President Trump unveiled a proposed modernization of the nation’s immigration system on Thursday that focuses on high-skilled workers and not ties to family already living in the U.S.

“The White House plan makes no change to the number of green cards allocated each year. But instead of admitting people through random chance, we will establish simple, universal criteria for admission to the United States,” said Trump in his remarks on Thursday on whitehouse.gov. “No matter where in the world you’re born, no matter who your relatives are, if you want to become an American citizen, it will be clear exactly what standard we ask you to achieve. It will be made crystal clear.” He said the existing green card categories will be replaced with a new visa, the Build America visa.

“President Trump offered a merit-based, high-security vision to keep our country safe and prosperous by fixing our broken immigration system,”said Sen. Kevin Cramer. The crisis at the southern border requires that we adequately equip our immigration law enforcement officers, and I support the administration’s plan to develop a more merit-based system that includes diversity safeguards. These commonsense proposals are a step in the right direction that will bring Republicans together; now Democrats should offer a plan of their own. They would be foolish to not take their seat at the negotiating table just because they oppose the person sitting on the other side.”

Sen. John Hoeven said,“Given the situation at the border, we need to secure our border. The president put forward a proposal today (Thursday) to close loopholes, secure our border and move us to a merit-based immigration system that will make our country stronger and our economy more competitive. We look forward to working with the president to modernize our immigration system and at the same time will continue working to secure the border and to close loopholes in our current immigration laws.” Hoeven attended Thursday’s White House immigration announcement.