Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump threw his support Wednesday behind legislation that looks to curb the level of legal immigration into the United States by proposing a skills-based immigration system.
Trump backed the effort from Republican Sens. David Perdue and Tom Cotton in a speech at the White House. But the plan faces long odds in Congress.
Top White House aides have been working with Perdue and Cotton on the bill that — if passed — would dramatically remake the current immigration system, which allows a number of ways to bring family members to the US along with job-based visas.
Trump cast the proposal as a way to protect American workers by reducing unskilled immigration and creating a merit-based system that grades possible immigrants based on their ability to work in the United States.
“It has not been fair to our people, to our citizens, to our workers,” Trump said of the current immigration system, specifically citing low-income and minority workers.
The bill, Trump said, “would represent the most significant reform to our immigration system in half a century.”
Long odds in Congress
The effort is expected to be met with skepticism from both Democrats and Republicans. But Trump’s support could help the measure gain traction.
Cotton, of Arkansas, and Perdue, of Georgia, initially unveiled the “Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act” in February, arguing that the bill will “help raise American workers’ wages by restoring legal immigration levels to their historical norms and rebalancing the system toward employment-based visas and immediate-family household members.”
“We are taking action to fix some of the shortcomings in our legal immigration system,” Perdue said at the time. “Returning to our historically normal levels of legal immigration will help improve the quality of American jobs and wages.”
Cotton’s office told CNN in July that the bill will be reintroduced with slight changes, but that the goal remains reducing legal immigration to the United States by 50%.
The original version of the bill cut back on what’s referred to as “chain migration,” ways of immigrating to the United States that are based on family or not based on skills. The bill would limit the types of family members of immigrants that can also be brought to the US to primarily spouses and minor children, would eliminate the international diversity visa lottery and limit the number of annual refugee admissions.
White House aides involved in the current effort include Stephen Miller, a senior adviser for policy and a Trump speechwriter; Julia Hahn, a special assistant to the President; and Andrew Bremberg, a policy aide.
Trump has long said he wants to reform the nation’s immigration system, but any plan to do that seems like less of a priority for an administration that is now focused on health care, tax reform and a host of international issues.
“What I’d like to do is a comprehensive immigration plan,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One in July. “But our country and political forces are not ready yet.”
CNN’s Tal Kopan contributed to this report.
That new legal immigration reform will only increase illegal immigration.. Maybe if America didn’t destabilize the economy of many countries then some people wouldn’t be galloping to migrate to America…
Hundreds years ago when white men wid no skills come ova come kill off Indians and capture dem lands and wipe dem off di face of di earth dem come now bout skills. It good fi live long fi see some a di fckry weh deze glorified Neanderthals can get demself up to.
Di ppl wid dem education and knowledge fi stay and build up dem place. I think this immigration blockade can be very beneficial if di educated class and dem govt use it to transform dem nations. Give unno skilled ppl perks and roll out unno 25 yr plan and build nations weh nuh need no handout from nobody. Every cloud got dem Silva lining.
60 votes needed for this episode of trumps racist agenda. Dutty Lindsey say nope and 2 republicans nust say nope.
1. its just a proposal from 2 of the kkk senators in congress and NOT an actual law.
2. it needs 60 votes to become official from the senate’s end and even then it would have to clear the house(which has a lot of reps from heavily populated immigrant and swing districts hence the reason their healthcare rip off plan fell flat) to get to orange man’s desk.
3. even the blind could see that its a sophisticated mechanism disguised as a proposal(law if they were to have their way) for a backdoor scheme to tilt america’s immigration policy from non white third world countries towards first world euro and white countries, racism is amok and obvious.
4. at some point in the future there will be a curb in legal immigration regardless for a couple of reasons, one of which is the illegal immigrant population in America, don’t be decieved by democrats, there is NO intention from either side of the political divide to give an estimated 11 million people legal status or citizenship, possible but not feasible, on the flip side of the coin, its NOT fiscally feasible to locate, apprehend, detain and deport 11 million people, something have to give,there have to be some type of compromise to permanently fix the problem, compromise includes some aspects of legal immigration.
5. though looking at it from a negative perspective on the surface, if proposal atually become law and policy is retroactive, low skill legal immigration would be drastically reduced/curtailed, resulting in low skilled labour shortage in sectors like agriculture and service etc. there would be a high demand and need for people to fill that void, PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY HERE UNDER THE RADAR, figure out the rest.