US mulls increasing merit-based immigration to 57%

The Trump administration is proposing a nearly five-fold increase in merit-based legal immigration and half those based on family and humanitarian system, in an effort to overhaul the outdated system.

Senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner, who is also the son-in-law of United States President Donald Trump, said having an immigration policy that would attract talented and meritorious people from across the world would create over USD 500 billion in tax revenues over 10 years.

"It brings in a lot of people that are paying into the social safety nets. Not people who are coming in and then immediately taking from the social safety nets, which right now have to support Americans who are currently citizens," Kushner told the cabinet during a meeting at the White House.

At the direction of Trump, Kushner is leading the immigration reform project, which he said was now into its final stages and expects to make it public soon.

Kushner rued that America's immigration system was a very outdated compared to some of the peer countries that it competes with for talent. He said just 12 per cent of people become legal immigrants through merit-based system right now.

"Compare that to some of our peer countries like Canada. They're at 53 per cent, New Zealand at 59 per cent, Australia 63 per cent, Japan at 52 per cent," he said. "Under President Trump's proposal, we'll go to 57 per cent, which puts right in the range and it will make us competitive."
"We think we can have an immigration system that really is the envy of the world and also a border security system that keeps all of our citizens safe," he said. "This bill will create a modern, merit-based immigration system that allows the best and the brightest from throughout the world to compete based on objective criteria to become American citizens."