Republican legislation to overhaul immigration system gets Trump's backing

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday embraced legislation from two Republican senators that would place new limits on legal immigration and seek to create a system based more on merit and skills than family ties.

Trump joined with Republican senators David Perdue of Georgia and Tom Cotton of Arkansas to trumpet the bill, which has so far gained little traction in the Senate. The president said if approved the measure would represent "the most significant reform to our immigration system in half a century."

"This competitive application process will favour applicants who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy," he added.

Trump said the new system would keep out people who will just end up collecting welfare, but provided no information to support his statement.

The president has made cracking down on illegal immigration a hallmark of his administration and has tried to slash federal grants for cities that refuse to comply with federal efforts to detain and deport those living in the country illegally.

But he has also vowed to make changes to the legal immigration system, arguing that immigrants compete with Americans for much-needed jobs and drive wages down.

At a press briefing, White House adviser Stephen Miller said Trump was fulfilling a major campaign promise that was popular with voters in many states.

Wage depression effect disputed

Most economists dispute the president's argument, noting that immigration in recent decades doesn't appear to have meaningfully hurt wages in the long run. Increased immigration is also associated with faster growth because the country is adding workers, so restricting the number of immigrants could slow the economy's potential to expand.

The bill's supporters, meanwhile, say it would make the U.S. more competitive, raise wages and create jobs.

Miller said the Canadian and Australian points systems had been studied, with the best aspects combined with details specific to U.S. needs.

The bill, known as the RAISE Act, would create a new points-based system for applicants seeking to become legal permanent residents, favouring those who can speak English, have high-paying job offers, can financially support themselves and offer skills that would contribute to the U.S. economy. A little more than one million green cards were issued in 2015.

The senators introduced the legislation in February and said they worked closely with the White House on this latest version of their bill.

"This is probably our third or fourth visit to the Oval Office to work with President Trump," Cotton told reporters.

Their legislation would replace the current process for obtaining legal permanent residency, or green cards, creating a skills-base point system for employment visas. The bill would also eliminate the preference for U.S. residents' extended and adult family members, while maintaining priority for their spouses and minor children.

The bill would also aim to slash the number of refugees in half and eliminate a program that provides visas to countries with low rates of immigration.

Cotton told reporters the bill would double the number of green cards available to high-skilled workers and would not affect other high or low-skilled worker visa programs such as H1-B and H2-B visas. The Trump Organization has asked for dozens of H-2B visas for foreign workers at two of Trump's private clubs in Florida, including his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Cotton and Perdue said their bill does not affect temporary visas for workers in certain tech sectors and seasonal jobs that are popular with many businesses. They stressed that the legislation was narrowly focused, an approach they hoped would be able to get bipartisan support.

"We're not trying to boil the ocean here and change everything about our immigration law," Cotton said.

Bill a 'nonstarter': Schumer

The Senate has largely ignored the Cotton-Perdue measure, with no other lawmaker signing on as a co-sponsor. Republican leaders have showed no inclination to vote on immigration this year, and Democrats quickly dismissed it.

"The bottom line is, to cut immigration by half a million people, legal immigration, doesn't make much sense," said Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York, who called it a "nonstarter."

Even some Republican lawmakers might think the bill goes too far. Sen. Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina, said his state is dependent on immigrant labour to sustain the two biggest sectors of the economy, agriculture and tourism.

"Ultimately members of Congress will have a choice to make," said Miller. "They can vote with U.S. citizens and the interests of U.S. workers, or they can vote against their interests."

The White House said that only one in 15 immigrantscometo the U.S. because of their skills, and the current system fails to place a priority on highly skilled immigrants.

But the president has frequently mischaracterized many of the immigrants coming to the United States as low-skilled and dependent on government aid.

The Pew Research Center said in 2015 that 41 per cent of immigrants who had arrived in the past five years held a college degree, much higher than the 30 per cent of non-immigrants in the United States. About 18 per cent held an advanced degree, also much higher than the U.S. average.

Some immigrant advocates have criticized the proposal, saying that slashing legal immigration would hurt industries like agriculture and harm the economy.

"Our system is broken, but the response should be to modernize it, not take a sledgehammer to it," said Jeremy Robbins, executive director of New American Economy, a group of business leaders, mayors and others backed by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg that advocates for comprehensive immigration reform.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement the bill would "end programs known to be rife with fraud and abuse and finally improve the vetting process, making our country and working-class wages much safer and stronger."

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