Nearly 80-percent of U.S. adults support a merit-based immigration system. That's according to Pew Research Center, which found a majority of immigrants have less than a high school education.
“Only about seven percent of immigrants who are chosen each year are arriving because of skill or knowledge-based immigration,” says David Ray, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
“This is because our legal immigration system is based on family chain migration which awards visas to people primarily to people because they have a blood relationship, not because they have the brains or the skills to make it here in the United States.”
Ray says the current system is draining our resources.
“When you look at legal and illegal immigrants together, two-thirds of them are on some form of public assistance. This is why President Trump has urged the country to move to a merit-based immigration system much like Canada or Australia.”
Congress is first trying to secure the border before it tackles the immigration system.