Pres. Trump said today that he wants to end the visa lottery and chain migration. He said he would immediately ask Congress to start the process to end the visa lottery program.
"I am today starting the process of terminating the diversity lottery program. I’m going to ask Congress to immediately initiate or get rid of this program.
"It sounds nice. It’s not nice. It’s not good. It hasn’t been good.
"And we want to get rid of chain migration. This man who came in ... he was the point of contact, the primary point of contact, for and this is preliminary, for 23 people who came in or potentially came in with him. And that’s not acceptable."
Pres. Trump criticized Sen. Chuck Schumer for helping to create the program that issues 50,000 green cards each year through a random lottery.
After Sen. Schumer and other long-time pro-amnesty Senators protested that they also have opposed the lottery, including voting to eliminate it in the 2013 "Gang of Eight" comprehensive amnesty bill.
NumbersUSA President Roy Beck issued the following statement to the news media:
I am encouraged to see Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz) and many other Members of Congress express their dissatisfaction today with the Visa Lottery program that each year raffles off more than 50,000 lifetime U.S. work permits and residencies without any regard to the effect on American workers and the national interest.
"The important issue today is not who supported or opposed the lottery in the past but who will act to end it now. I hope Senators Schumer and Flake will join with Pres. Trump in his call to eliminate this frivolous and reckless visa lottery system. This would best be done by supporting the RAISE Act of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), which ends the Visa Lottery and the Chain Migration system that the President also condemned today as an unacceptable part of our immigration system."
