S.354 RAISE Act


The White House
Aug. 2, 2017

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP BACKS RAISE ACT

Bill will create a merit-based immigration system that protects our workers, our taxpayers, and our economy
 
A SURGE IN UNSKILLED IMMIGRATION: For decades, low-skilled and unskilled immigration into the United States has surged, depressing wages and harming America’s most vulnerable citizens.

  • Our system does not prioritize the most highly skilled immigrants—just 1 out of every 15 immigrants to the United States comes here because of their skills.
  • On average, 1 million immigrants are accepted into the United States for legal permanent residency annually, and most of them are low or unskilled workers.  This influx is the equivalent of adding more than the population of San Francisco to the country every year.
  • More than 50 percent of all immigrant households receive welfare benefits, compared to only 30 percent of native households in the United States that receive welfare benefits.
  • Immigrants with a college education or higher are, on average, less likely to be welfare recipients than those without the same degree of education.
  • Since 1979, Americans with a high school diploma or less have seen their real hourly wages decline.
  • American workers without a high school diploma have seen their real hourly wages fall by 17 percent.
 
THE RAISE ACT PUTS AMERICAN WORKERS FIRST: President Donald J. Trump supports the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act to prioritize immigrants based on the skills they bring to our Nation while safeguarding the jobs of American workers.
  • The RAISE Act replaces the current permanent employment-visa framework with a skills-based system that rewards applicants based on their individual merits.
  • The system rewards education, English-language ability, high-paying job offers, past achievements, and entrepreneurial initiative.
  • This system is similar to the merit-based immigration systems used by Canada and Australia.
  • The RAISE Act reduces overall immigration numbers to limit low-skilled and unskilled labor entering the United States.
  • The RAISE Act prioritizes immediate family members of United States residents, including spouses and minor children, but ends preferences for extended family members and adult children.
  • United States citizens needing to take care of elderly parents can receive renewable, temporary visas for them.
  • The RAISE Act eliminates the outdated Diversity Visa lottery system, which serves questionable economic and humanitarian interests.
  • The RAISE Act limits permanent resident status for refugees to 50,000 a year, in line with the 13-year average.
 
A PROMISE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: The RAISE Act follows through on President Trump’s promise to the reform our immigration system to put America first.
  • President Trump on July 26, 2017:
  • “As we speak, we are working with two wonderful Senators, Tom Cotton and David Perdue, to create a new immigration system for America. Instead of today’s low-skill system, just a terrible system where anybody comes in.”
  • President Trump on February 28, 2017:
  • “Protecting our workers also means reforming our system of legal immigration. The current, outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers and puts great pressure on our taxpayers.”
  • “Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration, and instead adopting a merit-based system, we will have so many more benefits.  It will save countless dollars, raise workers’ wages, and help struggling families -- including immigrant families -- enter the middle class.”
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REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP, SENATOR TOM COTTON, AND SENATOR DAVID PERDUE ON THE RAISE ACT AND GREEN CARD REFORM

Roosevelt Room

11:39 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  It's great to be here today to unveil legislation that would represent the most significant reform to our immigration system in half a century.  I want to thank Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue for their tremendous work in putting together this historic and very vital proposal.

As a candidate, I campaigned on creating a merit-based immigration system that protects U.S. workers and taxpayers -- and that is why we are here today.  Merit-based.

The RAISE Act -- R-A-I-S-E -- the RAISE Act will reduce poverty, increase wages, and save taxpayers billions and billions of dollars.  It will do this by changing the way the United States issues Green Cards to nationals from other countries.  Green Cards provide permanent residency, work authorization, and fast track to citizenship.

For decades, the United States was operated and has operated a very low-skilled immigration system, issuing record numbers of Green Cards to low-wage immigrants.  This policy has placed substantial pressure on American workers, taxpayers and community resources.  Among those hit the hardest in recent years have been immigrants and, very importantly, minority workers competing for jobs against brand-new arrivals.  And it has not been fair to our people, to our citizens, to our workers.

The RAISE Act ends chain migration, and replaces our low-skilled system with a new points-based system for receiving a Green Card.  This competitive application process will favor applicants who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families, and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy.

The RAISE Act prevents new migrants and new immigrants from collecting welfare, and protects U.S. workers from being displaced.  And that's a very big thing.  They're not going to come in and just immediately go and collect welfare.  That doesn’t happen under the RAISE Act.  They can't do that.  Crucially, the Green Card reforms in the RAISE Act will give American workers a pay raise by reducing unskilled immigration.

This legislation will not only restore our competitive edge in the 21st century, but it will restore the sacred bonds of trust between America and its citizens.  This legislation demonstrates our compassion for struggling American families who deserve an immigration system that puts their needs first and that puts America first.

Finally, the reforms in the RAISE Act will help ensure that newcomers to our wonderful country will be assimilated, will succeed, and will achieve the American Dream.

I'd like now to invite Senator Cotton and Senator Perdue to say a few words.  Thank you.  Thank you very much.

     SENATOR COTTON:  Thank you, Mr. President.  I'm very excited to be here with Senator Perdue and President Trump to be introducing the new version of the RAISE Act.
 
     Our legal immigration system should accomplish two main goals:  One, it should help American workers get a decent pay raise and have a higher standard of living.  And, two, it should help promote economic growth to make America more competitive in the world.
 
     Our current system simply doesn’t do that.  It's over a half-century old.  It is an obsolete disaster.  And it's time for it to change.
 
     So, first, we bring over a million immigrants into this country a year.  That's like adding the population of Montana every single year; adding the population of Arkansas every three years.  The vast majority of those workers -- or those immigrants come here not because of their English-language abilities or their job skills, or their job offer, or their educational attainment.  In fact, only 1 in 15 -- only 1 in 15 out of a million new immigrants come here because of their job skills and their ability to succeed in this economy.
 
     That means it puts great downward pressure on people who work with their hands and work on their feet.  Now, for some people, they may think that that's a symbol of America's virtue and generosity.  I think it's a symbol that we're not committed to working-class Americans.  And we need to change that.
 
     Second, we also lose out on the very best talent coming to our country -- the most ultra, high-skilled immigrants who can come here and bring their entrepreneurial spirit and their innovative capabilities, and make a higher wage, create new jobs for other Americans and new immigrants, speak English, and contribute to our economy, and stand on their own two feet, and pay taxes, and not receive welfare, and not drive down wages for working-class Americans.
   
     The RAISE Act will change all of that by re-orienting our Green Card system towards people who can speak English, who have high degrees of educational attainment, who have a job offer that pays more, and a typical job in their local economy, who are going to create a new business, and who are outstanding in their field around the world.
 
     And I'm excited, and I look forward to working with Senator Perdue and President Trump to pass this legislation through the Congress and make this kind of very fundamental, sweeping change for the first time in over 50 years to our immigration system.
 
     Thank you.
 
SENATOR PERDUE:  Thank you, Tom.  Thank you, Mr. President.  Good afternoon, everyone.
 
First of all, Mr. President, I want to thank you for your leadership on this immigration topic.  I think this is extremely critical for our country.  You talked about it often on the campaign trail.  You said job one was growing the economy.  That is part of why I believe you’re standing here and why I’m standing here.  You’ve also said that -- as a Fortune 500 CEO -- I’m the only Fortune 500 CEO in Congress, and I’ve lived around the world much of my career.  And I can tell you, nothing that we’re going to do right now is more important than this in terms of growing our economy.
 
The reason we need to do this is very simple:  Our current system does not work.  It keeps America from being competitive, and it does not meet the needs of our economy today.  Today, as Tom said, we bring in 1.1 million legal immigrants a year.  Over 50 percent of our households of legal immigrants today participate in our social welfare system.  Right now, only one 1 out of 15 immigrants who come into our country come in with skills that are employable.  We've got to change that.  As business guys, Mr. President, you and I understand we need we need a new approach:  We need to fix this immigration system.
 
So we took a look at best practices.  We looked at countries like Canada, Australia, and others.  What we're introducing today is modeled on the current Canadian and Australian systems.  It's pro-worker, it's pro-growth, and it's been proven to work.  Both have been extremely successful in attracting highly skilled workers to those countries.
 
     We can all agree the goals of our nation's immigration system should be to protect the interests of working Americans, including immigrants, and to welcome talented individuals who come here legally and want to work and make a better life for themselves.  Our current system makes it virtually impossible for them to do that.
 
     If we're going to continue as the innovator in the world and the leader economically, it's imperative that our immigration system focus on highly skilled, permanent workers who can add value to our economy and ultimately achieve their own version of the American Dream.
 
     What we're talking about today is very simple:  It's measured, it's a rational approach to immigration that will allow us to finally fix once and for all this broken system in a strategic way that will reposition America as a global leader economically.
 
     Mr. President, I am proud to stand here with you and Tom Cotton.  I look forward to passing this in U.S. Congress and making this a law of the land, and letting it be a sweeping change for America.  Thank you.
 
     THE PRESIDENT:  I just want to state that, as you probably have noticed, the stock market hit an all-time record high today -- over 22,000.  We've picked up, substantially now, more than $4 trillion in net worth in terms of our country, our stocks, our companies.  We have a growth rate -- a GDP -- which has been much higher than, as you know, anybody anticipated, except maybe us.  But it's going to go up.  It's going to go higher, too.  We're doing a job.
 
     And you're going to see jobs are pouring back into the country.  The factories and plants are coming back into the country.  We're going to start making product in America again.  And that's happening all over.  As I mentioned yesterday, Foxconn is going to spend $10 billion in Wisconsin and other places.  And I think the $10 billion is going to end up being $30 billion.  They make the iPhones for Apple and others, and it is a truly incredible company.
 
     So we have a lot of things happening that are really great.  But again, today the stock market hit the highest level that it has ever been, and our country is doing very well.
 
     I just want to thank you all.  Tom and David are going to be outside.  They're going to speak to you at length about what we're going to do with respect to this aspect of immigration.  I think it's going to be very, very important -- the biggest in 50 years -- biggest change in 50 years.
 
Thank you all very much.
                 
                             END                11:49 A.M. EDT

Federation for American Immigration Reform
Aug. 2, 2017

FAIR Applauds RAISE Act for Making Immigration Great Again

“The RAISE Act helps realize President Trump’s vision of making America great again by making immigration great again as well."  —Dan Stein, President of FAIR

(Washington, D.C.) The following statement was issued by Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) President Dan Stein while applauding the updated “Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act” (RAISE) Act, which would replace the outdated, dysfunctional, and unfair immigration system with one that serves the national interest.

“The RAISE Act ends chain-migration by limiting family-based immigration to the nuclear family and replacing the employment-based system with a skills-based point structure. It helps select immigrants who have the tools to succeed in the U.S. while returning immigration to more traditional levels.

“President Trump, and bill sponsors Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), should be applauded for recognizing the current dysfunction of our outdated immigration policies that, unlike the rest of the nation, have been stuck in a time warp for the last 50 years. The RAISE Act closely follows the bipartisan recommendations of President Clinton’s Jordan Commission, which called for moving the nation to an immigration model that emphasized skills over bloodlines and returned immigration to more traditional levels. These changes will truly make immigration great again.

“Nothing underscores the failure of our current immigration system like the constant clamoring from the business sector for more ‘skilled’ workers, while we import over one million immigrants each and every year, with nearly one-quarter lacking even a high school diploma. The unremitting increase in unskilled immigrants has resulted in depressed wages and working conditions for Americans already struggling to make it in our rapidly changing economy.

“The RAISE Act finally thrusts our immigration system into the 21st Century, recognizing the need for a higher-skilled immigration flow while also acknowledging the importance of keeping nuclear families together in the process. Key components of the bill include:

  • Establishes a point-based system that would help select immigrants who have the most to offer this nation and have the skill set needed to achieve once they arrive, while reducing the immigrant flow to traditional levels.
  • Ensures that immediate families – the primary immigrant, spouse, and minor children – remain intact during the immigration process.
  • Eliminates the needless and fraud-ridden visa lottery.
  • Places a responsible, firm limit on refugee admissions at 50,000 per year.
“The RAISE Act would ensure that immigration levels – which currently operate in a vacuum and are unaffected by the unemployment level or the economic needs of the country – would finally begin to serve the national interest. It’s clearly time for this nation to jettison the failed policies of the past and embrace a new paradigm that will do a much better job of selecting immigrants who arrive with the skills they need to make this nation better, while also benefitting themselves and their immediate families.

“The RAISE Act helps realize President Trump’s vision of making America great again by making immigration great again as well. It provides a pathway for a modern, smarter immigration system while protecting those Americans struggling to make ends meet.”

America's Voice
Aug. 2, 2017

Why Are White Nationalists So Supportive of the Cotton/Perdue “Legal” Immigration Bill?

At the White House today, Republican Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) will unveil legislation to slash legal immigration levels and eliminate multiple categories of family-based legal immigration and diversity visas. The bill would cap refugee admissions at 50,000, thereby reducing the admission of refugees.
 

A recent HuffPost piece, titled “GOP Bill To Curb Legal Immigration Disproportionately Hits Nonwhite Americans,” assessed the Cotton/Perdue bill through the lens of its ethnic and racial effects. The piece includes quotes supporting the Cotton/Perdue bill from hate groups and white nationalists:

This is the sort of legal immigration reform that we’ve been calling for for a long time,” said Ira Mehlman, a FAIR spokesman. People should be let in based on merit, not family ties, he said.

“Anybody can find something to quibble with in anything, but… it looks like the perfect bill,” he added.

The bill also has the support of white nationalist William Johnson, who was briefly a Trump delegate. The bill is “a viable first step in changing the nation’s immigration policies,” he said in an email.

{…}

Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank, said the bill “sounds awesome.”

Even Senator Cotton let slip some of his larger motivations, saying derisively of current immigration policy, “Once you get here, you have a green card and you can open up immigration not just to your immediate family, but your extended family, your village, your clan, your tribe.

According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

This bill has almost nothing to do with increasing the skill level of incoming legal immigrants and almost everything to do with the aggressive pursuit of a racially-charged nativist agenda. The net effect will be to slash legal immigration by 50% by eliminating multiple categories of legal immigrants, a policy that will disproportionately affect Asian-American U.S. citizens who want to sponsor their loved ones; by capping refugee admissions so that refugees, many of whom are Muslim, are left stranded in camps with nowhere to go; and by eliminating the diversity program, which will hurt Africans and Caribbean immigrants who have few other opportunities to immigrate to America. The sponsors are throwing sand in our face and lies about negative impacts in an effort to slash the admission of Asians, Muslims, and black immigrants. Let’s call it as we see it: this is a white nationalist agenda masquerading as a bill about skill levels. Welcome to the Trump era. And welcome to Tom Cotton’s audition as the Senate’s new Jeff Sessions.