An immigration bill Congress should work on

President Trump is sufficiently pleased with the new immigration bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue that he didn't just endorse it but made an appearance with them to promote it. "The RAISE Act," he said, "will reduce poverty, increase wages, and save taxpayers billions and billions of dollars."

And the bill does contain good ideas. Regrettably, however, these are likely to be obscured by the policy that will make the biggest headlines, a 50 percent reduction in legal immigration. There is no problem at the moment with excessively high levels of legal immigration. It is not the overall number of immigrants but the composition of the whole, with too many low-skilled newcomers and too few high-skilled ones that is the problem. The bill seeks to fix that problem and should do so, which makes its effort to stanch the flow of arrivals overall both redundant and, in all likelihood, counterproductive.

Another problem with the bill is that it also arbitrarily halves the number of refugees that America will take in. The "extreme vetting" of refugees that Trump has talked about is perfectly appropriate. But a limit of 50,000 refugees doesn't take into account the number of people who might actually need refuge from tyranny or religious persecution in any given year. Which Yazidi, Christian, or Shiite survivor of ISIS genocide, will be the first turned away and told, "Sorry, but we've reached our annual limit, try again next year"?

It is unfortunate that these caveats must be entered because they mar salutary and smart elements of the bill that focus on fixing and not just shrinking the lawful immigration system. We have long supported a skill-based system that prioritizes attracting the best and brightest to America, and even if this bill can't pass in its current form, we hope Congress will amend it and adopt such a system.

The needs of the nation should always be the rationale of immigration policy. Outside the question of legitimate asylum-seekers and refugees who need our help and have a moral claim upon it, the normal immigration process should be designed not to simply bring in people who feel America can help them flourish but to bring in people who will make America flourish.