The leading voice in the U.S. Senate to reduce immigration levels, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), says it is “not a ‘nativist view” to want a national immigration policy that benefits American citizens, rather than foreign nationals.

In a series of posts via Twitter, Cotton slammed a New York Times report for being biased against President Trump’s pro-American immigration agenda and favoring an immigration policy that puts foreign nationals first.

I have a few thoughts on this story about @realDonaldTrump & his immigration policies… https://t.co/Ap9CLl5EEk — Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 24, 2017

1. It's a very peculiar view of American democracy to say the elected president is "defying" the unelected bureaucracy. I suspect @nytimes would never run that headline about, say, President Obama. — Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 24, 2017

2. It's not a "nativist view" to say immigration policy should be crafted to benefit American citizens, not foreigners. Slandering "white working-class Americans" with that term is an example of the closed thinking that helped Trump win. — Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 24, 2017

3. Likewise, I did not use, nor would I use, the phrase "anti-immigrant conservatives." Again, you can thank this kind of thinking for Trump's victory, Brexit, Merkel being unable to form a government … I could go on. — Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 24, 2017

Cotton additionally defended Trump’s reduction of overall refugee resettlement levels — despite running on a campaign promise to stop all refugee resettlement, at least temporarily — was more in-line with traditional levels.

Since February, the Trump administration has admitted more than 26,500 foreign refugees to the U.S., a major lowering of refugee totals from President Obama’s administration, which allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees into the U.S. during his tenure.

5. Plus, President Obama only increased refugee quota to 110k in final years of his tenure, partly as a result of his disastrous Syria policy. Average actual refugee admissions (not paper quota) is close to where @realDonaldTrump set it this year. — Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 24, 2017

7. The way to solve a refugee crisis is not immigration policy, but wise foreign policy. Eight years of feckless foreign policy under President Obama is one reason the world faces so many refugee crises. — Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 24, 2017

Cotton corrected the idea by the open borders lobby and the mainstream media that foreign nationals in the U.S. on temporary protected status programs should be long-running and permanent. To the contrary, Cotton asserted that the purpose of temporary protected status is to be temporary, not a quasi-amnesty.

8. The "humanitarian program" for Haitians is TPS, or Temporary Protected Status. That's right, the T stands for temporary. TPS covers things like natural disasters, as Haiti suffered in 2010. It doesn't cover living standards lower than US. — Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 24, 2017

Cotton, along with Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), introduced the legal immigration-cutting RAISE Act in the beginning of 2017, eventually earning the endorsement of Trump. Under the RAISE Act, legal immigration would be reduced from more than 1 million immigrants arriving a year to about 500,000 a year. At the same time, the RAISE Act would raise Americans’ wages, specifically Americans working in blue-collar industries, by ending the flow of low-skilled foreign workers to the U.S.

The RAISE Act would end the process known as “chain migration,” where newly naturalized immigrants are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. with them. Currently, 70 percent of all immigration to the country is due to chain migration. The RAISE Act would require that immigration be based on merit, skills and English proficiency, rather than family ties.

Every year, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 foreign nationals, with the vast majority deriving from family-based chain migration. In 2016, the legal and illegal immigrant population reached a record high of 43.7 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.