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Trump Says He'll End U.S. Visa Lottery and `Chain Migration'

Trump Says He'll End U.S. Visa Lottery and `Chain Migration'

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he’ll end U.S. immigration programs that give preferences to the families of new residents and that allow people to enter a lottery for visas, policies the White House blames for a bombing in New York on Monday.

“We’re going to end both of them,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday.

A 27-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant, Ayaked Ullah, set off a pipe bomb in New York’s Times Square subway station on Monday, injuring himself and three others. Ullah entered the U.S. on an immigrant visa in 2011 that he was able to obtain through a relative, a naturalized U.S. citizen who had won a visa through the lottery program, Tyler Houlton, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said on Twitter.

The acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said Tuesday it is filing federal terrorism charges against Ullah.

Trump has repeatedly called the immigration system’s family preference system “chain migration” and has backed legislation that would end the policy, reduce overall legal immigration to the U.S. and instead award visas based on merit. The proposal has not advanced in Congress.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu

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