Senator Perdue: 'We're Working On' Legal Immigration-Cutting Deal with Trump Administration

Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) confirmed to reporters that he and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) are “working on” an immigration deal with President Trump’s administration that includes significant cuts to legal immigration in order to raise wages for American workers.

Following a meeting between the Trump administration and Senate Republicans that included Perdue, Cotton, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Perdue told Bloomberg that the President wants elements, if not all, of the legal immigration-cutting RAISE Act to be included in a deal in which 800,000 illegal aliens could receive amnesty.

Trump originally promised to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which gives work permits and temporary amnesty to illegal aliens, and he has done just that.

But, with the announcement of DACA ultimately ending, Trump has waffled on the issue, and his administration is now signaling a desire to give an amnesty to the hundreds of thousands illegal aliens currently shielded by DACA, running the risk of causing a massive surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, while also causing an uptick in chain migration to the U.S.

Perdue said the Trump administration, though, wants the RAISE Act to be included in any deal.

“That’s what we’re working on, absolutely,” Perdue said.

Under the RAISE Act, American workers in the middle and working-class would be relieved from less competition for jobs, as the legislation would:

• Cut legal immigration from about one million new immigrants every year to 500,000 per year
• Prioritize immediate family households, thus ending extended family chain migration to the U.S.
• Create a visa program for U.S. citizens to bring elderly parents to U.S. for caretaking purposes
• Eliminate the diversity visa lottery, where 50,000 visas are “arbitrarily allocated” every year
• Cap permanent U.S. refugees resettlement to 50,000 migrants per year

Cotton and Perdue, whose bill has been endorsed by Trump, have said the RAISE Act would reduce overall immigration in the first year by 41 percent, and in 10 years, immigration would be reduced to 50 percent, causing wages to rise and putting American workers back to work.

The RAISE Act is also incredibly popular with the American electorate. In a Morning Consult poll, as Breitbart News reported, 44 percent of American likely voters said they supported cutting legal immigration and switching to a merit-based legal immigration system. Another 24 percent declined to comment on the RAISE Act, indicating that the support for the bill could be even larger and more widespread.