800,000 DACA illegal aliens.