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One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. Apart from the idea of

One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all.

xapata 10y ago
And this matters because individual productivity is a log-normal distribution, like VC returns. As a country it's a good investment to invite millions of immigrants trying to find the next major inventor. I suppose this also relies on national productivity being the product of, not the sum of individuals productivity.
- rayiner 10y ago
  It seems to make that cuts the other way. What is the cost of integrating and potentially supporting a million immigrants compared to the return from one billion dollar startup? (Especially when we're talking a billion dollars of Monopoly money valuation versus day a billion in revenue.)
  - xapata 10y ago
    So far it's worked out, I think. I'm not talking about a billion dollar startup, but trillion-dollar technology. Think Manhattan project, not WhatsApp.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      > Think Manhattan project So established scientists from Western countries?
      - surfmike 10y ago
        Don't comment about history you know nothing about. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/11/11/a-veterans-day-story-immigrants-and-the-atomic-bomb/#1e5051291e07 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/11/11/a-vet... Edit: I apologize for the snark. As long as Hungary, Russia, Poland are counted as the West (and they generally are), then I agree with you.
        oh_sigh 10y ago
        Perhaps you should comment on what exactly you find wrong with the original post. My reading is that your article is actually supporting the person you replied to. "Why did the immigrant scientists succeed? Clearly these were some of the most highly-skilled people on earth but it was something more. Beyond their skills, Laura Fermi notes the unique characteristics and emotions that the foreign-born scientists brought to the atomic project: “The determination to defend America at all costs spurred the newcomers no less than the Americans, and the European-born may have come to this determination somewhat earlier than the native-born, driven by stronger personal emotions. The picture of their country under Nazi power in the event of a German victory was something the Americans could imagine only with difficulty.” That was not the case for those who had already seen their countries overrun."
      - xapata 10y ago
        Even if that's the only group that's worthwhile, bringing in the rest of the world is like a loss-leader at a retail store. Being friendly is good advertising.
  - surfmike 10y ago
    Um, not much? Immigrants as a whole pay their way in the United States, have lower crime rates. The revenue generated by Google, Chobani, and other companies is not "Mickey mouse" money. Not to mention that Microsoft and Google both picked immigrants to be their leaders.
    - oh_sigh 10y ago
      I'll assume you're talking about Brin when including Google in your post. He was 6 years old when he came to America. Maybe that is what is important. Did anyone pull stats on the value of companies started by immigrants who came to America already fully grown?
      - qaq 10y ago
        Right so if his parents did not move he would've entered US by himself at 6, same thing for Jobs.
        surfmike 10y ago
        Excellent point. If you include first generation immigrants I'm sure the impact of immigrants is even greater.
      - Shubham28 10y ago
        I think he is referring to Sundar Pichai
        oh_sigh 10y ago
        Sundar is just an employee who worked his way up through the ranks...he was not involved in founding Google.
        Shubham28 10y ago
        But the poster never mentioned founders, he says leaders. Even when talking about Microsoft, I think he is referring to Satya Nadella since both Gates & Balmer were not immigrants.
  - omarforgotpwd 10y ago
    It doesn't "cost" anyone much. Immigrants pay for goods and services and provide labor, so they economy just ends up expanding. It's not like taking "too many" immigrants will make you poor because it cost too much. More likely the cost would be social and political rather than economic.
    - stale2002 10y ago
      OK then, what would your opinion be of tripling the number if H1B, and drastically reducing all other immigration programs at the same time, so the total amount of immigrants stays the same?
      - xapata 10y ago
        I'm not a fan of central planning. The market is usually more efficient at deciding what jobs are useful.
        stale2002 10y ago
        We are already centrally planning immigration. Changing the numbers around on our existing centrally planned system doesn't make it any more or less centrally planned.
        rdl 10y ago
        It would be interesting to have baseline federal standards and then let states handle some immigration decisions, actually. In Canada the provinces can do that (so e.g. Quebec can fast-track you for citizenship for speaking French). In Switzerland it is basically all at the Cantonal level.
        xapata 10y ago
        That'd require some better surveillance to ensure an immigrant permitted in one state does not work in another. I'm not sure that's constitutional, though it is quite practical.
- halomru 10y ago
  >I suppose this also relies on national productivity being the product of, not the sum of individuals productivity. By that logic you can easily argue it's imperative to weed out those with productivity close to 0 (and below 1). Great people inspire greatness, awfully people can bring their whole environment down. That's why ghettos are such a bad idea. From your arguments alone I wouldn't be able to tell which side you are arguing for.
  - xapata 10y ago
    Indeed it does. Criminals, polluters, etc. are a drag on the economy. However, that characteristic is not well-correlated with immigrant. It might even be anti-correlated. I'm not against harsh penalties for criminals. I am not a fan of pretending to care about rehabilitation or deterrence, which clearly are not the purpose of our prisons. Let's call it like it is -- punishment and ejection from society. I'm not arguing for immigration for ethical reasons, but purely out of self-interest.
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sillysaurus3 10y ago
Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. Universities do it.
- omarforgotpwd 10y ago
  There are many alternatives if you are denied from a university, such as applying to a different university or learning online instead. There is only one America
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - roesel 10y ago
    Well there are other countries, contrary to popular belief. With your logic, the answer would be to emigrate somewhere else. But I think that's not the point.
    - omarforgotpwd 10y ago
      There's only one America though. If you want to live with your American cousin, work at an a company that happens to be headquartered in the us or just like America living in another country may not be an alternative.
  - snambi 10y ago
    there are many other countries. so, there is choice for poeple emigrating.
    - eeZah7Ux 10y ago
      Far from enough. If each city in the world was its own country, maybe. On top of that, people are born in a random country leading to very unfair [dis]advantages.
  - zo1 10y ago
FLUX-YOU 10y ago
>Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. I think this is already subtly done with investor visas. They don't outright deny you obviously, but there are different lines to stand in depending on your usefulness to the country you're going to.
- Kalium 10y ago
  There's also B, P, L, and other visa types. There's a lot of different lines to stand in depending on how useful you are and the temporaryness of your stay.
99_00 10y ago
Are you against criminal records checks for immigrants?
- vthallam 10y ago
  They already do that. You have to disclose any criminal records before applying for a US visa.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  I didn't say that. And, depending on the other country's justice system, I would not care as long as they think the person is free.
xtreme 10y ago
Are you also against interviews or technical tests while hiring people? Do you suppose that jobs should be offered on a first-come first-serve basis, or through a lottery, since number of applicants would be higher than number of positions?
dragonwriter 10y ago
> One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. That's actually one of the basic premises of pro-immigrant policy, too (perhaps even moreso than anti-immigrant policies.) Actually, anti-immigrant groups favoring a hard closed door with little attempt to distinguish useless from useful are probably more significant among the anti-immigrant side than the opposite I idea,puren-source with little attempt to distinguish, is on the pro-immigrant side.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  No, it's not. You can be of the opinion that you don't have the right to stop people moving across a border or forcibly deport them later. Pro-immigration groups sometimes will advocate screening, usually they don't.
rdl 10y ago
It wouldn't be hard to have an immigration system which is biased toward useful vs. not useful. The question is: where do you want to have the cutoff? I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), combined with a transparent and straightforward points-based system for mainly immigrant visas. I'd eliminate the inherent racism in the current system (penalizing India and China vs. Equatorial Guinea and Monaco). As a first pass, just copy the Canadian or New Zealand systems. Where we set the threshold for entry is a worthwhile debate. Should it be anyone who isn't likely to be strongly negative? Anyone where net benefit exceeds cost? Where net benefit is >3x the annual median income? A baseline of "not a felon, terrorist, etc." for visitors, a solid system of constraining visitors to defined periods of time (thus making it easier to grant visit visas), and a straightforward path to immigration and citizenship for high-value immigrants is a better starting point than the current immigration system.
- muninn_ 10y ago
  Yeah I mean, the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in", so how do you decide who to let in? An immigration policy that is held be numerous other countries that favors skilled immigrants seems to be reasonable. On the other hand, brain drain. How will those countries continue to get better and enjoy a modern standard of living if all the smart people leave?
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    Perhaps nations will be incentivized to fix the underlying causes of their brain drain if they perceive it as a big problem.
    - rdl 10y ago
      Also there is value in "go to US/SV, work there, return home with knowledge of how better systems work, establish in your home country", although there are probably scale effects so it's best for humanity overall for the best people to be concentrated. (I'm not sure about the merits of immigration, naturalization, and then return to/interface with birth country, vs. a non-immigrant status. There is probably a good case to be made that having people gain US citizenship is overall better, and it provides optionality. With global taxation it is a clear net win for the US, too.)
the_absurdist 10y ago
Another insidious equivalence of equating immigration policy geared towards unskilled, illegal immigrants with immigration policy in general. Let the downvotes begin.
- akhilcacharya 10y ago
  It's pretty clear that actual immigrants seem to equate them pretty well. It's why Asian-Americans went from being part of the Republican base to overwhelmingly voting Democratic.
  - tristor 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure that has more to do with Trump making veiled mentions of building internment camps again. People who have either lived through that or know someone who has rightly share a "never again" attitude. Clearly Trump's campaign had no interest in even remotely cultivating the Jewish or Asian vote.
greenshackle2 10y ago
> you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. I'm sure it's possible to do it, if you take a narrow enough view of 'usefulness', e.g. 'usefulness' = measurable economic productivity. You can screen out people with expensive preexisting medical conditions, people who cannot work, etc., and that will obviously raise the average productivity of immigrants. But it's immoral. Rich host countries are poaching productive individuals while selecting against people who are most in need of help, leaving them to be taken care of by their (usually) poorer country of origin. The fair thing to do would be to accept a random sample of would-be immigrants.
- nilkn 10y ago
  > Rich host countries are poaching productive individuals while selecting against people who are most in need of help I'm not sure that "poaching" is the right word. The US isn't seeking out potential immigrants and trying to entice them to come here, but that's what "poaching" suggests to me. Rather, it's just trying to filter those who have already established on their own a desire to come here.
  - greenshackle2 10y ago
    I don't know about the US. I know Canada has a history of running targeted ad campaigns in South Africa and elsewhere, to get doctors to immigrate (while simultaneously complaining about locally-trained doctors leaving to get better paid jobs in the US). Not the best source but it's what I could find on Google: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/columnists/2007/02/05/the_ethics_of_medical_poaching.html https://www.thestar.com/opinion/columnists/2007/02/05/the_et...
- zo1 10y ago
  >"The fair thing to do would be to accept a random sample of would-be immigrants." All points aside, isn't that exactly what the US is doing with the Green Card lottery system? It's entire mandate is to "increase immigrant diversity", by giving countries with low immigration to the US preferential counts towards the lottery. >"But it's immoral. Rich host countries are poaching productive individuals while selecting against people who are most in need of help, leaving them to be taken care of by their (usually) poorer country of origin." You know what is actually immoral? Forcing individuals that want to make a better life for their children, into staying in a country that "needs help" and they want to get out of. The world is not some giant "experiment" for you to optimize and fix. Let people leave and go where they want, and if you want to prevent people from coming into your area, well then let the majority current residents decide.
rb2k_ 10y ago
> One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. I think there is a very strong correlation to 'documented' vs 'undocumented'. "Science vs" had a great episode on immigration that talks specifically about the difference in these groups: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/immigration/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/immigration/
phkahler 10y ago
>> It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all. I would say in the case of the US, just getting here requires a certain amount of motivation. Even the folks crossing the border from Mexico have to be rather motivated. Anyone coming from another country usually has to pay for transportation at the very least. When the country was founded, these challenges were much greater so I figure the US had the advantage of getting only immigrants above some level of motivation when it started - in addition to the other advantages it had.
edblarney 10y ago
"Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive." I'm sorry but this is totally unfair. Nearly every nation has immigration criteria. Canada, Australia and UK (non-EU) all have a 'points system' which definitely separates 'the useful' form the 'useless'. Education, skill-set are key components. I would argue language ability should be added to the list as it's the #1 predictor of integration. It's impossible to engage with a community that one cannot communicate with - and this will help a lot with those immigrants who are likely to be most marginalized (i.e. not the rich one's we are worried about). Language training should be a primary part of social support for newcomers. "It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones" No, this is not true at all. The most talented immigrants are entirely undeterred. The nations noted above are good examples of that. "as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all." There is no 'determination' at arrival. The discriminating criteria are usually applied before immigrants arrive. This doesn't preclude status for refugees and other family-class migrants either - you can have both. Finally - I think looking at success rates of immigrants overall is a much better exercise than looking at a handful of billionaires, though the later does have value.
ThomPete 10y ago
If you look at it from "most resourceful" it's fairly easy and as far as I remember to have read also how it's normally seen. I.e. the US get 80% of the most resourceful immigrants while ex Europe get 80% of the least resourceful. Will see if I can dig up the report.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  Which doesn't mean immigration policies have anything to do with that.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    That depends on your criteria. In Europe once you are allowed in you get access to more or less the whole European welfare system where as in the US you have to pay for everything yourself more or less.
gwern 10y ago
> One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. This is exactly what the study shows is not just possible but easy in screening by nationality. Think about US immigration statistics by country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...): you'll see lots of Central and South American countries. Now take a look at what the study finds (http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy-Brief.March-2016.pdf http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Bi...): "The leading country of origin for the immigrant founders of billion dollar companies was India with 14 entrepreneurs, followed by Canada and the United Kingdom with 8, Israel (7), Germany (4), China (3), France (2), Ireland (2) and 12 other countries with one entrepreneur.2 India: 14 Canada: 8 United Kingdom: 8 Israel: 7 Germany: 4 China: 3 France: 3 Ireland: 2 Armenia: 1 Azerbaijan: 1 Argentina: 1 Egypt: 1 Holland: 1 Iraq: 1 Norway: 1 Russia: 1 Singapore: 1 South Africa: 1 South Korea: 1 Uzbekistan: 1" Does this look remotely like current US immigration? It does not. (Hey, you know what countries I don't see on that startup founder list? Mexico, Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Jamaica, Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador...) If you were building a model to predict startup founding by nationality and personal details like IQ or ethnicity (no prizes for guessing what ethnicity that 1 South Africa founder is, or what religion that 1 Iraqi founder is), and designing immigration policy around that, it would look nothing like what has gone on for decades. Using startup founders as an argument for the status quo of illegal immigration is a deeply dishonest bait-and-switch piece of equivocation (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division ) and it makes my teeth grind every time I see someone go 'did you know 50% of startup founders/CEOs/scientists are immigrants?' Justify it on its own merits, don't pretend that Indian brahmins and Israeli Jews' accomplishments have anything to do with not building a wall along the Mexican border! This is a very similar fallacy as the 'US has only 5% of the world population, therefore it only has 1 out of 20 of the best researchers/programmers/entrepreneurs' (most recently seen on Paul Graham's Twitter). This is not remotely the case because of differing health & political & economic & scientific development & mean IQ, and the further out on the tail you go (such as 'best programmers in the world') the more lopsided the global distribution becomes - much the same way that women make up 50% of the population but do not make up 50% of people over 7 feet tall or the NBA.
rdtsc 10y ago
Don't most countries implement some sort of merit-based immigration? "We want educated people with degrees from this age range?". Don't employees do that as well - "we want people with these qualifications"... is that terribly wrong?
- dgellow 10y ago
  Yes, almost all countries have that kind of rules, with varied degrees of success. You don't really notice before you move to live in a different country.
- flukus 10y ago
  Yes, but you end up having waiters with titles like "customer service manager".
kashkhan 10y ago
Immigrants are people whose lives matter. the should be given equal rights and equal value, because even if they are deemed "useless", their kids or grandkids might contribute to the future of humanity.
- dgellow 10y ago
  You don't kill an immigrant when you refuse to give him access to a country. It has nothing to do with the future of humanity and everything to do with the future of the country. (Edit: I am an immigrant. And of course immigrant lives matter. All human lives matter)
  - kashkhan 10y ago
    many immigrant lives are cut short because they aren't allowed to migrate. The poor have only their labor to trade with. systematically discriminating where they can work, destroys their lives just as much as slavery can. It's stolen wages.
    - dgellow 10y ago
      > The poor have only their labor to trade with. In fact that's what we all trade when we move to a foreign country. The general rules are to have enough work experience in your field or a degree, and you will need a proof that you're going to work or study. That applies to everybody. > destroys their lives just as much as slavery can. Ok, I don't know what to say. That's just purely disingenuous.
    - dgellow 10y ago
      > many immigrant lives are cut short because they aren't allowed to migrate. I'm not sure what you mean. If you cannot leave your country (because of your country policies) that's a problem, I agree. If you cannot enter, say, the US, you still have a lot of other countries where you can try to immigrate to. Btw, when I use the word "immigrant" I mean "come to live in a foreign country". I'm pretty sure you are using a different meaning (maybe "refugee"?), could you clarify?
ryandrake 10y ago
Wonder how many birthright US citizens who support this "useful/not-useful" immigration filter would pass if it were applied to themselves.
- virmundi 10y ago
  Not many, but it doesn't matter. They are here under a different law.
- JakeAl 10y ago
  Which is a great point. The NEED for immigration and how to address it should be balanced with the NEED to develop the knowledge, skills and training of citizens. Importing labor because it's lacking doesn't address the problem of why it's lacking.
- headsupftw 10y ago
  Doesn't really matter because they are legal immigrants.
- jimmyk 10y ago
  This reminds me of the quote: "Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member".
dpweb 10y ago
With due respect to all, the concerns about immigration are not about immigrants taking the founder jobs, it's about taking the worker jobs.
gnopgnip 10y ago
It is not about useful or not useful, it is about the holistic impact. A change to immigration policy will have a lasting impact for decades. As an exaggerated example, if you allowed no one in to the US the travel and tourism industries would be devastated, if you allowed everyone and anyone in to the US you would have reduced costs in some areas like child care, but increased costs in others like taxes to fund social services.
- timthelion 10y ago
  Given the age of the population and the trouble paying for social security, working age imigrants can only help. Thans to the way social security is set up to pay out to the baby boomers, every worker in America today pays more in taxes than they will ever receive in benefits.
qdog 10y ago
Yes,all the immigrants I know are hard-working people, more so on average than people born and raised here. "Are you willing to go through the current immigration process?" Seems to do a pretty good job of selecting productive individuals already. As an aside, this is probably my last post on HN, reading the xenophobic and likely astro-turfed replies to this and other threads has really reduced the value of HN comments to me. Seems to be as an increasing problem in all online venues :(
- timthelion 10y ago
  I too am shocked how HN is taking a hard turn to the authoritarian side. "lega" "legal" "legal" "is it legal" "but they're illegal" geeze. I live in a country where it used to be illegal to know how to tune your radio to western frequencies and emigrating could get your familly sent to a workcamp. Now the west is talking about legality as if it were the holy grail. WTF?
  - angry-hacker 10y ago
    If you think HN is racist or authoritarian, the real life must be difficult to you. There is nothing wrong with having rules who can live in your country. I'm not an American and live in poor country, but I totally support common sense what nowadays is considered xenophobic.
- lenkite 10y ago
  As someone who is not American - I am Indian, I find it crazy that legal immigrants have to go through a decade plus long wait to get a green card but a Mexican can pay a human trafficker to cross the border and then get protected status. I fully support Americans who wish stronger borders. I don't see anything xenophobic about their views. A nation should be able to choose who it accepts as residents from other nations.
joshuaNathaniel 10y ago
Sorry but this is a load. I've seen you post before. I'm 90% certain that you're a paid shill. The more desirable ones have nothing to hide. They're usually college educated and speak English. You should never use the outliers to justify an opinion. You look like a fool.
drewrv 10y ago
Pretty much anyone who pays more taxes than they cost could be considered "useful", which is not a hard thing to accomplish and therefore a strong argument for allowing a lot more immigration. In other words one of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is nonsense.
- collyw 10y ago
  Here is an interesting article on EU and non-EU immigrants to the UK. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/european-immigrants-contribute-5bn-to-uk-economy-but-non-eu-migrants-cost-118bn-9840170.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/european-immi...
avenoir 10y ago
> Applying for immigrant visa of Canada under the Independent Class. Canada Immigration. > This class has become very popular and also known as professional class or skilled worker class and the application is assessed based on a point system. An individual should make an application under this class if he/she wishes to come to Canada based on his/her qualification, work experience and knowledge of English or French language. [1] Canada's doing just that. [1] http://www.canadaimmigrationvisa.com/visatype.html http://www.canadaimmigrationvisa.com/visatype.html
Oxitendwe 10y ago
>Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane How do you think it would affect a country to suddenly have a very large amount of low-skill immigrants? How would the native citizens, the people by which their government is held accountable and to whose interests their government's purpose is to advance, be affected? The answer is probably that they would be very adversely effected, in which case however "inhumane" it is to sort people like this, it is also inhumane to do wrong by the native citizens who built the country that those immigrants would be living in. Immigration is not a human right, nobody has a right to immigrate anywhere and no country has an obligation to accept any particular person or group of people as immigrants.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  Humane or inhumane behavior has nothing to do with economic circumstances. You assume some people have a right to the infrastructure of a particular country, for example competing for certain jobs, while others don't. It's very hard or even impossible to make that case without referring to very subjective morality standards.
  - Oxitendwe 10y ago
    >You assume some people have a right to the infrastructure of a particular country, for example competing for certain jobs, while others don't. It's very hard or even impossible to make that case without referring to very subjective morality standards. Would these "subjective morality standards" be any different from the ones that you use to define "humane or inhumane behavior"? In any case, I'd like to see a subjective moral framework where citizens of their own country don't have a right to the infrastructure that they and their ancestors created. What incentive is there to have made our society a better place by the time we die than it was when we were born, if our descendants don't even have a birthright to what we intend to leave them?
marcoperaza 10y ago
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Just about every Western country legally favors immigration by the educated and successful. They use things like university degrees, job offers, published works, etc. to evaluate that.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  Yes. And I believe, the more screening there is, the less "benefit" a country receives.
downandout 10y ago
This article is protesting the idea of further limiting H1-B visas. Presumably most if not all H1-B recipients are "useful". The problem is that there is a massive amount of H1-B abuse, mostly on the part of the employers bringing them over here. Large, cut-rate contractors such as Infosys have abused the system to profit at the expense of Americans and highly qualified legal immigrants alike. Evidence of abuse is everywhere. Here are just a few examples: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3004501/h1b/proof-that-h-1b-visa-abuse-is-rampant-in-tech.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/3004501/h1b/proof-that-h-1b... http://abcnews.go.com/Business/top-10-companies-request-visas-foreign-workers/story?id=20730536 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/top-10-companies-request-visa... https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h-1b-visa-program-leaving-smaller-ones-in-the-cold.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h... Legislation is needed to reform the system. I would be in favor of expanding the program if the widely abused loopholes were taken out.
wnevets 10y ago
> It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all. that just leaves room for a real american to a founder! /sarcasm.
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upquark 10y ago
> It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones As someone who self-selected the name 'bayesian_horse', can you please cite the evidence you're basing this on?
smsm42 10y ago
> Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane Isn't that the goal of the hiring process, for example? In general, the idea that citizens of any country - be it US, or any other - owe the rest of the world to provide them free entry to their country, regardless of anything, because putting any condition on it would be "inhumane", makes zero sense for me. It's like having a nice home would imply I have to let any stranger to stay in it, anytime they want, just because my home is nice and they want to be in it. Moreover, refusing to discuss this reasonably - i.e. refusing to discuss the premise that some immigrants may be a burden to accepting society, and there's a limit how much burden a society can accept without having to sacrifice its way of life and prosperity - refusing to discuss this would only lead to disastrous results. People will see these results, and will grow sour on the whole "accepting immigrants" idea. That's not a good thing to have.
owengriffiths 10y ago
"One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants." You mean like pretty much the entire western world's immigration policies, or the USA's H1B, O1 and E3 programs? We in Australia have plenty of people who still want to come, even though we are selective with who we let in.

xapata 10y ago

And this matters because individual productivity is a log-normal distribution, like VC returns. As a country it's a good investment to invite millions of immigrants trying to find the next major inventor. I suppose this also relies on national productivity being the product of, not the sum of individuals productivity.

rayiner 10y ago
It seems to make that cuts the other way. What is the cost of integrating and potentially supporting a million immigrants compared to the return from one billion dollar startup? (Especially when we're talking a billion dollars of Monopoly money valuation versus day a billion in revenue.)
- xapata 10y ago
  So far it's worked out, I think. I'm not talking about a billion dollar startup, but trillion-dollar technology. Think Manhattan project, not WhatsApp.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    > Think Manhattan project So established scientists from Western countries?
    - surfmike 10y ago
      Don't comment about history you know nothing about. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/11/11/a-veterans-day-story-immigrants-and-the-atomic-bomb/#1e5051291e07 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/11/11/a-vet... Edit: I apologize for the snark. As long as Hungary, Russia, Poland are counted as the West (and they generally are), then I agree with you.
      - oh_sigh 10y ago
        Perhaps you should comment on what exactly you find wrong with the original post. My reading is that your article is actually supporting the person you replied to. "Why did the immigrant scientists succeed? Clearly these were some of the most highly-skilled people on earth but it was something more. Beyond their skills, Laura Fermi notes the unique characteristics and emotions that the foreign-born scientists brought to the atomic project: “The determination to defend America at all costs spurred the newcomers no less than the Americans, and the European-born may have come to this determination somewhat earlier than the native-born, driven by stronger personal emotions. The picture of their country under Nazi power in the event of a German victory was something the Americans could imagine only with difficulty.” That was not the case for those who had already seen their countries overrun."
    - xapata 10y ago
      Even if that's the only group that's worthwhile, bringing in the rest of the world is like a loss-leader at a retail store. Being friendly is good advertising.
- surfmike 10y ago
  Um, not much? Immigrants as a whole pay their way in the United States, have lower crime rates. The revenue generated by Google, Chobani, and other companies is not "Mickey mouse" money. Not to mention that Microsoft and Google both picked immigrants to be their leaders.
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    I'll assume you're talking about Brin when including Google in your post. He was 6 years old when he came to America. Maybe that is what is important. Did anyone pull stats on the value of companies started by immigrants who came to America already fully grown?
    - qaq 10y ago
      Right so if his parents did not move he would've entered US by himself at 6, same thing for Jobs.
      - surfmike 10y ago
        Excellent point. If you include first generation immigrants I'm sure the impact of immigrants is even greater.
    - Shubham28 10y ago
      I think he is referring to Sundar Pichai
      - oh_sigh 10y ago
        Sundar is just an employee who worked his way up through the ranks...he was not involved in founding Google.
        Shubham28 10y ago
        But the poster never mentioned founders, he says leaders. Even when talking about Microsoft, I think he is referring to Satya Nadella since both Gates & Balmer were not immigrants.
- omarforgotpwd 10y ago
  It doesn't "cost" anyone much. Immigrants pay for goods and services and provide labor, so they economy just ends up expanding. It's not like taking "too many" immigrants will make you poor because it cost too much. More likely the cost would be social and political rather than economic.
  - stale2002 10y ago
    OK then, what would your opinion be of tripling the number if H1B, and drastically reducing all other immigration programs at the same time, so the total amount of immigrants stays the same?
    - xapata 10y ago
      I'm not a fan of central planning. The market is usually more efficient at deciding what jobs are useful.
      - stale2002 10y ago
        We are already centrally planning immigration. Changing the numbers around on our existing centrally planned system doesn't make it any more or less centrally planned.
        rdl 10y ago
        It would be interesting to have baseline federal standards and then let states handle some immigration decisions, actually. In Canada the provinces can do that (so e.g. Quebec can fast-track you for citizenship for speaking French). In Switzerland it is basically all at the Cantonal level.
        xapata 10y ago
        That'd require some better surveillance to ensure an immigrant permitted in one state does not work in another. I'm not sure that's constitutional, though it is quite practical.
halomru 10y ago
>I suppose this also relies on national productivity being the product of, not the sum of individuals productivity. By that logic you can easily argue it's imperative to weed out those with productivity close to 0 (and below 1). Great people inspire greatness, awfully people can bring their whole environment down. That's why ghettos are such a bad idea. From your arguments alone I wouldn't be able to tell which side you are arguing for.
- xapata 10y ago
  Indeed it does. Criminals, polluters, etc. are a drag on the economy. However, that characteristic is not well-correlated with immigrant. It might even be anti-correlated. I'm not against harsh penalties for criminals. I am not a fan of pretending to care about rehabilitation or deterrence, which clearly are not the purpose of our prisons. Let's call it like it is -- punishment and ejection from society. I'm not arguing for immigration for ethical reasons, but purely out of self-interest.

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sillysaurus3 10y ago

Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. Universities do it.

omarforgotpwd 10y ago
There are many alternatives if you are denied from a university, such as applying to a different university or learning online instead. There is only one America
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- roesel 10y ago
  Well there are other countries, contrary to popular belief. With your logic, the answer would be to emigrate somewhere else. But I think that's not the point.
  - omarforgotpwd 10y ago
    There's only one America though. If you want to live with your American cousin, work at an a company that happens to be headquartered in the us or just like America living in another country may not be an alternative.
- snambi 10y ago
  there are many other countries. so, there is choice for poeple emigrating.
  - eeZah7Ux 10y ago
    Far from enough. If each city in the world was its own country, maybe. On top of that, people are born in a random country leading to very unfair [dis]advantages.
- zo1 10y ago

FLUX-YOU 10y ago

>Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. I think this is already subtly done with investor visas. They don't outright deny you obviously, but there are different lines to stand in depending on your usefulness to the country you're going to.

Kalium 10y ago
There's also B, P, L, and other visa types. There's a lot of different lines to stand in depending on how useful you are and the temporaryness of your stay.

99_00 10y ago

Are you against criminal records checks for immigrants?

vthallam 10y ago
They already do that. You have to disclose any criminal records before applying for a US visa.
bayesian_horse 10y ago
I didn't say that. And, depending on the other country's justice system, I would not care as long as they think the person is free.

xtreme 10y ago

Are you also against interviews or technical tests while hiring people? Do you suppose that jobs should be offered on a first-come first-serve basis, or through a lottery, since number of applicants would be higher than number of positions?

dragonwriter 10y ago

> One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. That's actually one of the basic premises of pro-immigrant policy, too (perhaps even moreso than anti-immigrant policies.) Actually, anti-immigrant groups favoring a hard closed door with little attempt to distinguish useless from useful are probably more significant among the anti-immigrant side than the opposite I idea,puren-source with little attempt to distinguish, is on the pro-immigrant side.

bayesian_horse 10y ago
No, it's not. You can be of the opinion that you don't have the right to stop people moving across a border or forcibly deport them later. Pro-immigration groups sometimes will advocate screening, usually they don't.

rdl 10y ago

It wouldn't be hard to have an immigration system which is biased toward useful vs. not useful. The question is: where do you want to have the cutoff? I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), combined with a transparent and straightforward points-based system for mainly immigrant visas. I'd eliminate the inherent racism in the current system (penalizing India and China vs. Equatorial Guinea and Monaco). As a first pass, just copy the Canadian or New Zealand systems. Where we set the threshold for entry is a worthwhile debate. Should it be anyone who isn't likely to be strongly negative? Anyone where net benefit exceeds cost? Where net benefit is >3x the annual median income? A baseline of "not a felon, terrorist, etc." for visitors, a solid system of constraining visitors to defined periods of time (thus making it easier to grant visit visas), and a straightforward path to immigration and citizenship for high-value immigrants is a better starting point than the current immigration system.

muninn_ 10y ago
Yeah I mean, the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in", so how do you decide who to let in? An immigration policy that is held be numerous other countries that favors skilled immigrants seems to be reasonable. On the other hand, brain drain. How will those countries continue to get better and enjoy a modern standard of living if all the smart people leave?
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  Perhaps nations will be incentivized to fix the underlying causes of their brain drain if they perceive it as a big problem.
  - rdl 10y ago
    Also there is value in "go to US/SV, work there, return home with knowledge of how better systems work, establish in your home country", although there are probably scale effects so it's best for humanity overall for the best people to be concentrated. (I'm not sure about the merits of immigration, naturalization, and then return to/interface with birth country, vs. a non-immigrant status. There is probably a good case to be made that having people gain US citizenship is overall better, and it provides optionality. With global taxation it is a clear net win for the US, too.)

the_absurdist 10y ago

Another insidious equivalence of equating immigration policy geared towards unskilled, illegal immigrants with immigration policy in general. Let the downvotes begin.

akhilcacharya 10y ago
It's pretty clear that actual immigrants seem to equate them pretty well. It's why Asian-Americans went from being part of the Republican base to overwhelmingly voting Democratic.
- tristor 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure that has more to do with Trump making veiled mentions of building internment camps again. People who have either lived through that or know someone who has rightly share a "never again" attitude. Clearly Trump's campaign had no interest in even remotely cultivating the Jewish or Asian vote.

greenshackle2 10y ago

> you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. I'm sure it's possible to do it, if you take a narrow enough view of 'usefulness', e.g. 'usefulness' = measurable economic productivity. You can screen out people with expensive preexisting medical conditions, people who cannot work, etc., and that will obviously raise the average productivity of immigrants. But it's immoral. Rich host countries are poaching productive individuals while selecting against people who are most in need of help, leaving them to be taken care of by their (usually) poorer country of origin. The fair thing to do would be to accept a random sample of would-be immigrants.

nilkn 10y ago
> Rich host countries are poaching productive individuals while selecting against people who are most in need of help I'm not sure that "poaching" is the right word. The US isn't seeking out potential immigrants and trying to entice them to come here, but that's what "poaching" suggests to me. Rather, it's just trying to filter those who have already established on their own a desire to come here.
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  I don't know about the US. I know Canada has a history of running targeted ad campaigns in South Africa and elsewhere, to get doctors to immigrate (while simultaneously complaining about locally-trained doctors leaving to get better paid jobs in the US). Not the best source but it's what I could find on Google: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/columnists/2007/02/05/the_ethics_of_medical_poaching.html https://www.thestar.com/opinion/columnists/2007/02/05/the_et...
zo1 10y ago
>"The fair thing to do would be to accept a random sample of would-be immigrants." All points aside, isn't that exactly what the US is doing with the Green Card lottery system? It's entire mandate is to "increase immigrant diversity", by giving countries with low immigration to the US preferential counts towards the lottery. >"But it's immoral. Rich host countries are poaching productive individuals while selecting against people who are most in need of help, leaving them to be taken care of by their (usually) poorer country of origin." You know what is actually immoral? Forcing individuals that want to make a better life for their children, into staying in a country that "needs help" and they want to get out of. The world is not some giant "experiment" for you to optimize and fix. Let people leave and go where they want, and if you want to prevent people from coming into your area, well then let the majority current residents decide.

rb2k_ 10y ago

> One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. I think there is a very strong correlation to 'documented' vs 'undocumented'. "Science vs" had a great episode on immigration that talks specifically about the difference in these groups: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/immigration/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/immigration/

phkahler 10y ago

>> It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all. I would say in the case of the US, just getting here requires a certain amount of motivation. Even the folks crossing the border from Mexico have to be rather motivated. Anyone coming from another country usually has to pay for transportation at the very least. When the country was founded, these challenges were much greater so I figure the US had the advantage of getting only immigrants above some level of motivation when it started - in addition to the other advantages it had.

edblarney 10y ago

"Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive." I'm sorry but this is totally unfair. Nearly every nation has immigration criteria. Canada, Australia and UK (non-EU) all have a 'points system' which definitely separates 'the useful' form the 'useless'. Education, skill-set are key components. I would argue language ability should be added to the list as it's the #1 predictor of integration. It's impossible to engage with a community that one cannot communicate with - and this will help a lot with those immigrants who are likely to be most marginalized (i.e. not the rich one's we are worried about). Language training should be a primary part of social support for newcomers. "It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones" No, this is not true at all. The most talented immigrants are entirely undeterred. The nations noted above are good examples of that. "as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all." There is no 'determination' at arrival. The discriminating criteria are usually applied before immigrants arrive. This doesn't preclude status for refugees and other family-class migrants either - you can have both. Finally - I think looking at success rates of immigrants overall is a much better exercise than looking at a handful of billionaires, though the later does have value.

ThomPete 10y ago

If you look at it from "most resourceful" it's fairly easy and as far as I remember to have read also how it's normally seen. I.e. the US get 80% of the most resourceful immigrants while ex Europe get 80% of the least resourceful. Will see if I can dig up the report.

bayesian_horse 10y ago
Which doesn't mean immigration policies have anything to do with that.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  That depends on your criteria. In Europe once you are allowed in you get access to more or less the whole European welfare system where as in the US you have to pay for everything yourself more or less.

gwern 10y ago

> One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. This is exactly what the study shows is not just possible but easy in screening by nationality. Think about US immigration statistics by country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...): you'll see lots of Central and South American countries. Now take a look at what the study finds (http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy-Brief.March-2016.pdf http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Bi...): "The leading country of origin for the immigrant founders of billion dollar companies was India with 14 entrepreneurs, followed by Canada and the United Kingdom with 8, Israel (7), Germany (4), China (3), France (2), Ireland (2) and 12 other countries with one entrepreneur.2 India: 14 Canada: 8 United Kingdom: 8 Israel: 7 Germany: 4 China: 3 France: 3 Ireland: 2 Armenia: 1 Azerbaijan: 1 Argentina: 1 Egypt: 1 Holland: 1 Iraq: 1 Norway: 1 Russia: 1 Singapore: 1 South Africa: 1 South Korea: 1 Uzbekistan: 1" Does this look remotely like current US immigration? It does not. (Hey, you know what countries I don't see on that startup founder list? Mexico, Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Jamaica, Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador...) If you were building a model to predict startup founding by nationality and personal details like IQ or ethnicity (no prizes for guessing what ethnicity that 1 South Africa founder is, or what religion that 1 Iraqi founder is), and designing immigration policy around that, it would look nothing like what has gone on for decades. Using startup founders as an argument for the status quo of illegal immigration is a deeply dishonest bait-and-switch piece of equivocation (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division ) and it makes my teeth grind every time I see someone go 'did you know 50% of startup founders/CEOs/scientists are immigrants?' Justify it on its own merits, don't pretend that Indian brahmins and Israeli Jews' accomplishments have anything to do with not building a wall along the Mexican border! This is a very similar fallacy as the 'US has only 5% of the world population, therefore it only has 1 out of 20 of the best researchers/programmers/entrepreneurs' (most recently seen on Paul Graham's Twitter). This is not remotely the case because of differing health & political & economic & scientific development & mean IQ, and the further out on the tail you go (such as 'best programmers in the world') the more lopsided the global distribution becomes - much the same way that women make up 50% of the population but do not make up 50% of people over 7 feet tall or the NBA.

rdtsc 10y ago

Don't most countries implement some sort of merit-based immigration? "We want educated people with degrees from this age range?". Don't employees do that as well - "we want people with these qualifications"... is that terribly wrong?

dgellow 10y ago
Yes, almost all countries have that kind of rules, with varied degrees of success. You don't really notice before you move to live in a different country.
flukus 10y ago
Yes, but you end up having waiters with titles like "customer service manager".

kashkhan 10y ago

Immigrants are people whose lives matter. the should be given equal rights and equal value, because even if they are deemed "useless", their kids or grandkids might contribute to the future of humanity.

dgellow 10y ago
You don't kill an immigrant when you refuse to give him access to a country. It has nothing to do with the future of humanity and everything to do with the future of the country. (Edit: I am an immigrant. And of course immigrant lives matter. All human lives matter)
- kashkhan 10y ago
  many immigrant lives are cut short because they aren't allowed to migrate. The poor have only their labor to trade with. systematically discriminating where they can work, destroys their lives just as much as slavery can. It's stolen wages.
  - dgellow 10y ago
    > The poor have only their labor to trade with. In fact that's what we all trade when we move to a foreign country. The general rules are to have enough work experience in your field or a degree, and you will need a proof that you're going to work or study. That applies to everybody. > destroys their lives just as much as slavery can. Ok, I don't know what to say. That's just purely disingenuous.
  - dgellow 10y ago
    > many immigrant lives are cut short because they aren't allowed to migrate. I'm not sure what you mean. If you cannot leave your country (because of your country policies) that's a problem, I agree. If you cannot enter, say, the US, you still have a lot of other countries where you can try to immigrate to. Btw, when I use the word "immigrant" I mean "come to live in a foreign country". I'm pretty sure you are using a different meaning (maybe "refugee"?), could you clarify?

ryandrake 10y ago

Wonder how many birthright US citizens who support this "useful/not-useful" immigration filter would pass if it were applied to themselves.

virmundi 10y ago
Not many, but it doesn't matter. They are here under a different law.
JakeAl 10y ago
Which is a great point. The NEED for immigration and how to address it should be balanced with the NEED to develop the knowledge, skills and training of citizens. Importing labor because it's lacking doesn't address the problem of why it's lacking.
headsupftw 10y ago
Doesn't really matter because they are legal immigrants.
jimmyk 10y ago
This reminds me of the quote: "Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member".

dpweb 10y ago

With due respect to all, the concerns about immigration are not about immigrants taking the founder jobs, it's about taking the worker jobs.

gnopgnip 10y ago

It is not about useful or not useful, it is about the holistic impact. A change to immigration policy will have a lasting impact for decades. As an exaggerated example, if you allowed no one in to the US the travel and tourism industries would be devastated, if you allowed everyone and anyone in to the US you would have reduced costs in some areas like child care, but increased costs in others like taxes to fund social services.

timthelion 10y ago
Given the age of the population and the trouble paying for social security, working age imigrants can only help. Thans to the way social security is set up to pay out to the baby boomers, every worker in America today pays more in taxes than they will ever receive in benefits.

qdog 10y ago

Yes,all the immigrants I know are hard-working people, more so on average than people born and raised here. "Are you willing to go through the current immigration process?" Seems to do a pretty good job of selecting productive individuals already. As an aside, this is probably my last post on HN, reading the xenophobic and likely astro-turfed replies to this and other threads has really reduced the value of HN comments to me. Seems to be as an increasing problem in all online venues :(

timthelion 10y ago
I too am shocked how HN is taking a hard turn to the authoritarian side. "lega" "legal" "legal" "is it legal" "but they're illegal" geeze. I live in a country where it used to be illegal to know how to tune your radio to western frequencies and emigrating could get your familly sent to a workcamp. Now the west is talking about legality as if it were the holy grail. WTF?
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  If you think HN is racist or authoritarian, the real life must be difficult to you. There is nothing wrong with having rules who can live in your country. I'm not an American and live in poor country, but I totally support common sense what nowadays is considered xenophobic.
lenkite 10y ago
As someone who is not American - I am Indian, I find it crazy that legal immigrants have to go through a decade plus long wait to get a green card but a Mexican can pay a human trafficker to cross the border and then get protected status. I fully support Americans who wish stronger borders. I don't see anything xenophobic about their views. A nation should be able to choose who it accepts as residents from other nations.

joshuaNathaniel 10y ago

Sorry but this is a load. I've seen you post before. I'm 90% certain that you're a paid shill. The more desirable ones have nothing to hide. They're usually college educated and speak English. You should never use the outliers to justify an opinion. You look like a fool.

drewrv 10y ago

Pretty much anyone who pays more taxes than they cost could be considered "useful", which is not a hard thing to accomplish and therefore a strong argument for allowing a lot more immigration. In other words one of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is nonsense.

collyw 10y ago
Here is an interesting article on EU and non-EU immigrants to the UK. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/european-immigrants-contribute-5bn-to-uk-economy-but-non-eu-migrants-cost-118bn-9840170.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/european-immi...

avenoir 10y ago

> Applying for immigrant visa of Canada under the Independent Class. Canada Immigration. > This class has become very popular and also known as professional class or skilled worker class and the application is assessed based on a point system. An individual should make an application under this class if he/she wishes to come to Canada based on his/her qualification, work experience and knowledge of English or French language. [1] Canada's doing just that. [1] http://www.canadaimmigrationvisa.com/visatype.html http://www.canadaimmigrationvisa.com/visatype.html

Oxitendwe 10y ago

>Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane How do you think it would affect a country to suddenly have a very large amount of low-skill immigrants? How would the native citizens, the people by which their government is held accountable and to whose interests their government's purpose is to advance, be affected? The answer is probably that they would be very adversely effected, in which case however "inhumane" it is to sort people like this, it is also inhumane to do wrong by the native citizens who built the country that those immigrants would be living in. Immigration is not a human right, nobody has a right to immigrate anywhere and no country has an obligation to accept any particular person or group of people as immigrants.

bayesian_horse 10y ago
Humane or inhumane behavior has nothing to do with economic circumstances. You assume some people have a right to the infrastructure of a particular country, for example competing for certain jobs, while others don't. It's very hard or even impossible to make that case without referring to very subjective morality standards.
- Oxitendwe 10y ago
  >You assume some people have a right to the infrastructure of a particular country, for example competing for certain jobs, while others don't. It's very hard or even impossible to make that case without referring to very subjective morality standards. Would these "subjective morality standards" be any different from the ones that you use to define "humane or inhumane behavior"? In any case, I'd like to see a subjective moral framework where citizens of their own country don't have a right to the infrastructure that they and their ancestors created. What incentive is there to have made our society a better place by the time we die than it was when we were born, if our descendants don't even have a birthright to what we intend to leave them?

marcoperaza 10y ago

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Just about every Western country legally favors immigration by the educated and successful. They use things like university degrees, job offers, published works, etc. to evaluate that.

bayesian_horse 10y ago
Yes. And I believe, the more screening there is, the less "benefit" a country receives.

downandout 10y ago

This article is protesting the idea of further limiting H1-B visas. Presumably most if not all H1-B recipients are "useful". The problem is that there is a massive amount of H1-B abuse, mostly on the part of the employers bringing them over here. Large, cut-rate contractors such as Infosys have abused the system to profit at the expense of Americans and highly qualified legal immigrants alike. Evidence of abuse is everywhere. Here are just a few examples: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3004501/h1b/proof-that-h-1b-visa-abuse-is-rampant-in-tech.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/3004501/h1b/proof-that-h-1b... http://abcnews.go.com/Business/top-10-companies-request-visas-foreign-workers/story?id=20730536 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/top-10-companies-request-visa... https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h-1b-visa-program-leaving-smaller-ones-in-the-cold.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h... Legislation is needed to reform the system. I would be in favor of expanding the program if the widely abused loopholes were taken out.

wnevets 10y ago

> It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all. that just leaves room for a real american to a founder! /sarcasm.

deleted 10y ago

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upquark 10y ago

> It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones As someone who self-selected the name 'bayesian_horse', can you please cite the evidence you're basing this on?

smsm42 10y ago

> Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane Isn't that the goal of the hiring process, for example? In general, the idea that citizens of any country - be it US, or any other - owe the rest of the world to provide them free entry to their country, regardless of anything, because putting any condition on it would be "inhumane", makes zero sense for me. It's like having a nice home would imply I have to let any stranger to stay in it, anytime they want, just because my home is nice and they want to be in it. Moreover, refusing to discuss this reasonably - i.e. refusing to discuss the premise that some immigrants may be a burden to accepting society, and there's a limit how much burden a society can accept without having to sacrifice its way of life and prosperity - refusing to discuss this would only lead to disastrous results. People will see these results, and will grow sour on the whole "accepting immigrants" idea. That's not a good thing to have.

owengriffiths 10y ago

"One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants." You mean like pretty much the entire western world's immigration policies, or the USA's H1B, O1 and E3 programs? We in Australia have plenty of people who still want to come, even though we are selective with who we let in.