While much of President Trump’s attention has been focused on illegal immigration and the soaring level of border-crossers at the United States-Mexico border, reforms to the country’s legal immigration system remain one of the key tenets of his “America First” agenda.

These are five legal immigration reforms that Trump can readily follow through on in 2019 to fulfill his campaign promises ahead of 2020.

1. Reduce Legal Immigration Levels to Raise U.S. Wages

Every year, the U.S. admits about 1.1 million mostly low-skilled legal immigrants, many of whom immediately become low-wage competition for America’s working and middle class. The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau marks a nearly 108-year record high of immigration to the country. In 2017, the foreign-born population boomed to 13.7 percent, encompassing 44.5 million immigrants.

That 44.5 million includes roughly 22 million naturalized citizens, 11 million other residents – including more than 1.5 million foreign temporary visa-workers – plus at least 11 million illegal aliens.

The Washington, DC-imposed policy of mass immigration is a boon to corporate executives, Wall Street, big business, and multinational conglomerates as every one percent increase in the immigrant composition of each occupation’s labor force reduces those Americans’ hourly wages by 0.4 percent. Every one percent increase in the immigrant workforce reduces Americans’ overall wages by 0.8 percent.

Much of the inflow comes from the process known as “chain migration,” whereby newly arrived naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S., so Trump could drive up wages rather quickly for American workers by ending the category; ending the Diversity Visa Lottery program, which imports about 55,000 random foreign nationals every year; and implementing mandatory nationwide E-Verify to cut down on foreign competition in the U.S. labor market. 

As Breitbart News has extensively reported, Since 2005, 9.3 million foreign nationals have been able to resettle in the U.S. through chain migration. This huge inflow outpaces two years of American births, which amount to roughly four million babies every year.

The number of extended-family foreign nationals who have resettled in the U.S. in the last decade is greater than the total combined population of Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Cleveland.

2. Crackdown on American Job Outsourcing via H-1B

USCIS has been considering a plan since April to massively reform the country’s largest American job outsourcing scheme, the H-1B visa program.

Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers considered “high-skilled” are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and are allowed to stay for up to six years. There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment. This program gives hundreds of thousands of good white-collar jobs to foreigners instead of young American scientists, software developers, engineers, chemists, graphic designers, investment analysts, and accountants.

Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News. More than 85,000 Americans annually potentially lose their jobs to foreign labor through the H-1B visa program. Worse, the H-1B system allows U.S. companies to hire inexperienced foreigners who will work in exchange for getting green cards from the government, instead of allowing U.S. graduates to develop their skills in the job market.

The USCIS regulatory change that has yet to be implemented would narrow the definition of “specialty occupations,” keeping big business and outsourcing firms from importing cheaper foreign workers for high-paying, white-collar jobs that American citizens could do. Additionally, the change would increase the annual wage requirement for the foreign imports, driving up wages for Americans in the process.

The plan would only approve H-1B visas for foreign workers who have perfected a foreign style in fashion design, marketing managers with expert knowledge of foreign markets, and doctors and software designers who are considered extraordinary.

Implementing the change would be a promise kept to the laid off, replaced, and forgotten American workers who rallied with Trump against all odds in the 2016 presidential election.

3. Convert the J-1 Visa to an Economic Engine for Inner-City Youth

In August 2015, then-candidate Trump released his immigration policy papers which, among other things, demanded an end to the J-1 visa in favor of an economic opportunity program for inner-city youth.

“The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner-city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program,” the Trump immigration policy paper stated under a section header calling for a “jobs program for inner-city youth.

The J-1 visa, brings up to 300,000 foreign youths to the U.S. every year, Breitbart News has noted, to take American jobs at summer resorts, national parks, and tourist destinations.

Thus far, the J-1 visa has remained in place, unreformed, though the new year brings a new opportunity for the Trump administration to tackle the small, but essential reform.

4. Enforce Modern ‘Public Charge’ Rule

Trump’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) seems to be planning to implement a modern “public charge” rule that would protect American taxpayers’ dollars from funding the mass importation of welfare-dependent foreign nationals.

The USCIS rule provides that legal immigrants would be less likely to secure permanent residency in the U.S. if they have used any forms of welfare in the past, including using Obamacare, food stamps, and public housing.

Essentially, foreigners in the U.S. would not be allowed an “adjustment of status” to become green card holders unless they can show they will not be a burden on other Americans.

The immigration controls would be a boon for American taxpayers in the form of an annual $57.4 billion tax cut — the amount taxpayers spend every year on paying for the welfare, crime, and schooling costs of the country’s mass importation of 1.5 million new, mostly low-skilled legal immigrants.

(Migration Policy Institute)

As Breitbart News reported, the majority of the more than 1.5 million immigrants entering the country every year use about 57 percent more food stamps than the average native-born American household. Overall, immigrant households consume 33 percent more cash welfare than American citizen households and 44 percent more in Medicaid dollars.

This straining of public services by a booming 44.5 million foreign-born population translates to the average immigrant household costing American taxpayers $6,234 in federal welfare.

Such a rule would even likely shift migration to the U.S. away from the poorest regions of the world — like Mexico and Central America — towards more middle class areas in Europe and Japan.

5. Sign Executive Order Ending Birthright Citizenship

In October, Trump announced that he was readying a plan to end the country’s birthright citizenship policy whereby the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens are rewarded with American citizenship despite their parents having arrived unlawfully.

“Now, how ridiculous–we are the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits? It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous–and it has to end,” Trump said at the time of ending birthright citizenship.

The children of illegal aliens are commonly known as “anchor babies,” as they anchor their illegal alien and noncitizen parents in the U.S. There are at least 4.5 million anchor babies in the country, a population that exceeds the total number of annual American births. Roughly 300,000 anchor babies are born every year.

The Supreme Court, however, has never explicitly ruled that the children of illegal aliens must be granted automatic citizenship and many legal scholars dispute the idea.

Additionally, as Breitbart News reported, there are nearly 62 million immigrants and their U.S.-born children — given birthright citizenship — living across the U.S. There were 17.1 million U.S.-born minor children of immigrants in the country as of 2017, according to the latest data by the Center for Immigration Studies.

The U.S. is nearly alone in granting birthright citizenship to the children of foreign nationals. For example, the U.S. and Canada are two of the only developed nations with birthright citizenship. On the other hand, countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, and Germany all have either outlawed birthright citizenship or never had such a policy to begin with.

Trump has yet to sign the executive order.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.