The Trump administration has drawn out a new proposal to reform the legal US immigration system.
According to people familiar with the proposal, the administration wants to among other things end the Diversity Visa Program (Green Card Lottery) make E-Verify mandatory for all employers, and reform the asylum and detention laws to discourage migrants from traveling to the US border to seek refuge in the country.
A source briefed on the proposal told Politico that the administration wants to end the diversity visa lottery, which grants 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to nationals of countries with low immigration rates to the US.
The 50,000 visas to would re-allocated to employment-based applicants, the source told Politico.
The plan would also limit visas given to family member os US residents (which Republicans call rain migration) and re-distribute the visas to more merit-based immigration programs.
More than one million individuals become US permanent residents each year, with only 140,000 doing so through employment.
The rest get permanent residency as relatives of US citizens or permanent resident, as refugees, or through the diversity visa program.
The plan is being pushed by Jared Kushner, senior White House adviser and Trump’s son-in-law. Kushner has reportedly been working on the proposal for months.
The proposal is set to be unveiled in the coming days and sent to Congress, though experts say it faces near-impossible odds of passage as far-right hardliners of immigration say it does not reduce legal immigration, while Democrats have repeatedly said they will not support any immigration reform bill that does not include DACA protection.