Miriam Jordan, New York Times, Feb. 22, 2018
Image from article, with caption: A naturalization ceremony
in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, this month. United States Citizenship
and Immigration Services revised its mission statement on
Thursday, omitting the phrase, "nation of immigrants."
LOS ANGELES — The federal agency that issues green cards and grants citizenship
to people from foreign countries has stopped characterizing the United States as “a
nation of immigrants.”
The director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services informed
employees in a letter on Thursday that its mission statement had been revised to
“guide us in the years ahead.” Gone was the phrase that described the agency as
securing “America’s promise as a nation of immigrants.”
The original mission statement said: “U.S.C.I.S. secures America’s promise as a
nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our
customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness
and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration
system.”
The new version says: “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers
the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by
efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting
Americans, securing the homeland and honoring our values.”
The agency director, L. Francis Cissna, who was appointed by the Trump
administration, described the revision as a “simple, straightforward statement” that
“clearly defines the agency’s role in our country’s lawful immigration system and the
commitment we have to the American people.”
Mr. Cissna did not mention in his letter that he had removed the phrase “nation
of immigrants,” which was popularized by a book by President John F. Kennedy and
is frequently used to convey America’s multiculturalism.
However, Mr. Cissna did note that he had eliminated the word “customers” in
describing the foreign nationals whom the agency serves, “a reminder that we are
always working for the American people.”
León Rodríguez, director of the agency from 2014 to 2017, said the revision of
the mission statement marked “a particularly sad turn of history.”
“We should not forget that under the discarded mission statement, the integrity
and national security functions of U.S.C.I.S. grew — dramatically so — showing that
we could be both a welcoming nation and a safe one,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “We
should stop to reflect about the many opportunities that America will lose because of
the attitudes reflected in this statement, and ask ourselves whether this is really the
country we want to be.”
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, which favors restricting immigration, applauded the change.
“A nation of immigrants isn’t a mission statement,” he said, “it’s a slogan.”
“The biggest problem with our immigration system is that it lacks a clear
national interest objective,” he added.
As director of U.S.C.I.S., Mr. Cissna has promoted an agenda that reflects the
Trump administration’s skeptical and often hard-line stance on immigration. The
agency has increased scrutiny of visa applications for foreign workers whom
American companies seek to hire; it has changed the asylum application process to
discourage people from seeking safe haven in the United States; and it has added
steps to the process for foreigners already in the country to obtain legal permanent
residency, or a green card.
U.S.C.I.S. reviews petitions of foreign nationals who seek to visit, work, reside
and find refuge in the United States. It also processes citizenship applications, which
have surged since President Trump won the election in 2016.
In his letter to his staff, Mr. Cissna wrote, “We are also responsible for ensuring
that those who naturalize are dedicated to this country, share our values, assimilate
into our communities, and understand their responsibility to help preserve our
freedom and liberty.”
Published posthumously, Kennedy’s “A Nation of Immigrants” highlighted the
contribution of immigrants when the country was engulfed in a debate over the
direction of its immigration policy.
The phrase appears at least as far back as 1874, in an editorial published in The
Daily State Journal of Alexandria, which praised a bill passed by the Virginia Senate
appropriating $15,000 to encourage European immigration. “We are a nation of
immigrants and immigrants’ children,” it said.
Immigrant advocates today invoke the phrase to remind the country that most
Americans have an ancestor who was once a newcomer to the United States.
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