Immigrant Families and Public Policy

We begin this chapter with several unremarkable observations. First, both the virtue and decline of the family are very much at the center of public debate. Second, as political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote, immigrants—especially our newest immigrants—are thought to embody strong families and family values (Fukuyama, 1993). Immigrant families, for example, are more likely than natives to have two parents present. ¹ Third, few areas of public policy have explicitly pursued family goals to the degree that immigration policies have. Indeed, family unification animates virtually all areas of immigration policy, even those like refugee policy, with which it is not conventionally associated.