U.S plans to slash legal immigration, adopt merit-based system

President Donald Trump, along with Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, are introducing legislation that will take legal immigration to the United States to task.

The legislation will be unveiled at a press conference at the White House at 11:30 a.m. EST Wednesday. To watch a live stream of the announcement, watch the video at the top of the page.

According to ABC News, the bill will be aimed at cutting legal immigration to the country. The effort to do so is something that Trump vowed to do on the campaign trail: Reform the country’s immigration system.

The bill is expected to expand on the one that was introduced by senators back in February. That bill, which was also introduced by Cotton and Perdue, argued that the current amount of people coming into the U.S. contributes to declining wages of Americans with high school diplomas.

“It’s pulling the rug out from underneath them, and unless we reverse this trend, we’re going to create a near permanent underclass for whom the American dream is always just out of reach,” Cotton said back in February upon announcing the legislation.

NPR’s John Burnett reported that the new legislation would do three things: “First, limit the number of foreign nationals who are able to get green cards to reunite with their families already in the U.S; second, cut the number of refugees in half; third, eliminate the diversity visa lottery.”

The bill aimed to cut the number of legal immigrants into the U.S. by 50 percent over the next decade.

However, the bill has been stalled for months in Senate.

According to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security, 1,051,031 immigrants gained residency in the U.S. in 2015.

(Source: Heavy)

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