In 2015 14% of all green care awardees or about 140,000 persons received a green card on the basis of employment merits.
Republican Senator Cotton wants to increase the employment merit share and reduce total permanent awards by half, to about 500,000. His RAISE Act was filed in February, and was criticized by the conservative Cato Institute, for not helping low skilled native-born workers, and by liberals.
Former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall, who served under Carter, advocated a merit system in an article on the website of the liberal-oriented Economic Policy Institute. He wants “points-based systems to give quantitative weights for preferred migrant selection characteristics. These systems are more objective than decisions made by immigration officials, and their flexibility allows the mix of characteristics and total point scores to adjust migration to changing conditions.”
The last attempt at comprehensive reform, in 2013, aimed to trim back family based award, by cutting out siblings, and eliminate caps on visas for certain employment-based categories. Use a point system for a new “merit based” visa, of which 120,000 would initially be awarded per year, with a maximum cap of 250,000 annually. It would have raised the annual cap on H1-B visas for high-skilled workers from 65,000 to 110,000, with provisions to prevent such workers from undercutting American wages.