President Donald Trump should abandon his merit immigration reform and simply let employers import cheap workers to ensure profitability, the Wall Street Journal recommends.

The newspaper’s Editorial Board declared August 4:

Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia have introduced legislation that would eliminate the green-card preferences for parents, adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens, which in effect would reduce legal immigration by 40%. Foreigners could also apply for up to 140,000 green cards via a government admissions process that awards points based on education, language ability, age, educational attainment and job skills …

[But] any point system is also arbitrary and reflects the biases of politicians—namely, Messrs. Cotton and Perdue—rather than the needs of employers … Employers have a better idea of the skills they need than does the Labor Department bureaucracy …

Every economist knows that employers can only raise wages as fast as productivity and profitability allow. If the cost of labor rises too much for a specific job, employers will simply cease providing the service or move production overseas. That means fewer jobs for Americans too …

The solution, as ever, is a legal immigration system that is generous with visas and flexible enough to meet the demands of a growing U.S. economy. If the White House is serious about passing something in Congress, it needs to recognize that reality.