Americans First Immigration Act

Key Points

• The bill replaces the current employment-based visa categories with a new points-based system. Immigrants would earn points for salary level, education (especially STEM degrees from U.S. schools), English proficiency, age, military service, and extraordinary achievements like Nobel Prizes or Olympic medals. A minimum of 16 points is required, and applicants are ranked and selected quarterly.
• The Diversity Visa Lottery program would be eliminated entirely and replaced with a much smaller allocation of 3,000 visas per year for religious workers. The current program provides about 55,000 green cards annually to people from underrepresented countries.
• Family-based immigration would be sharply narrowed. U.S. citizens could no longer sponsor their parents for green cards, and the family preference categories would be limited to spouses and minor children of permanent residents only. Adult children, siblings, and parents of citizens would lose their sponsorship pathway.
• Employers hiring immigrants through the points system must prove they tried to hire Americans first, cannot lay off U.S. workers for 90 days before or during the immigrant's employment, and must pay at least 150% to 200% of the state median wage. Penalties for violations range from $5,000 to $50,000 per offense.
• New immigrants would serve a two-year conditional residency period during which they could lose their green card for receiving public benefits, being convicted of a crime with more than one year of imprisonment, or losing their qualifying job without finding another at equal or higher pay.
• The bill bars states from giving in-state tuition rates to students who are not legal permanent residents, and ensures no U.S. citizen pays more in tuition than a non-permanent-resident alien at the same school. This would affect DACA recipients and other non-permanent residents currently receiving in-state rates.