Trump wants 'best and brightest'

With the Democrats controlling the House, Trump's new immigration plan likely has a slim chance of making it through Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement declaring Trump's immigration plan dead on arrival before it even reaches the House.

"This dead-on-arrival plan is not a remotely serious proposal," Pelosi said in a statement on Thursday.

Pelosi said the White House has repackaged "the worst of its past failed immigration plans", including greenlighting the administration's "barbaric" family detention policies, reviving the "ineffective and wasteful wall", completely abandoning "our patriotic and determined Dreamers and gutting our asylum and refugee protections".

"To say that this plan's application criteria are 'merit-based' is the height of condescension," she said.

This plan ignores the 11 million undocumented people living in the US who are contributing to communities and suffering under this administration's "abhorrent attacks" on immigrants, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a statement.

US Conference of Mayors President Steve Benjamin applauded Trump's offering of a plan, but said the organization had concerns with the provisions.

The immigration reform must be family-based and must include "a streamlined visa system that provides access to the agricultural, lower-skilled and high-skilled workers we need; and an earned pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country", he said in a statement.

US Congressman Bill Johnson, who was present while Trump delivered the speech on the new plan, said, "Our immigration system is beyond broken. Reasonable people can disagree on potential solutions, but not on the fact that a major overhaul is necessary."

"I applaud President Trump for tackling this issue," said the Republican from Ohio. "It can be divisive and thorny, but it must be addressed, and not kicked down the road."

Lia Zhu in San Francisco contributed to this story.