The White House presented new details of its proposed immigration and border security bill during a cabinet meeting Tuesday aimed, in part, at replacing the current family-based system with a merit-based one.
The Great Immigration Act of 2019 would favor so-called high-skilled migrants over low-skilled workers, said U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
"The current system imports a lot of low-wage labor, we want to make sure we're bringing in people who will grow GDP, create jobs, and do this in a way where we’re not putting downward pressure on wages at the lower levels," he said.
The plan was first announced by Kushner in May and has been drafted in consultation with 25 Republican Senate offices over the past seven months. There are 10 Republican Senate co-sponsors, according to an unnamed senior official quoted by Reuters.
The 620-page proposal would also provide resources for U.S. border security agencies, including funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a key Trump campaign promise. It also includes a revised version of the E-Verify database program used by employers to check the immigration status of a worker, according to the senior official.
"It eliminates the magnets” that attract irregular migration, said Kushner. "Last year we had 1.1 million people become citizens, that’s a great thing. We’re keeping the number the same, but we want to change the composition of what that’s made up of."
Jared Kushner, senior advisor to his father-in-law US President Donald Trump, makes a presentation about immigration during a cabinet meeting at the White House, July 16, 2019, in Washington. /VCG
Trump's offensive
The plan follows a number of recent Trump immigration actions meant to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country.
New rules in effect Tuesday prohibit refugees from seeking asylum in the U.S. if they have traveled through a third country without first requesting asylum there.
U.S. immigration officials carried out a small number of raids targeting about 2,000 undocumented migrant families with removal orders who entered the country in recent months.
Timing
The push for a new immigration bill comes after a series of racist tweets by the U.S. president about four non-white members of Congress saying they should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came," despite all four members being American citizens, with three of them having been born in the U.S.
An August recess in Congress will likely delay a vote on an immigration bill. A Democrat-controlled House of Representatives also means a bill is unlikely to survive, especially if it excludes must-have provisions for Democrats such as protections for "Dreamers," – children of undocumented immigrants living in the country.
Trump called on Congress to put politics aside and consider his "very fair plan" that includes ideas borrowed from other nations' immigration laws.
"It's the best of everything from all over the world," said Trump before threatening to turn the plan into a political campaign weapon. "We will put this as a major election issue."