[Washington,DC] US Prez Trump Reiterates His Stand for Merit-Based Immigration in his first State of the Union address
US President Donald Trump today used his first State of the Union address to push for a merit- based immigration system that admits skilled people, a proposal that could benefit technology professionals from countries like India.
n his nearly 80-minute long speech, Trump tried to shed his polarising image that has thwarted his ability to pass bipartisan legislations, calling upon Democrats to join him to work together for the benefit of Americans.
Trump proposed four pillars of immigration reform that include a pathway to citizenship for almost
1.8 million illegal immigrants — known as ‘Dreamers’ — who were brought in the US by their parents at a young age, border security, ending the visa lottery programme and limiting family-based migration.
The State of the Union address is a traditional annual speech of the US president to a joint session of Congress where he gives an account of the situation in the country.
Democrats, many of whom brought ‘Dreamers’ as guests to the president s speech, booed and hissed when the president mentioned his plans to slash the number of people who immigrate to the US through family connections a practice Trump has decried as “chain migration”.
The second pillar includes building a wall on the Southern border with Mexico.
Trump said the third pillar ends the visa lottery — a programme that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of Americans.
Immigrants from any one country may not receive more than seven per cent of diversity visas issued annually through lottery.
Given that there are hundreds and thousands of Indian IT professionals waiting in queue to get their green cards because of the current country quota, the relocation of diversity visa numbers to green cards is expected to hugely benefit them.
Immigrants from 18 countries are not eligible for diversity visa because they sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the US over the previous five years combined.
The countries are Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, the UK and Vietnam.
The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration, he said, ruing that under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.
Trump said in recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration.
In the age of terrorism, these programmes present risks we can no longer afford.