Donald Trump proposes 'merit-based' system for immigration

Agencies
May 17, 2019

Washington, May 17: US President Donald Trump has proposed a sweeping change to the immigration system to make it "merit-based" favouring professionals and well-educated people who will be high earners.

Unveiling his plan at the White House on Thursday, he said the current immigration system discriminates against "genius" and "brilliance" and that he wanted to correct this with a new system he called "Build America Visa" that favours those with demonstrated potential.

The plan is modelled on the immigration systems of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which prioritise admission based on points awarded for various qualifications.

It will preserve the immigration of spouses and children of permanent residents or green card holders, but eliminate preferences for other relatives like siblings and parents.

"We prioritise the immediate family of new Americans - spouses and children", Trump said. "The loved ones you choose to build a life with, we prioritise... They go right to the front of the line".

Trump said he wants to increase the current allocation of 12% of green cards for highly skilled professionals to 57% at the expense of certain categories of relatives and people immigrating from certain countries based on a lottery system. This would reverse the current system of reserving about 60% of green cards for relatives. About 1.13 million people get permanent resident visas or green cards every year.

Making his case for the merit system, he said that companies were moving offices abroad because the current system prevented them from retaining highly skilled and even "totally brilliant people".

The emphasis on merit has the potential to help Indian professionals who have to wait for ten years or more to get a green card -- but only if the national quotas is lifted. Currently each country's quota is about 25,000, regardless of its population size.

It is not clear if that would happen because Trump did not say if the national limits would be removed or modified.

Some members of both houses of Congress, including presidential aspirant Senator Kamala Harris, have introduced legislation 'Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act' to remove the national quota limits for professionals.

Trump was also silent on the H1-B visas that are given temporarily to skilled professionals. His administration has sought to make the qualifying standards more stringent and has raised the rejection rate for the visa making it an area of contention between India and the US. Trump's plan will also give preference to those who have been educated in the US.

Packaged in Trump's plan crafted by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and a controversial adviser, Stephen Miller, are proposals for tough new measures against illegal immigrants and for strengthening border security by building a wall and tightening asylum requirements. These will be opposed by Democrats.

However, the ambitious plan that essentially restates many of his previous proposals is unlikely to get past Congress.

"Trump's proposal has no chance of becoming law in this Congress," said Doug Rand, who worked on immigration policy at the White House during Barack Obama's presidency and is the co-founder of Boundless Immigration, a company provides help with navigating the system.

Trump himself admitted as much, pinning his hopes on his re-election. If it did not pass in his current term it would "be passed after the election, when Republicans take back the House, hold the Senate and keep the presidency", he claimed.

"This is classic election talk and is designed to cater to the President Trump's voter base" said Vivek Tandon, the CEO of EB5 BRICS, an immigration advisory firm. "I don't believe this to be meaningful proposal".

Democratic Party leaders voiced their strong opposition to the Trump plan even before it was formally unveiled.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi decried the use of the word "merit", telling reporters: "It is really a condescending word."

Democratic Party leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, denounced it as "anti-immigration reform".

"It repackages the same partisan, radical, anti-immigrant policies that the administration has pushed for the two years," he said.

Trump hit back at the Democrats accusing them of favouring open borders and lowering wages.

But a leading senator of his own party Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, also expressed doubts about the plans viability to become law.

The Trump plan's biggest weakness in getting Democratic Party support is the failure to grant permanent immigration status to those who came to the US illegally as children and are referred to as "Dreamers" for their pursuit of the American dram.

Obama had granted them temporary protection against deportation, but Trump has tried to revoke it, while saying at the same time that he wants it to be made permanent without making a concrete proposal. Democrats insist that any immigration effort should start with "Dreamers".

The "merit-based" reform of awarding points proposed by Trump would favour younger immigrants, those with higher educational qualifications, English language proficiency, job offers with better wages, and entrepreneurs capable of creating jobs.

The preference for entrepreneurs "is good news for potential investors" according to Lawrence Chang, the president, Maryland Center for Foreign Investment.

David Finkelstein, the CEO of American Immigration Group, said that Trump's proposal for increasing the number of skilled immigrants is in line with the EB5 programme, which provides Green Cards for investors.

He added that it "has attracted high net worth families that are highly educated which is exactly what President Trump is supporting, rather than those that are not educated and require continued financial support from our social system".

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News Network
March 25,2024

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A teenager who led over 100 people to safety during Friday’s terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall, has been hailed as a hero. 15-year-old Islam Khalilov, who worked part-time in one of the cloakrooms at Crocus City, recounted the events of the tragic evening to the Ruptly video agency.

The concert venue situated just outside of Moscow was packed ahead of a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, when a group of terrorists armed with assault rifles forced their way into the building. They fired indiscriminately at fleeing people and then set the concert hall on fire.

According to the latest estimates, the attack has claimed the lives of at least 137 people, with about 180 injured.

Khalilov told the video agency that “it was when people started running from the escalator, from the stairway” that he realized that an emergency was occurring. The teenager said that he was acting on “instincts” at the time and used his thorough knowledge of the premises to quickly arrange visitors’ evacuation toward another building within the Crocus City complex.

“I started shouting all across the foyer, all across Crocus City Hall - ‘Folks, there’s a shooting! All run to the expo!’ – and I was showing where they had to go and was helping everyone,” he explained.

According to the cloakroom attendant, “there was a stampede, and everyone was in shock at first. No one knew what to do and where to go.”

Khalilov added that he himself was running behind the entire group to make sure he had not left anyone behind.

The teenager admitted to being “really scared” all along, but still managed to make the right use the instructions he’d previously been given on how to evacuate patrons in case of an emergency.

He told Ruptly that, at one point, he had caught a glimpse of one of the terrorists.

“I saw one, [he was] bearded and in green fatigues, he was walking around with an assault rifle,” the teenager recounted.

He also recalled seeing a man getting fatally shot by one of the assailants, adding that he “can’t stop thinking about it.”

The 15-year-old said he doesn’t consider himself a hero, and that he was just doing his job.

Explaining what helped him overcome fear, Khalilov reasoned that “It’s better to sacrifice yourself than to let a hundred people die.”

After Khalilov’s feat had been reported-on by several Russian media outlets, his favorite football club, FC Spartak Moscow, invited him to a meeting where he was presented with free passes to their matches.

Popular Russian rap artist Morgenstern said he had transferred 1,000,000 rubles ($11,000) to the teenager – something that Khalilov has confirmed to media.

The leader of Russia's Muslims, Mufti Ravil Guynutdin, has announced that Khalilov would receive a medal for his bravery.

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News Network
March 19,2024

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Mangaluru: The Mangalore International Airport (MIA) will connect to a new domestic destination with the introduction of a non-stop flight to Tiruchirappalli International Airport in Tamil Nadu. 

The non-stop service, once-a-week, will operate on Wednesday (from TIA) and Thursday (from MIA), starting April 3. Air India Express will operate the flight.

The flight is expected to help those taking up a pilgrimage to Vailankani shrine.

Sources from the AIE said that the airline carrier decided to fly non-stop between the two southern Indian cities as a flight to Jeddah, which will start from April 3, arrives from Tiruchirappalli International Airport. 

“It is a ferry or positional flight from TIA to MIA. Instead of flying empty, the management has decided to run it as a commercial flight. This will help both passengers and the airline. The airline will deploy Boeing 737-800 aircraft with a 186-seater all-economy configuration on this route. 

The same flight, after landing in MIA, will further fly to Jeddah,” a source said. 

The flight IX 1498 will depart every Thursday at 5am from MIA to TIA. The TIA-MIA flight IX 1499 departs at 12.50pm. It is a one-hour nonstop flight. The same flights will also operate nonstop between Jeddah and MIA. 

The non-stop flight IX 499 will depart MIA at 2.50pm and reach King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah at 6.25pm. The IX498, will depart from Jeddah at 7.25pm and reach MIA early at 3.40am.

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News Network
March 26,2024

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There is no let-up in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire.”

Israel carried out air raids and artillery strikes on several parts of Gaza on Tuesday, hitting residential buildings and gatherings of displaced people, “killing and wounding hundreds of people”, the Palestinian Information Center said.

Among the victims are 15 people, including four women and children, who were killed in an attack on a house in the neighborhood of Mosbeh, north of Rafah.

Media reports also said that fighting on the ground continued unabated.

That’s while the UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution for an “immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The resolution was put forward by the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favor of it.

After the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on social media platform X that failing to implement the resolution “would be unforgivable.”

Palestinian resistance movements have welcomed the resolution, but Israel’s minister for military affairs Yoav Gallant said Israel will not stop its attacks in Gaza. 

“We will operate against Hamas everywhere – including in places where we have not yet been,” Gallant said.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, also said in a post on X that the attacks will continue until all the captives taken by Hamas during its October 7 blitz are released.

Israel unleashed its war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 32,300 Palestinians and injured over 74,000 others.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.

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