US President Donald Trump in a tweet pushed for a merit-based immigration system (file)
Highlights
- US President Donald Trump pushed for a merit-based immigration system
- He said a merit system will only allow people with a "great track record"
- He also said such a system would reduce overall immigration to US
Reiterating his "America First" policy, US President Donald Trump on Sunday pushed for a merit-based immigration system, saying he only wants people who can help America become "strong and great again". He also said that there will be no more diversity lottery visa.
"I, as President, want people coming into our Country who are going to help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on MERIT. No more Lotteries! #AMERICA FIRST," Mr Trump tweeted on Sunday.
Mr Trump, who said a merit-based system will allow only people with "great track record" to enter the country, stressed that he wanted safety and security of Americans and an end to "massive" inflow of drugs.
The US president has been calling for the merit-based immigration system, of which people from countries like India could be a major beneficiary, to reduce overall immigration to the US.
The decades-old diversity lottery visa system gave green cards to people from countries from where people would normally not qualify to come to the US through a merit-based system.
In an another tweet, President Trump said a deal to resolve the status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children is "probably dead," blaming it on Democrats.
"DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don't really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military," Trump said, referring to the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program.
DACA, established in 2012 by Trump predecessor Barack Obama, protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose parents brought them into the country illegally as children.
Trump said in September he was scrapping the program but delayed enforcement to give Congress six months -- until March -- to craft a lasting solution.
Trump came back on the issue in a pair of tweets three days after igniting outrage by referring to African and Haitian immigrants as coming from "shithole countries."
(With inputs from Agencies)