Stephen Miller Pushing To Cut Legal Immigration In Half

Image by Getty Images
Senior presidential aide Stephen Miller is reportedly working on crafting a bill that would slash legal immigration in half by 2027, according to Politico.
In concert with Senator Tom Cotton and Senator David Perdue, the bill would halve the number of legal immigrants allowed to enter the country each year. About 1 million legal immigrants are granted entry each year, while this plan would cut that number to 500,000 over the next decade.
Republicans haven’t mounted a serious attack on legal immigration since 1996, when then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pushed President Clinton to add in language cutting legal immigration in a broader set of immigration reform measures. This was eventually dropped.
Currently, prospective immigrants with family already in the U.S. are prioritized. The legislation proposed by Cotton and Perdue would focus on a “merit-based” approach, favoring those in categories such as “professors and researchers, those holding advanced degrees, and those with extraordinary ability in a particular field.”
Those admitted to the U.S. under these circumstances have accounted for less than 10 percent of immigrations in the last 15 years.
Contact Jesse Bernstein at [email protected] or on Twitter @__jbernstein
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘F–k Israel’ message displayed at Coachella music festival and streamed to millions
-
Fast Forward Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across country
-
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.