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Released by the White House …
President Donald J. Trump addressed Americans from the White House Rose Garden yesterday afternoon, unveiling his Administration’s plan to create a fair, modern, and lawful system of immigration for the United States of America.
🎬 Watch: The first real overhaul of America’s entry system in 50 years
The President’s plan, once adopted by Congress, would achieve two crucial goals. First, it will stop illegal immigration for good by fully securing our border. Second, it establishes a new legal immigration system that will protect American wages, promote American values, and attract the best and brightest talent from across the globe.
“This plan was not developed by the politicians,” President Trump said. “It was designed with significant input from our great law enforcement professionals.”
Here is a rundown of the most important proposals from the President’s speech:
- Create a permanent, self-sustaining border security trust fund for law enforcement, financed with fees collected at the border crossings themselves
- Restore integrity to America’s broken asylum process by expediting relief for legitimate asylum seekers—and sending those who abuse the system home
- Modernize the dysfunctional legal immigration process by increasing the number of legal immigrants selected based on skill or merit from 12 percent to 57 percent
- Prioritize the immediate family of new immigrants—spouses and children—by moving them to the front of the line over distant relatives who use family claims as a tool to get ahead in the queue
- Establish a standard, universal, points-based criteria for admission to the United States, no matter where you are born or who you are related to
The big idea in President Trump’s plan is that “pro-America” and “pro-immigrant” are synonyms, not opposites. Illegal immigration hurts everyone. A random, unfair entry process hurts everyone. And underfunded law enforcement hurts everyone.
The only ones opposed to a safer, stronger immigration system are the special interests profiting off the status quo. That includes everyone from the corporations who exploit cheap, illegal labor to the politicians who benefit from never resolving the issue.
“Many of the Democrats have claimed to be for these concepts at different times in their careers and, in many cases, in very recent history,” President Trump said today. “And I hope that they will end up joining me and all of the people gathered together today in putting politics aside, putting security and wages first, and pursuing these historic reforms. It’s time.”
Watch President Trump’s full speech on today’s immigration plan.
The transcript: Read the President’s full remarks from the Rose Garden
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