Trump Administration plans to revamp immigration system

Washington: A Trump Administration will execute a 10-point plan to "restore the integrity" of the US immigration system, including building a wall along the border with Mexico, suspension of visas from certain countries and reforming the legal immigration system, the president-elect's transition team said on Friday.

The new Administration under Donald Trump will focus on radical ideologies, nuclear weapons and cyber-attacks as three areas of threat in the national defence and security domain, the transition team said.

The team listed out what it called the 10-point plan for immigration reform though not much details of such a policy framework were immediately available. It broadly indicates the policies articulated by Trump during his election campaigning, but the list gives a maturity in the policy formation and not simply a rhetoric.

As per the Trump Transition, the list includes build a wall on the southern border, end catch-and-release, zero tolerance for criminal aliens, block funding for sanctuary cities, and cancel unconstitutional executive orders and enforce all immigration laws.

It also includes suspending the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur. This policy appears to have evolved from Trump's election time statements related to banning entry of Muslims from entering the country.

The policy, among other things, also calls to ensure that other countries take their people back when US deports them.

Interestingly, this year India has taken back at least three charter planes full of people who came to the US illegally or were asked to be deported.

Among other policies include completing the biometric entry-exit visa tracking system and turning off the jobs and benefits magnet.

The Trump Transition has also talked about reforming the legal immigration system, which among other things includes the much sought after H-1B visas.

"Reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers," it said, without giving any further details.

While there is no mention of H-1B visas, a position paper issued by the Trump Campaign during the primaries was critical of this system and had called for increasing the minimum wage of H-1B visas to USD 100,000.

This was described as a deal killer by immigration experts and Indian companies.

"We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B programme," said the position paper.

More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the programme's lowest allowable wage level, and more than 80 per cent for its bottom two, the position paper had rued.