Tom Cotton: 'Not Nativist' to Want Immigration Policy 'Crafted to Benefit American Citizens, Not Foreigners'

The leading voice in the U.S. Senate to reduce immigration levels, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), says it is “not a ‘nativist view” to want a national immigration policy that benefits American citizens, rather than foreign nationals.

In a series of posts via Twitter, Cotton slammed a New York Times report for being biased against President Trump’s pro-American immigration agenda and favoring an immigration policy that puts foreign nationals first.

Cotton additionally defended Trump’s reduction of overall refugee resettlement levels — despite running on a campaign promise to stop all refugee resettlement, at least temporarily — was more in-line with traditional levels.

Since February, the Trump administration has admitted more than 26,500 foreign refugees to the U.S., a major lowering of refugee totals from President Obama’s administration, which allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees into the U.S. during his tenure.

Cotton corrected the idea by the open borders lobby and the mainstream media that foreign nationals in the U.S. on temporary protected status programs should be long-running and permanent. To the contrary, Cotton asserted that the purpose of temporary protected status is to be temporary, not a quasi-amnesty.

Cotton, along with Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), introduced the legal immigration-cutting RAISE Act in the beginning of 2017, eventually earning the endorsement of Trump. Under the RAISE Act, legal immigration would be reduced from more than 1 million immigrants arriving a year to about 500,000 a year. At the same time, the RAISE Act would raise Americans’ wages, specifically Americans working in blue-collar industries, by ending the flow of low-skilled foreign workers to the U.S.

The RAISE Act would end the process known as “chain migration,” where newly naturalized immigrants are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. with them. Currently, 70 percent of all immigration to the country is due to chain migration. The RAISE Act would require that immigration be based on merit, skills and English proficiency, rather than family ties.

Every year, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 foreign nationals, with the vast majority deriving from family-based chain migration. In 2016, the legal and illegal immigrant population reached a record high of 43.7 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.