2019 Review: Trump immigration policies shake up, wake up Asian Americans

If there is one thing that the diverse AAPI communities have in common, it is their almost universal opposition to the persistent attempts of the White House-driven policies intending to reduce immigration from Asia.

"The administration has literally every month enacted new fundamental restrictions on the rights of immigrants, and in particular, the rights of asylum-seekers at the border," the ACLU's immigration specialist Lee Gelernt told CBS News.

While the dire conditions at the US-Mexico border receives most of the media attention, immigration from Asia, now the source of most of US-bound immigrants, is affected by the hardline policies proposed by the Trump administration.

These policies or proposals include:

• The end of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in which thousands of AAPI young people who were brought into the US illegally by their parents. DACA allows them to stay and work in the US where they were raised

• A reduction of who qualifies as family threatens to separate siblings and parents of new immigrants. About 70% to 80% of Asian immigrants come to the US through family-based immigration.

• Rules to look into would-be immigrants' social media use to make sure they are not anti-Trumpers;

• A measure to make sure that visa applicants would not be a financial burden to the US by becoming a "public charge," by using any form of government assistance including SSI, food stamps or a school's free lunch program;

• Raising the fees -- almost double -- for greencard holders to become citizens;

• New limits of H1-B visas that allows workers with special skills needed in the US, to move to head of immigration que; and student visas that permit foreign students to study here and in many cases, after their studies, remain in the US;

• The deportation of refugees from Southeast Asia refugees who might have run afoul of the law for even minor infractions such as a DUI or possession of small amounts of marijuana. Although they served their sentences, ICE often awaits to detain them as soon as they step out of jail;

• And for good measure -- perhaps simply because a rule was approved by President Obama -- the administration seeks to eliminate the so-called parole program that allowed family members to join and care for elderly Filipino WWII vets who were granted US citizenship.

Although most of policies have been mired in the court system because of legal challenges filed by various states and immigration advocates, the government keeps appealing them hoping that they will eventually make their way to the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.

Many people believe, including AAPI members of Congress, slowing the numbers of immigrants of color to keep America white, is at the heart of the Trump anti-immigrant policies. Hundreds of congressmembers have written a letter asking Trump to fire Stephen Miller, the alleged white supremacist who is the mastermind behind the reforms restricting immigration.  

"What has been going on at the border is so visual and so visceral that I think it's the thing that has absolutely dominated everybody's attention with respect to immigration issues," León Rodríguez, the last U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director under President Obama, told CBS News. "A lot of these other issues are very bureaucratic, very technical but very impactful for the families that are affected."

"The overall thrust of what the administration has been doing is pretty much at every turn to restrict immigration, both in terms of the overall numbers of people who are able to acquire immigration benefits, but also as to any individual applicant or petitioner, to make it infinitely more difficult for them to attain those benefits," Rodríguez said.


2019 REVIEW 
Part 1: AAPI political visibility explodes on nat'l scene
Part 2: Affirmative action debate exposes schism in Asian American community
Part 4: Hollywood 'discovers Asians