Senators David Perdue (R-GA) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) [official websites] on Tuesday announced [press release, PDF] the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act that would reduce overall legal immigration into the US. In 2015 a total of 1,051,031 immigrants entered the US. The RAISE Act would decrease the total number of immigrants entering the US per year to 637,960 in the first year and 539.958 in the tenth year. The act has three main components. The first would eliminate the preference of extended family members of US citizens, including adult parents of US citizens, adult siblings of US citizens, married and unmarried adult children of US citizens, and unmarried adult children of legal permanent residents. The act still allows preference to be given to spouses and minor children of US citizens. It also provides the option of a temporary visa to parents of US citizens if they are in need of caretaking, as long as the sponsoring children guarantee support and health insurance for the parents and the parent is not allowed to work or access public benefits. The act eliminates the Diversity Visa Lottery [official website] program, which grants 50,000 visas per year by lottery system to immigrants from countries with “historically low rates of immigration to the US.” The act would also reduce the maximum number of allowable refugee offered permanent residence to 50,000. This would be the lowest level [Pew Research Center] since 2007 and is in-line with the average of the past 13 years. In a press conference held by Cotton and Perdue, Cotton clarified that the bill would not impact employment based immigration.

Immigration policies in the US have come under significant scrutiny in the US. On Tuesday the Department of Justice urged [JURIST report] for the reinstatement of a controversial immigration executive order signed [JURIST op-ed] by President Trump on January 27. Only a day later, a judge for the Eastern District of New York issued an emergency stay, temporarily preventing execution of the law, until the question of whether it applied to valid visa holders could be resolved. That issue was resolved by a district judge in Michigan, who ordered [JURIST report] that the travel ban could not be applied to legal citizens, including those holding visas. On February 4, the US District Court for the Western District of Washington [official website] issued a stay [JURIST report] of Trump’s order. Following appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied [JURIST report] the Trump Administration’s emergency motion [text, PDF] to reinstate the immigration restrictions, thereby suspending the order until arguments have been heard. Thus far Hawaii has moved to intervene in the matter and 15 other states, including the District of Columbia, have filed amicus briefs supporting Washington and Minnesota.