Senator David Perdue: Iran Is Third Largest Diversity Lottery Visa Recipient

Senator David Perdue: Iran Is Third Largest Diversity Lottery Visa Recipient

“The RAISE Act would eliminate the Diversity Visa Lottery and move us to a merit-based immigration system”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator David Perdue (R-GA) spoke with Laura Ingraham on Fox News Channel’s The Ingraham Angle about how the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act, would create a merit-based immigration system and eliminate the outdated Diversity Visa Lottery.

Merit-Based System: “President Trump called this out last year and I give him high marks. This year he is backing our RAISE Act that Tom Cotton and I put forward. He talked about it today. We want to go to a merit-based immigration system.”

Plagued With Fraud: “Let’s talk about this Diversity Visa Lottery. This is a big fraud. It is fraught with fraud itself. It has social security fraud. It has identity fraud.”

National Security Issue: “Worse than that, 30% of the visas given out under this system go to countries that have been identified by ICE as harboring and promoting terrorism. In fact, the third largest recipient country for these visas is Iran. This is an insidious program. It needs to go away tonight.”

Finding Common Ground: “What we want to do in a merit-based system is eliminate chain migration. This is based on the same conclusion that the Democrats came to under Bill Clinton. President Bush created a commission to look at immigration. They suggested a merit-based system and Bill Clinton supported it. This should be a bipartisan approach to this problem.”

Proven To Work: “Most countries have already moved to protect their borders, their national security, and to provide for their economic growth and they do that within the immigration system. Canada and Australia did this decades ago. They went to a merit-based system where they bring the right kind of people in today relative to the economy and we don’t. We have a family based chain migration system that has got to end.”

Growing The Economy: “This is the biggest difference since 1990 and the Senator Ted Kennedy idea. If you look at our historical immigration, they came in, assimilated into the community, they learned English, they developed the skills, and they contributed to the economy. What we have going today is this politically correct idea that calls for an open border.”