What is it going to take to restart the US Government after the shutdown, and what does it all mean?

[DarthVolod]

Final-Fan said:

DarthVolod said:

The numbers I saw were 1.8 million given citizenship path over 12 year period and up to 4 million more based on chain migration. So potentially around 5.8 - 6 million or so all together given a path to full citizenship ... seems very generous to me considering what little was being asked. 

Obama's DACA protected 1.8 million from being deported while giving work authorization, it did not give full amnesty. Trump is offering a path to citizenship for those 1.8 million as well as an additional 4 million via chain migration ... just from a number standpoint that is a better deal, not to mention legalizing them; saving them from having to worry about DACA being removed in the future. 

Obama didn't offer a path to citizenship, I thought, because it was not within his powers.  I daresay Trump is not more open to the path to citizenship than Obama was.  If Trump could offer it in conjunction with being able to convincingly argue that he is able to do better with passing reform through the Republican-held Congress, then sure, on that basis he can give Democrats a qualitative improvement over what Obama could do without Congress. 

But aside from this arguable qualitative difference, the proposal for the former DACA group would be quantitatively very similar.  So "from a number standpoint", no significant improvement is to be had here based on what you've said for that group.  On the other hand, regarding the additional 4 million you claim from the chain migration, earlier I said "the chain migration offer is just a return to status quo AFAIK, and thus (if I am right) cannot be better than Obama by definition."  Is this correct or incorrect?  Legalization is obviously irrelevant here because we are already talking about legal immigration.  Is the chain migration offer something new, or just "we won't take it away"? 

And while we're at it, is the proposal to remove chain migration even going to reduce quotas, or just redirect the numbers to a different qualification system? 

Correct, it was not within Obama's power to do so. Trump from my understanding is more open to a path to citizenship in relationship to DACA, he even indicated as much in tweets if I recall correctly. The trade off for this would be funding border security and taking steps to control immigration. 

Giving the DACA group a permanent status would allow them to sponsor other family members like parents and siblings. This is different from the status quo ... the status quo is that if you entered the country illegally (which the parents of many of the DREAMers fall in this category) you must leave and apply from abroad). They would now have the DREAMers to sponsor them ... this would lead to a quantitative difference although not immediately. Chain migration is part of the status quo yes ... but that does not apply here since we are talking about a group of people that can not currently utilize it. 

My understanding is that attempts to curb chain migration in general are an attempt to redirect those numbers to a different more stringent qualification system and path to citizenship.