Newest Immigration Ideas from the White House-RAISE

The president’s recent legislation proposal is called the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act, called the RAISE Act. It would institute a skills-based point system for entry, rewarding educated, English-speaking immigrants with high-salary job offers. The measure would also eliminate diversity visa lotteries, and maintains that immigrants who enter the country would be ineligible for welfare for a certain amount of time. I am including a link to the PDF version of the bill. I warn you it is a lot of references to modifications of previous legislation and very difficult to really put into a narrative. The first 2 pages are the overview and probably sufficient for now. (https://www.cotton.senate.gov/files/documents/170802_New_RAISE_Act_Bill_Text.pdf)

What might be helpful is Time magazine’s article and checklist you can use to see if you and your current family, or ancestors, might qualify for immigration under this proposed act. (http://time.com/4887574/trump-raise-act-immigration/) Like most of you on this email thread, I am a descendent of immigrants. Using the Ellis Island immigrant search tool I was able to place some entry dates and information about my immigrant ancestors. (https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/passenger-result) My Italian maternal grandparents (plus 4 uncles and 1 aunt, age infant-10) and German paternal grandfather who immigrated in 1907 and 1903, respectively, would not have passed these requirements. The only person in my family who would remain in the US would be my great-grandson because he is 1/8 Alaskan Native. And as such has American heritage from before Christopher Columbus and any of my grandparents.

I know more about my Italian background than my German, so the following observation/facts may be challenged by my siblings and cousins who are on this email list. To them I say, my ignorance or errors are unplanned and hopefully few. I am fairly certain that my grandparents did not speak English. My own mother who was born in North Carolina in 1911, did not speak English when she started school a hundred years ago (1917).

My Italian family came to the US to work the mines in North Carolina to pay off their passage costs. They all experienced prejudicial behavior and were not welcomed. Eventually (sometime before 1917- cause my mother started school at the same school my older brother later attended) they were able to purchase land, build homes, grow crops, own a corner market (like today’s immigrant communities), raise their kids (9) and prosper. My uncles and aunt did eventually learn English, as did my mother and her younger sisters. My mother and these sisters became professionals: registered nurses and teacher. My uncles worked in the local factories in the area my grandparents had settled after North Carolina (Illinois) or went to Chicago and opened their own commercial enterprises (movie theater, container construction).

My German family settled (not far from the Italian side) on a farm. My grandfather married an American and they had 8 children. The farm still exists today (farmed by one of my cousins and his children).

Thinking about the hundreds of descendents from these 2 sets of grandparents (and honestly, I only know a few of them personally), I see CPA, doctor, educator, farmer, lawyer, manager, nurse, real estate manager, small business owner, veteran, Gold Star family, etc. etc. etc. We have contributed to this nation over and over and over. Without the proximity of my grandparents settling with 15 miles of each other, my siblings and I would not be here. The possibility of a northern Italian girl meeting and marrying a German boy 400 miles away, seems very unlikely!

I personally find any immigration restrictions proposed by this particular president as anti-Muslim, racist, and generally xenophobic! RAISE is just another way to put white supremacy boundaries around who can and who cannot immigrate to OUR country – we are all children of immigrants (again except my great grandson)! We wouldn’t be here contributing to the making of America over the years had our non-English speaking ancestors seeking to live free and prosper had not been able to come over oceans to get here!

So, RAISE up in your own way and let your representatives/senators know that this suggested act (RAISE) is not OK. Ask them to vote against it!

“Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right.” - Ezra Taft Benson

1st Amendment - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.