So, a few days ago, President Trump announced another Executive Order coming in the next
four weeks. This time, the Executive Order is going to focus on a merit-based immigration
system. What is a merit-based immigration system? Well, watch this video, and I'll break
it down for you even more. So, a few days ago, President Trump announced that another
Executive Order is coming in the next four weeks. This time, it's going to focus on a
merit-based immigration system. So, what does it mean? We'll talk about it in this video
in a few seconds. But remember, in the past couple of weeks, we had quite a few Executive
Orders. We had the student ban and we've got a video of that. You can see the video in
the description of this video. We talked about restrictions on students that are currently
in the United States, taking full-time online classes, essentially banning so many students.
We had an Order… so many, so many restrictions in asylum seekers, so many of these orders
came out and so many restrictions. And yet now, he's talking about a new Executive Order
changing completely our immigration system. What is this merit-based system? Before we
talk about that, those of you that are here for the first time, make sure you subscribe
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people that need that information every single week. My name is Jacob Sapochnick and I'm
an immigration attorney here in San Diego, California. And we service clients in all
50 states. So, this recent Executive Order just came as a complete shock because we had
all this news about negative news, students are being banned. And we just felt this complete
frustration especially for myself and a lot of my clients. Now, this announcement, almost
like a teaser, that there's going to be a new Executive Order, specifically talking
about a merit-based immigration system. So, what is a merit-based immigration system,
the way we see it? So, a merit-based immigration system means that they're going to be using
a person's individual skills to decide whether they can immigrate to the United States and
how fast they can do so. The idea is to replace our current family-based immigration system,
as you know, we've done many videos about the visa bulletin. And essentially, what we
have are categories of people, whether it's an F1, F2A, somebody who immigrates based
on a spouse, somebody who immigrates based on a green card holder spouse, a parent, a
brother or sister. The idea is to replace this system with a merit-based, almost like
a point system where they’re going to be looking at the person's education level, the
person's financial ability, the ability to be able to learn English, pass the civic test,
and based on that, they're going to be able to classify them, how they will be able to
immigrate to the United States. Again, we don't have exactly the details as to how they're
going to be doing it. But when they're talking about a merit-based system, the idea is to
replace what is called now a family unity a family class immigration system where we
are basically looking at people, who is sponsoring who. A husband sponsoring a wife, a parent
sponsoring a child, the country they're from, to be able to control diversity, replace all
that system that is taking a long time, as well as the way the employment-based system.
Again, there are categories. I've got the EB1, EB2, EB3, take that and replace it with
a merit-based system looking at the individual’s skills, their financial factors. And looking
at that, and taking that into account, how they can immigrate to the United States and
probably how fast they can do so. So for example, the way Trump said it in some of his recent
interviews, he says, there's a point system. So, you're going to get more points if you're
a younger person, you're going to get more points if you have a job offer already, you're
going to get more points if you have money to invest in, you're going to get more points
if your education level is higher. So, all these factors are going to come into some
sort of point system calculation. And based on that, they'll determine how fast that person
can immigrate. And based on those points, they'll determine if that person can immigrate
and when. Essentially, this plan also will change the number of green cards currently
being issued to workers and people that are family members that’ll be able to come to
the United States. It will change that proportion and they'll use a certain format to calculate
how many green cards are going to be issued to whom, and hopefully, that will speed up
the process. Again, it's very unclear how they can do that because right now, we have
a severe visa backlog. We've got people that are waiting for years to get the green cards.
And so, by changing that system, we're not sure if they're going to be releasing more
visas to be able to catch up with the current backlog before they issue, or start the point-based
system. It's really unclear but the idea behind it is that there's going to be a new allocation
of green cards and visas that are being issued. And that's going to be part of that merit-based
system. And remember, the merit-based system, the point system is not something new that
Trump invented. This system already exists in countries like Canada, in Australia. For
example, in Canada, somebody that has already an English speaking skills, somebody that
already has higher education, somebody that already has a job offer gets more points and
brings him closer to his eligibility to immigrate to Canada, for example. So again, what we
know right now, it's a proposal that he's going to be probably releasing some sort of
an order in a few weeks, either announcing this system to come in at some point or initiating
a process for people to start thinking about it. For me, it's just hard to imagine he can
change with one Executive Order, our entire immigration system that's been around for
decades. And again, on one hand, we've got a President that is blocking people from coming
into the US. On one hand, we have a President that creates a separation of family members,
people that are waiting overseas because of the current ban, people that cannot join their
family members. And so, that is something that is really concerning. And so, when he's
talking about creating this merit-based system, it is very confusing. Also, what was mentioned
in the proposal, and in his upcoming Executive Order that he's going to To talk about creating
some sort of solution for DACA, not necessarily a path for citizenship, but at least outlining
some points for Congress to be able to work on a plan to make a permanent solution for
DACA. So, that's also something that was mentioned. But we'll see. Again, it's probably going
to happen in the next three, four weeks, things are going to be leaking more and more, as
the days go by. And of course, we will continue, keeping you posted on what's going to happen
with this particular order. As soon as this proposal was announced a few days ago, immigrants,
advocates, and human rights supporters are worried that this particular system could
favor the rich, the wealthy, the privileged, and essentially shut down the door of opportunity
for people that really need to come to the United States, people who are escaping poverty
and violence like an asylum for coming to the United States. It may create a system
of a privileged society, of people who already have the resources to come, who already have
kind of like the A-list of people that are coming in. So, yeah, that's what we know.
And hopefully, we'll get some more information in the next few weeks. And we'll be able to
do an update video on this. But this is something that people are asking. We get a lot of comments
and questions about what is this new merit system. Well, there is no system yet. This
is only a rumor or proposal that there is going to be a new Executive Order coming.
And as you know, every time there's a rumor, there is an order coming. So, we know something
is coming. And the idea is maybe an announcement or an outline of the new merit-based system.
They may come in the near future to replace our current immigration system. As of now,
nothing has changed. It’s still the same system. We still have backlogs. We still have
people waiting to come. We still have lawsuits filed against the President's Orders. And
just want to make a quick video to update you on this, what we know. And as soon as
we know more, we'll update you further. Once again, join our Facebook group. We'll continue
our discussion there. Share our experiences with our members. And if you have any specific
questions you want to share in a private environment, post them in our Facebook group, the link
is in the description of this video. And also, don't forget to subscribe. Once again, I want
to urge you not to miss any of our videos and our live streams so subscribe to our channel.
And once again, thank you for watching. Let me know in the comments what you think of
this Order. What are your concerns, and I'll make more videos to answer those questions.
Thanks again and I'll see you in our next video.