We face a lot of challenges with the new global economy and the race for talent and multiple humanitarian crises happening overseas. Per usual, the GOP has no solutions. Instead, they’re angling to rip apart families and constrict innovation so we become a dumber, duller, drabber and more dismal version our current selves. #MAGA. That's where Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia come in with a brand-new bill. Caitlin MacNeal writes:
Currently, U.S. citizens and permanent residents can sponsor family members to obtain green cards, but this bill would only allow someone's spouse or child who is an unmarried minor to sponsor them for a green card, according to Politico. The bill would also allow for children to bring over elderly parents, per Politico.
The legislation would also limit the refugee program to 50,000 people per year and eliminate the diversity lottery, which sets aside 50,000 visas each year to citizens from countries from which few people immigrate to the U.S., per Politico.
Cotton's office told Politico that the bill would reduce legal immigration by about 40 percent in the first year of implementation and by 50 percent over ten years.
Perdue thinks the action will help "improve the quality of American jobs and wages." Translation: We just really need to choke off innovation so those tech companies quit taking away manufacturing jobs and creating jobs that require different skills. This is, in fact, a challenge in our country—training people so they have the necessary skills to fill jobs in an evolving work environment. But trying to hobble innovation isn't the right prescription, unless you want our country to go from being a global leader to becoming a less prosperous chaser of global trends. That really will slow down immigration. And when people stop wanting to immigrate here, that’s when our country really will be in the crapper.