“Chain migration” allows U.S. citizens and permanent residents to sponsor relatives who may later sponsor other eligible family members. The Trump administration argues that immigration should instead prioritize skills and national interests, citing concerns about security, fraud, and public costs.As the Trump administration sought to end birth tourism after the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship on June 30, it also moved to tighten family-based immigration through visa restrictions, stricter green card reviews, and expanded public charge criteria.The system, which Trump and other critics call “chain migration,” allows U.S. citizens and permanent residents to sponsor qualifying relatives for green cards. A sponsored parent who becomes a permanent resident can then petition for other eligible relatives.In fiscal year 2024, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens received 669,160 green cards, while immigrants in family-preference categories received another 184,670. Together, they accounted for about 63 percent of the 1,356,760 green cards issued that year, according to DHS data.Trump’s opposition to chain migration dates to his first term. After Bangladeshi national Akayed Ullah detonated a pipe bomb near Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal in December 2017, DHS said he had entered the country on an F43 family visa, a category for children of siblings of U.S. citizens. Trump cited the attack as a reason to end extended-family sponsorship, calling it “incompatible with national security” in a White House statement.In his 2018 State of the Union address, Trump said the system allows “a single immigrant” to bring in “virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.” He later called chain migration and the diversity visa lottery “sick, demented laws that have to be changed,” advocating a merit-based system that admits immigrants who “can love our country.”On November 27, 2025, after an Afghan national shot two National Guard members near the White House, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover.”On January 14, 2026, the State Department announced a pause on immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries, including Brazil, Somalia, and Iran. The pause covered family-based, employment-based, and diversity visas.“The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people,” the department said in its January statement. It had already suspended the diversity visa lottery effective December 23, 2025.According to the Cato Institute, the January pause brought the number of countries subject to immigrant visa restrictions to 92. Those countries accounted for half of all spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens immigrating from abroad, based on 2024 processing data.On May 21, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199, directing officers to treat adjustment of status as “an extraordinary relief that permits applicants to dispense with the ordinary consular visa process.” The procedure allows eligible applicants already in the United States, including relatives sponsored by family members, to obtain green cards without leaving the country.The memo establishes consular processing abroad as the default path and directs officers to weigh applicants’ family ties, immigration history, moral character, and other circumstances. In a May 22 press release, a USCIS spokesperson said that an alien temporarily in the United States who wants a green card “must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances.”On July 20, the Department of Homeland Security published a final public charge rule that took effect on September 18. It rescinds the 2022 regulation, including its definition of a public charge, and allows officials to consider factors beyond the seven specified in that regulation when assessing whether an applicant is likely to depend on government benefits. The test applies to applicants for family-based green cards and immigrant visas. DHS estimated that the change could reduce federal and state transfer payments by about $13 billion annually, largely through disenrollment from benefit programs.Federal authorities have also pursued alleged fraud involving marriage-based green cards. On August 12, prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed an indictment charging 11 people with running a network that allegedly arranged more than 1,000 sham marriages, mostly for Chinese nationals, from 2016 through July 2026. According to prosecutors, foreign nationals paid up to $100,000 for a marriage and help applying for a green card, while participating U.S. citizens received up to $30,000. Couples allegedly often met just before obtaining a marriage license, then staged ceremonies and photographs for immigration officers, according to a Justice Department account. Attorney General Todd Blanche called it “one of the largest marriage fraud prosecutions in United States history.”Questions about claimed family relationships have previously disrupted refugee admissions. In late 2007 and early 2008, the State Department conducted DNA tests on about 3,000 applicants to the Priority 3 refugee family reunification program, mostly from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Liberia. Testing confirmed all claimed biological relationships in under 20 percent of cases, the department said. It halted processing in Kenya and Ethiopia in March 2008 and stopped accepting applications from all nationalities that October, according to a department fact sheet. Africans accounted for 95 percent of the program’s more than 36,000 admissions from 2003 to 2008. The program remained closed for over four years.Visa approvals were already declining before the administration’s 2026 measures. From January through August 2025, the State Department approved about 11 percent fewer permanent and temporary visas than during the same period in 2024, a decrease of roughly 250,000, according to a Washington Post analysis of department data. Approvals in capped family categories, including adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens, fell by more than 27 percent, or about 44,000. “A visa is a privilege, not a right,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.Cato estimates that the administration has cut immigrant visa issuances by about half. Separately, a January 2026 analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy projected that administration policies would reduce legal immigration by 33 to 50 percent, a cumulative reduction of 1.5 million to 2.4 million people by the end of Trump’s term.Most of the administration’s measures are executive actions that a future administration could reverse. Only Congress can change the family-preference categories established by law.In May, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) introduced the ASSIMILATION Act, which would end chain migration, eliminate the diversity visa lottery, and require every visa to serve U.S. economic, cultural, or security interests.“For decades, our immigration system has been weaponized against American workers, American families, and American culture,” Ogles said. Tuberville said the bill “prioritizes people who want to come over and assimilate.”The post Trump Administration Tightens Family-Based “Chain Migration” on Multiple Fronts appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.