President Donald Trump will unveil a sweeping new proposal Thursday designed to move the United States from a family based immigration system to what senior administration officials describe as an employment- and skill-based system.

The proposal includes two parts – a physical infrastructure component that would include border wall construction and be financed by new fees on trade collected at the border, and a revamped points system for those applying for U.S. citizenship.

Briefing reporters in the Roosevelt Room ahead of the president's announcement Thursday, senior administration officials described a system for new arrivals that they said would be more fair and clear and also would significantly shift the population receiving American citizenship toward a much more highly educated, higher-income group.

"We want to change the composition of who is coming through," a senior administration official said.

The plan is designed to give Republicans a positive proposal they can pitch on the campaign trail and in negotiations with Democrats, although Trump officials acknowledge that it is not likely to become law as is. Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, pitched the plan to Republican senators behind closed doors Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

"What we're doing is completing step one, which is having a proposal," a senior administration official said. "We'll see how everyone reacts and then we'll see what step two and step three look like."

The senior administration official quoted the Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland" to describe the purpose of the president's new plan: "If you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter what path you take."

The officials said they have aggressive economic goals for the plan, predicting that it would increase annual GDP by 0.17 percentage point over 10 years, add $500 billion in new tax revenue, and reduce spending on social safety net programs by about $100 billion.

It would do that largely by moving away from the current family based immigration system – under which a large factor in being considered for citizenship is whether the applicant has family already in the country – to an economic system that would take into account the applicant's education, employability and even ability to create jobs in the United States.

The plan is silent on the question of what to do about undocumented migrants who are already inside the United States, or the employers who hire them to fill out lower-level agricultural, manufacturing and service work forces.

It also does not address the so-called Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children. Democratic lawmakers have made securing a pathway to citizenship for them one of their top legislative priorities.