Fear of Chain Migration?

The White House website talks about the myths of the immigration bill and has this:

“10. MYTH: By providing an opportunity for citizenship to illegal immigrants already here, the bill will exponentially increase extended-family chain migration.”

It goes on to explain how capping legal residents and citizen’s rights to bring family in addresses this “Myth”. What is this myth really saying about the concerns people have and what is the trade-off here? There’s nothing illegal about chain migration as only legal residents and citizens can sponsor their family. So the ones that are concerned about chain migration are concerned about it why? Is the White House saying, let me keep some illegals and you can block some legals? What a wonderful compromise!

Chain migration has been the name of the game and the fact that it takes somewhere between 10 to 20 years to become a citizen is the natural throttle to that. Curtailing legal citizen’s rights as it exists today is unnecessary except as a cheap bargaining chip. This is true, even if 12 million are made legal tomorrow. If there was no prejudice and people were only against the illegals, then simply extend the duration required by a Z-visa holder before they can become permanent residents. This way it does not take anything away from legal residents or US citizens. But, the White House knew that wouldn't be sufficient to address this myth.

So the point I am making is that not all people opposed to the immigration bill are against it as it pardons a crime or condones illegality, though that’s the argument openly made. The fact that the White House had to address this myth and the way they addressed this is indicative of a sizable portion of bigots among the opposing crowd, not all, but sizable. It's okay to give up on citizen's rights as long as it keeps foreigners out. What do you call that? Patriotism? I don't.