Sen. Tom Cotton argued Wednesday that President-elect Trump has a 'clear mandate' to weed out illegal immigration and reform a system to prioritize American workers over unskilled, foreign workers.

In an op-ed in The New York Times, Cotton pressed that a large part of Trump's victory in November was due to his stance on the issue.

"President-elect Trump now has a clear mandate not only to stop illegal immigration, but also to finally cut the generation-long influx of low-skilled immigrants that undermines American workers," Cotton said, arguing that the immigration system skews toward the rich and powerful and their ability to bring in cheap, migrant workers in order to drive down wages.

"Higher wages, better benefits and more security for American workers are features, not bugs, of sound immigration reform. For too long, our immigration policy has skewed toward the interests of the wealthy and powerful," Cotton wrote. "Employers get cheaper labor, and professionals get cheaper personal services like housekeeping. We now need an immigration policy that focuses less on the most powerful and more on everyone else."

Cotton said that companies who hope to attract cheap labor have moved forward "as if Mr. Trump's campaign never happened" and urged politicians to cater to the "long-term national interest" rather than the short-term interests of businesses.

The Arkansas Republican also called for a reduction in legal immigration in an effort to drive up wages for workers and a renewed focus on high-skilled immigrants, such as doctors, in an effort to make the immigration system resemble those of Australia and Canada.

"In this election, Americans finally demanded an end to this unthinking immigration system. President-elect Trump and Congress should take that mandate and act on it promptly in the new year," he said.

The immigration issue has always generated passion among Republicans, but emotions have been at a fever pitch since 2013, when several GOP senators convinced that the party needed to change its stance on the issue to court the growing Hispanic population worked with Democrats and President Obama to embrace a comprehensive immigration reform package. The legislation was passed by the Senate, but was not taken up in the House amid a fierce populist backlash that carried over to the 2016 election and helped catapult Trump to the Republican nomination.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump separated himself from his GOP primary opponents with his rhetoric on the issue, including his oft-repeated pledge to build a wall on the border with Mexico.