Reports: Donald Trump Unveils 2020 Immigration Plan on Thursday

President Donald Trump will use a Rose Garden speech on Thursday to introduce his immigration plan.

The plan will not reduce the annual inflow of roughly 1.1 million legal immigrants, but it will include features t0 block the massive Central American migration across the southern border, use border fees to build a wall gradually, and will protect Americans wages, officials told reporters on Wednesday. The plan would also end the “diversity visa” which annually awards 50,000 green cards to nations who have relatively few migrants in the United States, the news reports said

The Trump plan does not offer an amnesty to millions of younger illegals, the news reports said. That is a top goal for Democrats, who have introduced various plans that would amnesty at least three million illegals without offering any changes that would protect Americans’ jobs, wages or borders from the next wave of amnesty-seeking migrants.

The plan seeks to reunite the populist wing and the establishment wing of the GOP for the 2020 election, officials told reporters.

This attempt at reunification comes after populist voters broke from the establishment in 2016 by picking outsider candidate Donald Trump at the GOP nominee.

If the plan helps Trump wins reelection, and if the GOP regains the House, Trump may be able to ensure its passage into law.

The plan offers American populists a promise of halving chain migration, tightening border security, and capping migration at the huge current level of 1.1 million per year. The current number delivers one new immigrant into the United States for every four Americans who turn 18.

Leading populist groups, such as the Center for Immigration Studies, have objected to the plan’s failure to trim immigration. These groups prefer Trump’s 2018 “Four Pillars” plan, which would shrink the inflow of immigrants. A reduced inflow will reduce the chaotic diversity sought by Democrats, and force companies to buy more of the labor-saving machinery which allow Americans to win higher wages, they say.

According to Bloomberg, a briefing provided to GOP Senators on Tuesday “included a presentation that attempted to demonstrate that maintaining or increasing current immigration levels but reallocating how the current 1.1 million green cards are distributed wouldn’t hurt middle class workers.”

Some of the border security provisions are included in a new bill introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham.

In turn, the plan offers the establishment wing fewer blue-collar immigrants but more white-collar migrants to perform college-grad professional jobs. Bloomberg reported:

According to data prepared by the White House counsel of economic advisers, the number of green cards issued to individuals with at least bachelor degrees will increase to 71% from 42%, the share of immigrants employed would improve to 69% from 55%, and the average annual wage among [the immigrants who are] employed would rise to $96,000 from $43,000.

Those numbers underscore the extent to which the White House proposal would dramatically change the composition of immigrants earning green cards. The percentage of individuals receiving permission to immigrate to the U.S. because of family connections would be slashed to just 33% from 66% of current recipients under the new plan, while the number winning entry for humanitarian or diversity reasons would go to 10% from 22%. By contrast, those getting green cards based on employment or skills would increase to 57% from 12%.

Fox News reported the bill would create:

a new “Build America Visa” program that would recognize “extraordinary talent” and “people with professional and specialized vocations,” including exceptional students …

Potential immigrants would be assessed using a point-based system, accounting for factors including age, English proficiency, whether each candidate has an offer of employment above a certain wage threshold, and educational and vocational certifications. Pledges to invest and create jobs also would be considered.

The average yearly wage of legal immigrants currently is approximately $43,000. The officials said immigrants admitted based on education and skills would have an average income of $126,000, and they would expect the average yearly wage of all immigrants to rise to roughly $96,000.

This gain for business is far smaller than that offered by the bipartisan 2013 “Gang of Eight ” amnesty. The amnesty bill offered business groups would have amnestied all illegals in the United States, doubled the annual inflow of legal immigrants to 2 million, and provided an unlimited number of green cards for foreigners who got masters’ degrees from U.S. universities. The resulting inflow of blue-collar workers and white-collar workers would have slashed salaries earned by the American middle-class while boosting real-estate prices and stock values on Wall Street.

Reports say the plan does not offer any extra visa workers, such as the H-1B visa-workers. Current laws allow the companies to keep a population of roughly 1.5 million foreign graduates and roughly 500,000 blue-collar visa workers in U.S. jobs. These visa workers are not immigrants.

Press reports have not said if the plan will help companies bring in more workers on “Employment Authorization Documents.” For example, roughly 400,000 foreign graduates of U.S. colleges have valid work permits from the uncapped “Optional Practical Training” program.

But some reports — including Fox — say the plan will remove “country caps.” That change could dramatically increase the incentives for many Indian graduates to use the OPT work-permit program to take many jobs from U.S. graduates.

Officials told the Washington Post that Trump’s plan would also require immigrants to study and understand Americans’ culture.:

Another criterion, aides said, would be “patriotic assimilation,” a concept that would favor immigrants who had shown an active interest in incorporating the nation’s culture and way of life. One administration official offered an example in which green-card applicants would be required to pass an exam based on a reading of George Washington’s farewell address or Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.

The bipartisan 2013 “Gang of Eight ” amnesty included few provisions to protect Americans’ society from the chaotic diversity caused by the arrival of many immigrants from around the world.

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.

But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including roughly one million H-1B workers — and approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.

The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas.

This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.

This policy of flooding the market with cheap foreign white-collar graduates and blue-collar laborers shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations. It also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment from the heartland to the coasts, explodes rents, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low tech, labor-intensive workplaces.