New York Mayor Adam’s Botched Understanding of Merit-Based Immigration

Evidently impressed by the physical stamina of those who make it across the Rio Grande River, New York Mayor Eric Adams offered a novel idea for how to deal with his city’s migrant crisis. In a recent City Hall briefing Adams commented, “How do we have a large body of people that are in our city, our country, that are excellent swimmers and at the same time we need lifeguards — and the only obstacle is that we won’t give them the right to work to become a lifeguard?”

If it was a tongue-in-check quip designed to argue for more workers, or work permits for those who violated the law, it missed the mark. There are lots of “jobs” that would mesh nicely with the skill sets needed to cross hostile terrain, ford rivers and avoid detection once inside the country, but they are not necessarily the kind that would benefit the country.

Sarcasm aside, the mayor should be reminded that illegal aliens aren’t supposed to work. And there is certainly no exception for those possessing special “skills” — like swimming — required or applied in the violation of a law. Rewarding them with work opportunities simply incentivizes further migrant flows, and does nothing to advance a legitimate merit-based system of legal immigration that America desperately needs.

It’s overdue. Currently, the vast majority of legal immigrants are admitted solely because they are related to other recent immigrants. Moreover, family-based immigration is not limited to nuclear family members, i.e. spouses and minor children, but also includes extended family members including siblings, parents, and adult children. All of these relatives are admitted without regard to their job skills, education, or other pertinent qualifications. In time, each of these extended family members can petition for their own extended relatives.

The result is that only about 6 percent of legal immigrants are admitted based on their skills. If dependent family members are included, they account for nearly 15 percent of legal immigration. Not surprisingly, given the way we admit legal immigrants to the United States, many are failing once they arrive here. More than half of all immigrant-headed households in the United States rely on at least one form of public assistance.

As one of its pillars of true immigration reform, FAIR has long-supported replacing an outdated, family chain-based immigration system with one that is merit-based and serves the national interest. Doing so would modernize our overall approach to legal immigration and ensure that those who are selected to immigrate here have the skills and talents they will need to succeed in today’s America.

In the meantime, Mayor Adams needs to reverse his city’s sanctuary policies, work with ICE to accelerate the removal of those who have broken immigration laws, and rethink whether swimming across the Rio Grande to illegally enter the country is a talent really worth rewarding.