Trump imposes curbs on immigration
- coverstorypakistan
- Aug 3, 2017
- 2 min read
WASHINGTON: Trump backed proposals that would reform the process of obtaining a US “green card” by introducing a points-based system favoring skilled Anglophone workers.
President Donald Trump has done his best efforts to give English-speakers priority for US residency cards and having the number of legal migrants admitted to the country.
Around one million immigrants are granted permanent residency each year, but the draft legislation — presented at the White House by Trump and two senators who crafted it — aims to cut that number by around 50 per cent. It would also put a cap on the number of refugees able to gain permanent residency at 50,000 a year.
Trump hailed what he described as “the most significant reform to our immigration system in half a century”.
The legislation has only a slim chance of passing in Congress, but gives the White House an opportunity to show Trump’s base supporters that he is trying to live up to his hard-line promises.
Standing in the Roosevelt Room flanked by Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, Trump said that the United States had admitted too many low-skilled workers and claimed they were taking jobs from Americans.
Critics say that the proposals would actually result in falling wages, by slashing the number of migrants creating jobs.
The National Academy of Sciences studied two decades of data and found the impact of immigration on the wages of American-born workers to be “very small”. The academy also concluded that “immigration has an overall positive impact on long-run economic growth in the US,” although first-generation immigrants do place more of a burden on state resources.
But Trump’s message is likely to resonate strongly with low-skilled white workers who have seen wages stagnate and believe their long-held cultural dominance is being eroded.
Reluctantly signs Russian sanctions into law
Trump reluctantly signed off on new sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, bowing to domestic pressure and putting efforts to improve ties with the Kremlin in peril.
Trump signed the legislation behind closed doors, after failed White House efforts to scupper or water down the bill.
Trump’s reluctance was on full display in an angry signing statement, in which he called the legislation “significantly flawed”. “In its haste to pass this legislation, the Congress included a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions,” he said, including curbs on the president’s ability to “negotiate” with Russia.
The legislation — which also includes measures against North Korea and Iran — targets the Russian energy sector, giving Washington the ability to sanction companies involved in developing Russian pipelines, and placing curbs on some Russian weapons exporters.
It also notably constrains Trump’s ability to waive the penalties, a statement of mistrust from the Republican-controlled Congress, which remains unsettled by Trump’s warm words for President Vladimir Putin.
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