President Trump has approved efforts to overhaul America’s immigration system, led by his son-in-law and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, that would leave the overall number of legal immigrants unchanged, according to a senior administration official.
On Tuesday, Republican senators visited the White House to be briefed on the plan and declared themselves satisfied with the progress.
After the meeting, a senior administration official told reporters that Trump had signed off on the proposals. “This is President Trump’s immigration plan,” he said.
However, he admitted that the proposals have yet to address some of the thorniest issues that could affect whether it attracts bipartisan support, such as what to do about the so-called Dreamers, who arrived as undocumented children.
Immigration hawks are also unlikely to be satisfied with a plan that is neutral in terms of the overall number of people allowed entry.
“As the president and leader of the country, he believes that our system is broken. He’s worked hard with his team to put together a detailed proposal on what he thinks it should be,” said the official.
“And then we’ll see what the receptivity is to that. Today was one of the first steps in trying to accomplish that.”
He added that the proposals had two strands: toughening border security by modernizing ports of entry and using barriers and other methods to tackle the immediate crisis, and moving the legal immigration system to a merit-based approach that would favor skilled workers over unskilled.
But he said that unifying families would remain an aim, apparently dashing the president’s own hopes of ending what he calls “chain migration,” which occurs when visas are given to allow relatives to join family members in the U.S.
Republican senators who attended the briefing declared themselves satisfied.
Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., complimented Kushner and the White House.
“They have done substantial work,” she told Fox News.
Trump put immigration and his promise of a wall with Mexico at the heart of his election campaign. It is shaping up to be central to his 2020 reelection bid, too.
But at the same time, the president told the meeting that attracting the brightest and the best was key to building the American economy, according to the official.
“He also spoke about how some of America’s great companies are opening offices in places like Canada and other places because they cannot get the people that they want to bring into this country to be residents or citizens,” he said.
“We want to make sure that all the job creators are here in America.”
