Washington: US President Donald J Trump is all set to formulate a plan to toughen the border security and overhaul the established immigration system in favour of applicants who speak English, are well-educated and already have job offers, according to senior administration officials.
The President’s immigration proposal is said to be, in large part, the result of senior advisers Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller and economic aide Kevin Hassett.
The chances of the proposal being approved by Congress is slim but as immigration will possibly a key issue in the coming 2020 presidential elections, it will give Republicans an idea so that they can say they favour Trump and the Republican lawmakers.
US immigration laws have so far given priority to family-based immigration. About two-thirds of all people who have been granted green cards, have family ties to people already residing in the United States.
With Trump’s new proposal, legal immigration will remain at 1.1 million people a year. Officials told reporters at a White House briefing on Wednesday, that family immigration would account for only a third of the aforementioned number and highly-skilled people with jobs would be given a priority. The will be able to bring their spouses and children along with them.
The goal, according to an official, is to ensure that the President’s policies are laid out in terms of what he is looking for from the immigration reform. “We want to see if we can get the Republican Party to unify on these two pillars, which we think is a very logical, mainstream point of view,” said another official. An overview of the plan with details of the “very large document”, will be presented by the President in the coming weeks, they added.
