President Donald Trump issued an executive order on immigration last week that, if he’d made the move earlier, would have kept his in-laws from becoming U.S. citizens.

The president banned individuals wishing to enter the U.S. from receiving green cards for 60 days, with the proviso that the order could be renewed.

Immigration already has been largely shut down owing to the pandemic, with suspended visa services and border restrictions.

And, while the president says this is about protecting American jobs during the pandemic, his immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, told supporters during a reporter phone call, “When you suspend the entry of a new immigrant from abroad, you’re also reducing immigration further, because of the chains of follow-on migration that are disrupted.”

Miller said the administration was just getting started, adding, “The first and most important thing is to turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor — mission accomplished — with signing that executive order.”

Chain migration helped Trump's family

It wasn’t too long ago that first lady Melania Trump’s parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became U.S. citizens owing to the family-based immigration process that Trump, Miller and the president’s supporters call “chain migration.”

Family members in the U.S. sponsor family members in other countries.

It’s how Trump’s paternal grandfather came to this country from Germany, sponsored by a sister. Trump’s father married another migrant, from Scotland, who became Trump’s mother.

Trump’s first wife, Ivana, is an immigrant from Czechoslovakia. She’s the mother of his three oldest children.

And, of course, the frst lady is an immigrant.

The president is a well-documented home-grown product of “chain migration,” and over the years he has continued to add links to that particular family chain.

The same is true of families of most Americans if you go back enough generations.

Still, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, said the administration isn’t finished with immigration restrictions. He said, “This is a first step ... I think you’ll see additional steps.”

When the lawyer for Trump’s in-laws was asked how the case of Melania’s parents jibes with the president’s comments about “chain migration” he said the process is "a bedrock of our immigration process when it comes to family reunification.”

Closing the door behind them

By linking his executive order to “jobs,” Trump, with Stephen Miller’s help, will find ways to justify extending the restrictions once the pandemic is no longer an issue.

Michael Wildes, the immigration attorney working for Melania Trump’s parents said of the manner they became American citizens, “This golden experiment, these doors that are in America, remain hinged open to beautiful people as they have today.”

Now that Trump’s extended family is safely inside he wants to close the door.

And lock it.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.