The RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act is a bill first introduced in the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
in 2017. Co-sponsored by
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
senators
Tom Cotton
Thomas Bryant Cotton (born May 13, 1977) is an American politician, attorney, and former military officer serving as the junior United States senator for Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of ...
and
David Perdue
David Alfred Perdue Jr. (; born December 10, 1949) is an American politician and business executive who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Perdue was an unsuccessful candidate fo ...
, the bill seeks to reduce levels of legal
immigration to the United States
Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. In absolute numbers, the United States has a larger immigrant population than any other country in the worl ...
by 50% by halving the number of green cards issued. The bill would also dramatically reduce family-based immigration pathways; impose a cap of 50,000 refugee admissions a year; end the visa diversity lottery; and eliminate the current demand-driven model of employment-based immigration and replace it with a points system. The bill received the support of President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
, who promoted a revised version of the bill in August 2017, and was opposed by Democrats, immigrant rights groups, and some Republicans.
The 2017 bill (in the
115th Congress
The 115th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States of America federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from January 3, 2017, to January ...
) did not receive a vote in the Senate, although a similar immigration bill supported by Trump was defeated in 2018 on a 39–60 vote. In 2019 (during the
116th Congress
The 116th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It convened in Washington, D.C., on January 3, 2019, and ended on Janua ...
), Cotton, Perdue, and other Republicans re-introduced the legislation; the bill did not advance.
History
The bill is co-sponsored by
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
senators
Tom Cotton
Thomas Bryant Cotton (born May 13, 1977) is an American politician, attorney, and former military officer serving as the junior United States senator for Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of ...
of Arkansas and
David Perdue
David Alfred Perdue Jr. (; born December 10, 1949) is an American politician and business executive who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Perdue was an unsuccessful candidate fo ...
of Georgia, who introduced the bill to the Senate on February 13, 2017, as S. 354.S.354 - RAISE Act, 115th Congress (2017-2018) Congress.gov. The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
On August 2, 2017, Cotton introduced a revised version of the bill, designated S. 1720; this bill was also referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
, along with Cotton and Perdue, announced it at the White House. Within the Trump White House, Trump advisers Stephen Miller and
Steve Bannon
Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump during t ...
promoted and helped shape the bill. The bill has not attracted any additional co-sponsors.
The 2017 bill did not receive a vote in the Senate. A separate bill to restrict legal immigration, supported by Trump, Cotton, and Perdue, was defeated in the Senate by a 39–60 vote. In 2019, Cotton, Perdue, and other Republicans re-introduced the RAISE Act legislation.
Provisions and analysis
The bill would cut legal immigration by half, reducing the number of green cards from more than 1 million to about 500,000. The bill would also remove pathways for siblings and adult children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to apply for permanent lawful residency status in the U.S., limiting the family path to spouses and minor children.Peter Baker Trump Supports Plan to Cut Legal Immigration by Half ''New York Times'' (August 2, 2017): "In throwing his weight behind a bill, Mr. Trump added one more long-odds priority to a legislative agenda already packed with them." The bill would also impose a cap of 50,000 refugee admissions a year and would end the visa diversity lottery.
In promoting the legislation, Trump administration officials contend that the bill would increase economic growth and increase wages.Patti Domm Trump supports immigration bill that could have negative impact on his own agenda CNBC (August 2,017).Heather Long It's a 'grave mistake' for Trump to cut legal immigration in half ''Washington Post'' (August 2, 2017). This contention was challenged by economists, who "overwhelmingly predict" that cuts in immigration would have a negative impact on GDP growth. In April 2017, a group of more than 1,400 economists, with views ranging across the political spectrum, sent an open letter to Trump noting the "near universal agreement" on "the broad economic benefit that immigrants to this country bring" and urging him not to seek immigration cuts. The Penn Wharton Budget Model projects that the RAISE Act would increase per-capita GDP by 0.02 percent in the first decade, before falling in the
long run In economics, the long-run is a theoretical concept in which all markets are in equilibrium, and all prices and quantities have fully adjusted and are in equilibrium. The long-run contrasts with the short-run, in which there are some constraints an ...
by 2040.
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Ind ...
immigration policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh said that the legislation "would do nothing to boost skilled immigration and it will only increase the proportion of employment-based green cards by cutting other green cards. Saying otherwise is grossly deceptive marketing."
The "only evidence that the administration has cited as justifying its proposals" is the work of economist George Borjas,Binyamin Appelbaum Fewer Immigrants Mean More Jobs? Not So, Economists Say ''New York Times'' (August 3, 2017). who has defended the bill, arguing that it "makes sense" and that "low-skill immigration, which would likely suffer the largest cuts in the proposed bill, imposes costs on taxpayers and it imposes costs on low-skill workers already here." Other economists have sharply contested Borjas's conclusions; economist
Giovanni Peri
Giovanni Peri (born September 19, 1969 in Perugia, Italy) is an Italian-born American economist who is Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of California, Davis, where he directs the Global Migration Center. He is a ...
stated that "The average American worker is more likely to lose than to gain from immigration restrictions" and "most studies put the negative impact on low-skilled wages closer to zero," and
Michael Clemens
Michael Andrew Clemens (born c. 1972) is an American development economist.
He is a senior fellow and research manager at the Center for Global Development (CGD), a Washington D.C.-based think tank, where he leads the Migration and Development ...
argues that Borjas's position is based on a study with critical flaws.
Support and opposition
The bill and Trump's support for it was hailed by groups favoring restrictive immigration policies, such as
Federation for American Immigration Reform
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a non profit, anti-immigration organization in the United States. The group publishes position papers, organizes events, and runs campaigns in order to advocate for changes in U.S. immig ...
CNBC
CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...
Tom Perez
Thomas Edward Perez (born October 7, 1961) is an American politician and attorney who served as the Chair of the Democratic National Committee from February 2017 until January 2021. Perez was previously Assistant Attorney General for Civil Righ ...
said that "Trump wants to tear apart communities and punish immigrant families that are making valuable contributions to our economy." Democratic Senator
Richard Blumenthal
Richard Blumenthal (; born February 13, 1946) is an American lawyer and politician who is the senior United States senator from Connecticut, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he is one of the wealthiest members of ...
of Connecticut called the bill "nothing but a series of nativist talking points and regurgitated campaign rhetoric that completely fails to move our nation forward toward real reform." Seven of the eight Senators in the bipartisan " Gang of Eight" (four Democrats and four Republicans who co-sponsored an unsuccessful immigration-reform bill in 2013) denounced the bill. Republican Senator
Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Olin Graham (born July 9, 1955) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from South Carolina, a seat he has held since 2003. A member of the Republican Party, Graham chaired the Senate Committee on ...
, for example, a member of the Gang of Eight, said the proposal would be "devastating" to South Carolina's economy. The eighth member of the Gang of Eight, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, said that he had "a big difference of opinion with this bill is that it sets an arbitrary cap on the number of people that are able to come through with a green card."
The
Congressional Hispanic Caucus
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is an organization of 38 Democratic members of the United States Congress of Hispanic and Latino descent. The Caucus focuses on issues affecting Hispanics and Latinos in the United States. The CHC was fou ...
and immigrant rights groups both condemned the legislation. The
National Immigration Law Center The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is a center in the United States that "engages in policy analysis, litigation, education and advocacy, to achieve hevision" of "a society in which all people—regardless of race, gender, immigration or ec ...
called the bill "cruel and un-American" and issued a statement saying that it would "devastate families, eliminating the traditional and long-accepted means by which family members such as grandparents, mothers, fathers and siblings are able to reunite with their families who have emigrated to the United States." The
technology industry
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
immigration-policy advocacy group
FWD.us
FWD.us is a 501(c)(4) pro-immigration lobbying group based in the United States that advocates for prison reform, status for undocumented immigrants, particularly for DACA recipients, and higher levels of immigration visas, particularly for H-1 ...
J. D. Vance
James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman, August 2, 1984) is an American venture capitalist, author, and politician who is a United States senator-elect from Ohio, elected in 2022. A member of the Republican Party, he came to prominence with ...
In addition to substantially reducing legal immigration to the United States, and dramatically reducing family-based immigration, the bill would also replace the current employment-based U.S. immigration system with a rigid points system, which would mark a departure from the current U.S. demand-driven model of employment-based immigration.The RAISE Act: What Lies Beneath the Proposed Points System? American Immigration Council (August 11, 2017). Under the legislation, a maximum of 140,000 points-based immigrant visas would be issued per
fiscal year
A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...
, with spouses and minor children of the principal applicant being counted against the 140,000 cap.
The revised version of the bill (S. 1720) provided that a person who accrued 30 points under the following allocation scheme would be eligible to submit an application.