‘We discriminate against genius’: Donald Trump seeks to overhaul US green card system to favour skills over family-based immigration
- Under new proposal, more spots would go to exceptional students, professionals and people with high-level and vocational degrees
- US president’s plan has drawn heavy Democrat opposition and faces dubious prospects in a divided Congress
Setting aside some of his hard-line rhetoric on illegal immigration, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he wanted to recruit “top talent” to the nation as he unveiled his latest efforts to reform residency laws after years of setbacks and stalemates.
“We discriminate against genius,” Trump said of current policies, which he contended excessively favour family-based immigration. “We discriminate against brilliance. We won’t any more once we get this passed.”
The latest effort, spearheaded by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, focuses on beefing up border security and rethinking the nation’s green card system so that it would favour people with high-level skills, degrees and job offers instead of relatives of those already in the country.
The proposed shift to a more merit-based system prioritising high-skilled workers would mark a dramatic departure from the nation’s largely family-based approach, which officials said gives roughly 66 per cent of green cards to those with family ties and 12 per cent based on skills.
The president’s plan, unveiled in a Rose Garden ceremony, has yet to be embraced by his own party – let alone Democrats – and faces dubious prospects in a divided Congress. The show of magnanimity comes as Trump seeks to put a softer facade on the signature campaign issue from his first campaign as he eyes his 2020 re-election.