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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

by 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.)
    - muninn_ 10y ago
      I agree, but how many people come here from, say, India or wherever, work in IT in somewhere like SF and say ok I've had enough training, time to go make my country a better place? None. I don't blame them either.
      - rdl 10y ago
        Actually there are a LOT of Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs I know who moved to the US, worked here, and especially back in India are now building SV-style companies there. Or are putting parts of their global businesses there -- given how expensive labor is in the US and especially SV, it's a huge competitive advantage to be from, say, Ukraine and be able to set up a great engineering organization there. I agree it makes less sense for an individual worker to move back (unless there are family or other concerns).
      - tehlike 10y ago
        It depends on person, as usual. For many, the US residency is a blessing. Things are nice here, compared to where they come from. The quality of life is much nicer, and this is something i'd most definitely want for my kids. However, there is also a greater advantage to going back home: Those markets usually lack the capital and the knowledge, and it's relatively easy to copy startups from here and implement them in their home countries.
      - pm90 10y ago
        That is most certainly not the case. While there are many who stay, there are also a sizeable number who go back to their home countries.
  - deegles 10y ago
    Aren't the "brains" the ones most suited to fix those problems in the first place?
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      No, not if they're not good at national politics, or don't have the right connections to be effective there.
- erispoe 10y ago
  > the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in" Why is that? I'm genuinely curious. Are you making an economic or a cultural argument? On the economic side, there's no evidence that immigration, even mass immigration, has any negative consequences, apart from some more competition at the very low end of salaries, which should obviously be addressed. By and large, immigrants are net contributors to the economy. > On the other hand, brain drain. We can hypothesis that tight immigration policy actually creates more brain drain. It's so difficult to come to the US that you're not likely to go back, even for a few years, once you're here. If you can easily move between your country of origin and your country of immigration, you can probably alleviate the brain drain somewhat. Easy come, easy go.
  - nilkn 10y ago
    > there's no evidence that immigration, even mass immigration, has any negative consequences, apart from some more competition at the very low end of salaries So, in other words, there is evidence that it does have negative consequences? I myself don't know either way. I just think that, if what you write is true, an impact at the low end of the salary spectrum isn't something to brush off as if it's nothing and doesn't count.
    - elif 10y ago
      that effect is only negative from the specific perspective of low end salary holders. that effect is positive for businesses and consumers.
      - nilkn 10y ago
        Well, first of all, many consumers are also low-end salary earners. Second and perhaps more importantly, the more salaries are driven down, the less money those earners have to spend, which means businesses will see less potential revenue.
        pm90 10y ago
        You are assuming a zero sum market. Generally, when the market changes, the labor force changes as well (skills retraining etc.). It might be inelastic (i.e. changes in labor takes more time to adjust to new markets) but it does eventually happen. This is how the US workforce made the jump from agrarian to industrial to service economy.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  Smart people migrate somewhere else because they are more productive there. Usually they even send back more money than they would earn in their home country.
jacquesm 10y ago
> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall") Walls going up are days of sadness. Walls broken down are days of joy. The thing to keep in mind here is that such walls built to keep others out can be used just as easily to keep the locals in (on either side).
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Walls going up are days of sadness. Walls broken down are days of joy. Depends. Whenever people put up the walls for their house (which serve the same purpose) those are days of joy too. Same for nations that fought hard to establish their borders and sovereignty. And fewer national borders is not some "wave of the future" -- it's what was tried and rejected when nation states became a thing. We had large, all-encompassing empires before and it wasn't that nice...
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    > Whenever people put up the walls for their house (which serve the same purpose) those are days of joy too. I don't think that was the context of the OP's comment, but if you wish to extend to those kinds of walls then that's fine with me. It's just not the way I would have interpreted the meaning of a border wall.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >It's just not the way I would have interpreted the meaning of a border wall. Well, consider a country as a people's collective house. In this, a border, if not analogous to the walls, is at least analogous to the fence around the house and/or the lock on the door.
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        Claims to the contrary the map is not the territory and a country is not a house. Finally, a wall around a country is definitely not the same as a wall or fence around your house. Note that most dictatorships use walls around their 'houses' to keep the population in, not to keep others out. Note that countries that are bordering other countries with great wealth disparity are using walls to keep the wealth concentrated and those on the other side of the wall poor so they may be further exploited. This is not the same as you and your roughly equally wealthy neighbor sharing a wall in a duplex or a fence between your two gardens. Those fences and walls are there for practical reasons and to delineate responsibility and right-of-way, not to specifically make it harder for your neighbor to share in the collective wealth of the neighborhood. The equivalent of that would be a gated community in a poor country (which by the way look exactly like inside-out prisons).
rconti 10y ago
We have a solid border control regime, so we need to move straight to a rational immigration/visa system.
- rdl 10y ago
  We don't do effective overstay tracking.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - xbmcuser 10y ago
    For effective tracking you will need a national Id card for us nationals. That is something many different groups in the US are against for different reasons. Such an id could solve a lot of other problems and of course will create its own problems. But I think the net benefit outweighs the loss.
    - rdl 10y ago
      You could also potentially do it by retaining positive tracking of non-permanent visitors and then going after them as soon as status becomes disallowed. It would be challenging to locate someone in a disallowed visa status on transition without a national ID card, but there are probably ways. One option might be to enroll them on entry with lots of biometrics, and then do a "not on blacklist" biometric check at government-provided services. That wouldn't necessarily require identifying the US people, just validating that the US people are not the other non-US people.
      - rdl 10y ago
        If we can dramatically reduce the number of illegal status people by making legal immigration reasonable, it becomes easier to go after illegal immigration with more resources per person, and higher penalties.
      - mahyarm 10y ago
witty_username 10y ago
I think building a wall will increase the net flow of illegal immigrants as currently more people are leaving than entering. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/ http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-... I don't think you need >3x the annual median income (that's top 10%) for immigrants to benefit. Economics research says high wage immigrants benefit while low wage immigrants benefit the natives on net, although it may harm some natives. In my opinion, even if it may harm some natives, due to the poverty alleviating effects of immigration, we should open immigration to anyone who doesn't have a criminal record. This isn't that crazy, till 1914 in the U.S.: "Generally, those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. Arrivals were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money carried. It was important to the American government that the new arrivals could support themselves and have money to get started. The average the government wanted the immigrants to have was between 18 and 25 dollars ($600 in 2015 adjusted for inflation). Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. More than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities. Some unskilled workers were rejected because they were considered "likely to become a public charge." About 2 percent were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as having a chronic contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity." (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island#Primary_inspection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island#Primary_inspectio... ) What I want is this minus the racism and disqualification for health problems except maybe for contagious diseases.
- falsestprophet 10y ago
  "This isn't that crazy, till 1914 in the U.S." Are you sure nothing has changed about the economy since 1914?
  - witty_username 10y ago
    I am not saying that and I think the only relevant change is welfare programs—which we can remove/limit for immigrants to stop it from being excessively costly. Tell me a relevant change that affects my case. Take a look at https://openborders.info https://openborders.info for lots of reasons.
throwaway743824 10y ago
"It wouldn't be hard to have an immigration system which is biased toward useful vs. not useful." I think that's extremely hard in terms of startups. You're essentially expecting the government to select what is valuable and what isn't. I don't like unclear visa situations either, but I haven't really seen a country effectively implement "come here and do whatever for a bit as long as you can take care of yourself". Which is what I would think is most compatible with creating startups.
- rdl 10y ago
  People founding startups are a very small subset of overall immigrants. There is probably another form of visa which would work well for that. Also, most people who do start startups are also competent, if not educated, enough to probably qualify under a more traditional points based system. A specific job accepted might be a +5 (and maybe make it contingent on remaining there for some period of employment), a college degree might be evaluated on school/program and +1 to +5, other specific achievements might get some bonuses, age (youth; working life before retirement, generally) would be some benefit, and such. Proof of assets is some benefit, and maybe sponsorship/bond/whatever from some entity could be a factor. I think we could probably have a lower point threshold than Canada, although I'm not sure. That is mostly a political decision and should involve a lot of factors beyond economics. If the negative consequence here is you have to come to the US for a job, but your immigration status isn't tied to that job, and you thus have to work in the US for 2-4y before getting PR or citizenship, that's not a huge bar to entrepreneurs, IMO. If you don't already have the business or funding, working in the US first is probably necessary anyway. The problem with H1B is retaining residency after switching to the startup.
  - throwaway743824 10y ago
    "People founding startups are a very small subset of overall immigrants." True, even less create successful startups in a timely manner (even though they contribute overall). Which makes them so hard to target. "Also, most people who do start startups are also competent, if not educated, enough to probably qualify under a more traditional points based system." There's only so many ways to measure something and dropping out school to work for random Internet companies and starting your own before you have kids, which is a common profile for entrepreneurial people in Europe, tends to not tick a lot of them. The US immigration system desperately needs reform, I just don't think any country has managed to create a formal system that is better for entrepreneurship than the realities of running your business illegally in the beginning (or at least pushing the meaning of a business visa). With some reservation for not having looked into the European startup/freelance visas.
accountface 10y ago
You start getting into weird questions with "usefulness" right? Is an artist useful?
- teacup50 10y ago
  > Is an artist useful? Are they a respected contributor in their field? Can they afford to support themselves here?
  - ghurtado 10y ago
    Start running down the list of classic famous artists and you may be surprised at how many wouldn't have met those criteria at the time when they created their most important work.
    - sotojuan 10y ago
      To be fair... a lot were. If anything, most of the artists we still remember from before the modern era did their best work under wealthy patrons or a purpose (David's Death of Marat and Oath of the Horatii both being pseudo-propaganda for the French Revolution). The view of the starving artist doing their best work for free is compatible with our modern, post Industrial Revolution views but largely inaccurate.
    - differentView 10y ago
      Should artists be exempted from the basic requirement of being able to support themselves that we expect from people of other professions?
      - rdl 10y ago
        If the bar for "can support himself" is suitably low, someone could be an artist, immigrate to the US to work as an engineer or accountant or nurse, and be an artist. Once he can support himself through art (and is likely a citizen), then be a great artist full time.
curun1r 10y ago
When it comes to immigration, there's two different concerns that we shouldn't try to conflate. There's the security aspect and the work permitting aspect and they should be handled almost entirely separately. As far as security goes, I'm fine with DHS and the various three-letter agencies being able to weigh in and veto someone's visa based on whatever vetting process they need to put in place. This part of the system doesn't seem particularly broken, despite how much Trump wants it to be broken so he can keep beating that drum. As far as the work permitting process goes, that part is almost certainly broken. The H1-B system benefits body shops the most and is almost impossible for smaller businesses to use. It should be scrapped in favor of a system that puts the onus of determining who gets a work visa on the employers rather than the government. A points system is an unnecessary proxy for actually determining someone's ability to do the job and the job interview process is, despite how imperfect it is, the best tool we have for making that determination. I'd be in favor of allowing any US company to get work a permit for any employee they want to hire, provided they pass the security screening. The necessary caveat would be that the company would need to maintain a certain ratio of US to immigrant employees and salary. This would destroy the body shops that know how to game the current lottery system. And it would make hiring immigrants much more predictable for smaller companies that currently don't benefit, at all, from the immigrant labor pool due to the complexities involved in sponsoring an H1-B visa. It would take race and country of origin almost completely out of the equation, at least from public policy since those decisions would be made by employers. And it would make life better for H1-B visa holders as well, since they could easily transfer to any company that was below the required ratio. Other countries have a ratio system and the worst that happens is they game the system by employing locals in no-show jobs, which doesn't seem like such a bad deal for those locals. It seems appropriately protectionist while still making it as easy and predictable as possible for immigrants. As far as the wall goes, it's the dumbest public policy suggestion I've heard in my lifetime. Speaking as a Californian, our economy won't work without the steady stream of near-slave labor that comes across our southern border. It's an uncomfortable truth, but almost everyone in the state depends on the work of these people, whether they realize it or not. The fear of deportation keeps them from using services that cost us money. Getting rid of them would be like getting rid of the motor oil in a car engine. All the individual parts would still be there, but the engine would break down. And on top of destroying our economy, the wall would cost at least $20b as well, and Mexico won't be picking up that bill.
gumby 10y ago
> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), Having lived on the east side of Berlin (post Wall!) I cannot forget that that wall was supposedly built to keep people out but of course it kept people in. I am Australian, and I have to admit the points based system does work there...but. I have lived longest in the USA where the chaos has been beneficial for the country, and thus for me. Australia doesn't have a culture of "creative destruction" and its system has kept that from arriving/emerging. If the US does choose to shut the door and I'll jump through it before it slams...and continue starting businesses (and creating jobs) elsewhere.
- rdl 10y ago
  What is the chaos in the immigration system in the US that benefits you? The uncertainty and delays in the H1B process for employees? Australian US visas are a special case but I assume you are talking about employees. I'd be de privileging family unification visas and removing per country caps, primarily. Also eliminate h1b but as part of improving immigrant visas to accomplish the same mission but with benefits to both domestic and immigrant workers, penalizing the abusive body shops. Does the ability for people to historically (and to some extent, currently) illegally cross the southern border benefit your business? Does people overstaying visa waiver or other visas help? It would seem to me that being able to easily hire and have a simple, deterministic, and painless process would be a net win. I didn't think the Berlin part of the wall was ever claimed to be for security; the other inner German border was. I didn't look this up recently so mah be wrong.
  - gumby 10y ago
    > What is the chaos in the immigration system in the US that benefits you? Sorry I was not clear. The immigration system is absurd and it appears that all the plans are to make it worse for the US (All the announcements I've seen are of enormous benefit to Europe, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore et al). It's a major liability to trying to do business in the US. I mean the general chaos of life in the USA. Day to day life here is a grind (you just have to spend so much time on useless shit that you don't deal with in other advanced economies) but in exchange you get people willing to adopt something new at the drop of a hat, who don't give a shit about credentialism, are willing to take outlandish and ludicrous risks, etc. Think of it as the social or meatspace equivalent of Black-Scholes: options with huge fluctuations have higher expected value than more sedate ones. It has made it worth putting up with the dreadful lifestyle crap of the USA. In terms of QoL, Australia, Germany and France (despite everyone being miserable) are much much nicer and a hell of a lot more fun. But for the work environment, hell, you just can't beat San Carlos<->Sunnyvale. As for the "illegally cross the southern border" part: Of course it is a net positive. Sure. I used not just "legal" labor but union labor to build my house (had my construction supervisor check everybody's paperwork among other things). My housekeeper and gardener are US citizens, unlike me. H1B people are very difficult to get because of the arbitrary crap and uncertainty, but the fact that hiring a foreigner for a startup costs so much more than hiring a local doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. But it's a net positive because those folks who come here "illegally" are the private sector working around a fucked up immigration system: not only are they a huge economic net addition to the economy (one that's integrated across the border in a massive conurbation) not only by doing jobs that go otherwise unfilled (the whole point of the bracero system) but because they pay rent, buy iPhones etc, but they add spice with great cuisines, music, art, etc. They do tend to be very conservative (heavy on "family values", fiscally conservative etc). You bring up a great example of the fucked up immigration system. Before the Obama-era border crackdown people moved back and forth more freely across the border. Over the past couple of years, despite the net emigration south, the number of people leaving would be even greater without the border crackdown (the human equivalent of a wall). yes, as with east Germany, increased border surveillance increases the risk of crossing (or the risk of returning) so people simply stay put. An already visible example of what the East Germans got. > I didn't think the Berlin part of the wall was ever claimed to be for security; the other inner German border was. Indeed the Berlin part was considered an integral part of the security system. Which it was -- it's just that the sign was reversed from how it was described. My wife grew up next to the larger internal border, so as a kid she liked watching East German late night TV shows that came across -- they showed soft porn on TV allegedly in the hopes of increasing the birth rate.
senthil_rajasek 10y ago
"A baseline of "not a felon, terrorist, etc." ..." Australia was a penal colony ... yet they seem to be doing fine for themselves now. My point is ... why change the rules of immigration from what existed in 1800s or early 1900s
- rdl 10y ago
  1) welfare state -- "bad" immigrants impose higher costs now. 2) technology -- bad immigrants (in the form of terrorists) impose potentially existential costs now. Also, in that period immigration was inherently racist, which I'd absolutely like to change. ("Chinese exclusion act", etc) Economics have also changed; costs of migration into the US are far lower than before, and we are far richer than we were then, so it changed who would immigrate. I'd expect a remote, expensive to reach place with endless land and a shortage of labor to have different immigration policies than a rich country next to a poor country a short walk away.
DiNovi 10y ago
"building the wall" is racism.... regardless, the problem is if you are perceived as not wanting immigrants, the most skilled ones will go elsewhere, because they can.
- nothrabannosir 10y ago
  > "building the wall" is racism.... It has come to symbolise it, in a sense of "no more Mexicans." But op specifically meant it literally, as in: be strict about visa enforcements. If you have a wall, but a very liberal immigration policy, that's not racist. Again: you're right in other situations, but in this specific case, he was playing with the words.
- pitt1980 10y ago
  is that true? or do we merely wish it were true? certainly talented people will have lots of different options as to where to apply their talent but lets not pretend that all the places to apply talent are inherently equal, or that that the value propositions of those places is merely a function of whether those places are perceived as welcoming ------------ ------------ though its a highly imperfect analogy to a county, Harvard and Stanford regularly tell 95% of hopeful student that they're not welcome to come and study there, seemingly with little effect on their ability to attract the talent that they do want I think that does indicate that talent attraction doesn't neatly equal welcomeness ----------- also seems worth noting, if one of the US's large assets in attracting talented foreigner is its large market available for entrepreneurial ambitions, one of its main competitors in this space doesn't have any issue categorizing entrants in their society based on their likely usefulness for their hosts https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/world/asia/china-work-permit-visa.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/world/asia/china-work-per...
bayesian_horse 10y ago
You didn't get my point. I was alleging any kind of screening will keep those away which you would deem desirable. Also, despite having probably the most easily "defendable" borders, Canada has quite the population of undocumented immigrants and refugees. Sure they talk a great game of selecting immigrants. But that mostly applies to those who don't come over the southern border or just overstay their visa.
dave_sullivan 10y ago
> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), You seem like a pretty reasonable guy, so I'm curious: how do you justify the cost of building and maintaining the wall? And what are we getting in return? "Fewer mexicans immigrating illegally"? For every dollar you pay in taxes, you want what % going to keeping illegal immigrants out? For me, I really couldn't care less, I'm fine with 0%. The idea that immigrants are more prone to crime or are destructive to the economy is wrong (statistically, if not morally). What's the upside here?
- patrickg_zill 10y ago
  It's statistically factual, at least in the USA, that illegal immigrants are more prone to crime, and that immigrant households are more likely to use welfare/EBT/etc. than native households. That is, illegals commit more crimes and are less economically productive vs. the existing population.
  - sanjeetsuhag 10y ago
    > illegal immigrants are more prone to crime Source ? Also, as compared to what ? Legal immigrants or existing population ?
  - pizza 10y ago
    How was this determined?
  - dave_sullivan 10y ago
    > It's statistically factual, at least in the USA, that illegal immigrants are more prone to crime The most legit source I could find for this was fox news: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/16/crime-wave-elusive-data-shows-frightening-toll-illegal-immigrant-criminals.html http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/16/crime-wave-elusive-data... There are a lot of statistical slights of hand in there and I don't have time to cite them all. Fox News' reputation for being full of shit is well known; if you're unconvinced of that, there's not much I can say that hasn't been said already. From reading the statistics, my takeaway is, "odds are about even, but let's talk about drug cartels" Is there a better source than that, or is that what you're referring to? > that immigrant households are more likely to use welfare/EBT/etc. You're talking about legal immigration now I think? This has nothing to do with "how do you justify the cost of a border wall to keep illegal immigrants out?" Heh, although maybe you're suggesting we start kicking people out for being broke. That would be a sad state of affairs, if running out of money could get you kicked out of the country. Anyway, my question still remains of "What's the upside of paying a ton of money for a wall on the border of mexico?" I guess you're saying "crime will go down and economic productivity will go up"? In which case, I just don't see that happening as a result of a wall... If drug cartels are driving increases in crime (which I think there's evidence of), they can use drones or tunnels (and they are). They'll still kill anyone that is not them. With a wall, you're only keeping out less sophisticated groups that are not going to be adding to the crime statistics. You're keeping out housekeepers, nannies, and day laborers, not gangsters. As far as legal immigrants not being economically productive, I refer you to the OP titled "Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups". So again, what are we getting for all that money that would be spent on building, staffing, and maintaining a wall?
timthelion 10y ago
Your bio says: "Aside from living on a Caribbean island during crypto export controlled 1990s, I've lived on a tiny artificial platform in the North Sea, plus more reasonable places like London, Amsterdam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and spent 6 months diving in Thailand." So you've moved around a lot. But you want to make it harder for others to do so. It seems to me that you think you are better than others with your desire for a point based system. And your felon policy, should have made it hard for you to move around, given that you claim to have illegally exported crypto ;)
- rdl 10y ago
  I never broke ITAR -- I strictly complied with it.
  - timthelion 10y ago
    That doesn't make it any less absurd for you to have some kind of hatred of anyone who is a felon. You obviously think some laws are wrong given that you explicitly moved overseas to get around them. And you are a hairs width from not having complied, indeed, I think that a reasonable court could have convicted you (did you use knowledge that you gained in the US to help you write crypto?).
philliphaydon 10y ago
As a New Zealander. System doesn't work in NZ...
- hippich 10y ago
  Could you expand your comment? How exactly it does not work?
  - philliphaydon 10y ago
    It's so easy to get into New Zealand, that it's used as a stepping stone for Australia. Spend 2 years in NZ, get PR, 2 more years get Citizenship. Move to Australia without needing a visa to live/work in Australia. You may as well just hand out Citizenship on arrival. The government isn't doing anything to make people want to come to NZ to start a business, so New Zealanders literally just pack up and move to the UK / Australia.
throw2bit 10y ago
I used the Canadian Express entry system and migrated to Canada within months. I hope & encourage every talented immigrants in the US who are being discriminated based on the country of birth (rather than their skills) to follow suit. Do not trust an immigration system based on lottery. Trust an immigration system like the Canadian Express Entry based on points which do not discriminate a person for his/her country of birth. Its absurd and plain stupid that the green card quotas are country based for skilled immigrants in the US ! In Canada, even a temporary worker's spouse can work right from the day they land. Express Entry is humane & values your skills period.

by rdl 10y ago

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.)
  - muninn_ 10y ago
    I agree, but how many people come here from, say, India or wherever, work in IT in somewhere like SF and say ok I've had enough training, time to go make my country a better place? None. I don't blame them either.
    - rdl 10y ago
      Actually there are a LOT of Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs I know who moved to the US, worked here, and especially back in India are now building SV-style companies there. Or are putting parts of their global businesses there -- given how expensive labor is in the US and especially SV, it's a huge competitive advantage to be from, say, Ukraine and be able to set up a great engineering organization there. I agree it makes less sense for an individual worker to move back (unless there are family or other concerns).
    - tehlike 10y ago
      It depends on person, as usual. For many, the US residency is a blessing. Things are nice here, compared to where they come from. The quality of life is much nicer, and this is something i'd most definitely want for my kids. However, there is also a greater advantage to going back home: Those markets usually lack the capital and the knowledge, and it's relatively easy to copy startups from here and implement them in their home countries.
    - pm90 10y ago
      That is most certainly not the case. While there are many who stay, there are also a sizeable number who go back to their home countries.
- deegles 10y ago
  Aren't the "brains" the ones most suited to fix those problems in the first place?
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    No, not if they're not good at national politics, or don't have the right connections to be effective there.
erispoe 10y ago
> the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in" Why is that? I'm genuinely curious. Are you making an economic or a cultural argument? On the economic side, there's no evidence that immigration, even mass immigration, has any negative consequences, apart from some more competition at the very low end of salaries, which should obviously be addressed. By and large, immigrants are net contributors to the economy. > On the other hand, brain drain. We can hypothesis that tight immigration policy actually creates more brain drain. It's so difficult to come to the US that you're not likely to go back, even for a few years, once you're here. If you can easily move between your country of origin and your country of immigration, you can probably alleviate the brain drain somewhat. Easy come, easy go.
- nilkn 10y ago
  > there's no evidence that immigration, even mass immigration, has any negative consequences, apart from some more competition at the very low end of salaries So, in other words, there is evidence that it does have negative consequences? I myself don't know either way. I just think that, if what you write is true, an impact at the low end of the salary spectrum isn't something to brush off as if it's nothing and doesn't count.
  - elif 10y ago
    that effect is only negative from the specific perspective of low end salary holders. that effect is positive for businesses and consumers.
    - nilkn 10y ago
      Well, first of all, many consumers are also low-end salary earners. Second and perhaps more importantly, the more salaries are driven down, the less money those earners have to spend, which means businesses will see less potential revenue.
      - pm90 10y ago
        You are assuming a zero sum market. Generally, when the market changes, the labor force changes as well (skills retraining etc.). It might be inelastic (i.e. changes in labor takes more time to adjust to new markets) but it does eventually happen. This is how the US workforce made the jump from agrarian to industrial to service economy.
bayesian_horse 10y ago
Smart people migrate somewhere else because they are more productive there. Usually they even send back more money than they would earn in their home country.

jacquesm 10y ago

> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall") Walls going up are days of sadness. Walls broken down are days of joy. The thing to keep in mind here is that such walls built to keep others out can be used just as easily to keep the locals in (on either side).

coldtea 10y ago
>Walls going up are days of sadness. Walls broken down are days of joy. Depends. Whenever people put up the walls for their house (which serve the same purpose) those are days of joy too. Same for nations that fought hard to establish their borders and sovereignty. And fewer national borders is not some "wave of the future" -- it's what was tried and rejected when nation states became a thing. We had large, all-encompassing empires before and it wasn't that nice...
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > Whenever people put up the walls for their house (which serve the same purpose) those are days of joy too. I don't think that was the context of the OP's comment, but if you wish to extend to those kinds of walls then that's fine with me. It's just not the way I would have interpreted the meaning of a border wall.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >It's just not the way I would have interpreted the meaning of a border wall. Well, consider a country as a people's collective house. In this, a border, if not analogous to the walls, is at least analogous to the fence around the house and/or the lock on the door.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      Claims to the contrary the map is not the territory and a country is not a house. Finally, a wall around a country is definitely not the same as a wall or fence around your house. Note that most dictatorships use walls around their 'houses' to keep the population in, not to keep others out. Note that countries that are bordering other countries with great wealth disparity are using walls to keep the wealth concentrated and those on the other side of the wall poor so they may be further exploited. This is not the same as you and your roughly equally wealthy neighbor sharing a wall in a duplex or a fence between your two gardens. Those fences and walls are there for practical reasons and to delineate responsibility and right-of-way, not to specifically make it harder for your neighbor to share in the collective wealth of the neighborhood. The equivalent of that would be a gated community in a poor country (which by the way look exactly like inside-out prisons).

rconti 10y ago

We have a solid border control regime, so we need to move straight to a rational immigration/visa system.

rdl 10y ago
We don't do effective overstay tracking.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- xbmcuser 10y ago
  For effective tracking you will need a national Id card for us nationals. That is something many different groups in the US are against for different reasons. Such an id could solve a lot of other problems and of course will create its own problems. But I think the net benefit outweighs the loss.
  - rdl 10y ago
    You could also potentially do it by retaining positive tracking of non-permanent visitors and then going after them as soon as status becomes disallowed. It would be challenging to locate someone in a disallowed visa status on transition without a national ID card, but there are probably ways. One option might be to enroll them on entry with lots of biometrics, and then do a "not on blacklist" biometric check at government-provided services. That wouldn't necessarily require identifying the US people, just validating that the US people are not the other non-US people.
    - rdl 10y ago
      If we can dramatically reduce the number of illegal status people by making legal immigration reasonable, it becomes easier to go after illegal immigration with more resources per person, and higher penalties.
    - mahyarm 10y ago

witty_username 10y ago

I think building a wall will increase the net flow of illegal immigrants as currently more people are leaving than entering. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/ http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-... I don't think you need >3x the annual median income (that's top 10%) for immigrants to benefit. Economics research says high wage immigrants benefit while low wage immigrants benefit the natives on net, although it may harm some natives. In my opinion, even if it may harm some natives, due to the poverty alleviating effects of immigration, we should open immigration to anyone who doesn't have a criminal record. This isn't that crazy, till 1914 in the U.S.: "Generally, those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. Arrivals were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money carried. It was important to the American government that the new arrivals could support themselves and have money to get started. The average the government wanted the immigrants to have was between 18 and 25 dollars ($600 in 2015 adjusted for inflation). Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. More than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities. Some unskilled workers were rejected because they were considered "likely to become a public charge." About 2 percent were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as having a chronic contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity." (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island#Primary_inspection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island#Primary_inspectio... ) What I want is this minus the racism and disqualification for health problems except maybe for contagious diseases.

falsestprophet 10y ago
"This isn't that crazy, till 1914 in the U.S." Are you sure nothing has changed about the economy since 1914?
- witty_username 10y ago
  I am not saying that and I think the only relevant change is welfare programs—which we can remove/limit for immigrants to stop it from being excessively costly. Tell me a relevant change that affects my case. Take a look at https://openborders.info https://openborders.info for lots of reasons.

throwaway743824 10y ago

"It wouldn't be hard to have an immigration system which is biased toward useful vs. not useful." I think that's extremely hard in terms of startups. You're essentially expecting the government to select what is valuable and what isn't. I don't like unclear visa situations either, but I haven't really seen a country effectively implement "come here and do whatever for a bit as long as you can take care of yourself". Which is what I would think is most compatible with creating startups.

rdl 10y ago
People founding startups are a very small subset of overall immigrants. There is probably another form of visa which would work well for that. Also, most people who do start startups are also competent, if not educated, enough to probably qualify under a more traditional points based system. A specific job accepted might be a +5 (and maybe make it contingent on remaining there for some period of employment), a college degree might be evaluated on school/program and +1 to +5, other specific achievements might get some bonuses, age (youth; working life before retirement, generally) would be some benefit, and such. Proof of assets is some benefit, and maybe sponsorship/bond/whatever from some entity could be a factor. I think we could probably have a lower point threshold than Canada, although I'm not sure. That is mostly a political decision and should involve a lot of factors beyond economics. If the negative consequence here is you have to come to the US for a job, but your immigration status isn't tied to that job, and you thus have to work in the US for 2-4y before getting PR or citizenship, that's not a huge bar to entrepreneurs, IMO. If you don't already have the business or funding, working in the US first is probably necessary anyway. The problem with H1B is retaining residency after switching to the startup.
- throwaway743824 10y ago
  "People founding startups are a very small subset of overall immigrants." True, even less create successful startups in a timely manner (even though they contribute overall). Which makes them so hard to target. "Also, most people who do start startups are also competent, if not educated, enough to probably qualify under a more traditional points based system." There's only so many ways to measure something and dropping out school to work for random Internet companies and starting your own before you have kids, which is a common profile for entrepreneurial people in Europe, tends to not tick a lot of them. The US immigration system desperately needs reform, I just don't think any country has managed to create a formal system that is better for entrepreneurship than the realities of running your business illegally in the beginning (or at least pushing the meaning of a business visa). With some reservation for not having looked into the European startup/freelance visas.

accountface 10y ago

You start getting into weird questions with "usefulness" right? Is an artist useful?

teacup50 10y ago
> Is an artist useful? Are they a respected contributor in their field? Can they afford to support themselves here?
- ghurtado 10y ago
  Start running down the list of classic famous artists and you may be surprised at how many wouldn't have met those criteria at the time when they created their most important work.
  - sotojuan 10y ago
    To be fair... a lot were. If anything, most of the artists we still remember from before the modern era did their best work under wealthy patrons or a purpose (David's Death of Marat and Oath of the Horatii both being pseudo-propaganda for the French Revolution). The view of the starving artist doing their best work for free is compatible with our modern, post Industrial Revolution views but largely inaccurate.
  - differentView 10y ago
    Should artists be exempted from the basic requirement of being able to support themselves that we expect from people of other professions?
    - rdl 10y ago
      If the bar for "can support himself" is suitably low, someone could be an artist, immigrate to the US to work as an engineer or accountant or nurse, and be an artist. Once he can support himself through art (and is likely a citizen), then be a great artist full time.

curun1r 10y ago

When it comes to immigration, there's two different concerns that we shouldn't try to conflate. There's the security aspect and the work permitting aspect and they should be handled almost entirely separately. As far as security goes, I'm fine with DHS and the various three-letter agencies being able to weigh in and veto someone's visa based on whatever vetting process they need to put in place. This part of the system doesn't seem particularly broken, despite how much Trump wants it to be broken so he can keep beating that drum. As far as the work permitting process goes, that part is almost certainly broken. The H1-B system benefits body shops the most and is almost impossible for smaller businesses to use. It should be scrapped in favor of a system that puts the onus of determining who gets a work visa on the employers rather than the government. A points system is an unnecessary proxy for actually determining someone's ability to do the job and the job interview process is, despite how imperfect it is, the best tool we have for making that determination. I'd be in favor of allowing any US company to get work a permit for any employee they want to hire, provided they pass the security screening. The necessary caveat would be that the company would need to maintain a certain ratio of US to immigrant employees and salary. This would destroy the body shops that know how to game the current lottery system. And it would make hiring immigrants much more predictable for smaller companies that currently don't benefit, at all, from the immigrant labor pool due to the complexities involved in sponsoring an H1-B visa. It would take race and country of origin almost completely out of the equation, at least from public policy since those decisions would be made by employers. And it would make life better for H1-B visa holders as well, since they could easily transfer to any company that was below the required ratio. Other countries have a ratio system and the worst that happens is they game the system by employing locals in no-show jobs, which doesn't seem like such a bad deal for those locals. It seems appropriately protectionist while still making it as easy and predictable as possible for immigrants. As far as the wall goes, it's the dumbest public policy suggestion I've heard in my lifetime. Speaking as a Californian, our economy won't work without the steady stream of near-slave labor that comes across our southern border. It's an uncomfortable truth, but almost everyone in the state depends on the work of these people, whether they realize it or not. The fear of deportation keeps them from using services that cost us money. Getting rid of them would be like getting rid of the motor oil in a car engine. All the individual parts would still be there, but the engine would break down. And on top of destroying our economy, the wall would cost at least $20b as well, and Mexico won't be picking up that bill.

gumby 10y ago

> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), Having lived on the east side of Berlin (post Wall!) I cannot forget that that wall was supposedly built to keep people out but of course it kept people in. I am Australian, and I have to admit the points based system does work there...but. I have lived longest in the USA where the chaos has been beneficial for the country, and thus for me. Australia doesn't have a culture of "creative destruction" and its system has kept that from arriving/emerging. If the US does choose to shut the door and I'll jump through it before it slams...and continue starting businesses (and creating jobs) elsewhere.

rdl 10y ago
What is the chaos in the immigration system in the US that benefits you? The uncertainty and delays in the H1B process for employees? Australian US visas are a special case but I assume you are talking about employees. I'd be de privileging family unification visas and removing per country caps, primarily. Also eliminate h1b but as part of improving immigrant visas to accomplish the same mission but with benefits to both domestic and immigrant workers, penalizing the abusive body shops. Does the ability for people to historically (and to some extent, currently) illegally cross the southern border benefit your business? Does people overstaying visa waiver or other visas help? It would seem to me that being able to easily hire and have a simple, deterministic, and painless process would be a net win. I didn't think the Berlin part of the wall was ever claimed to be for security; the other inner German border was. I didn't look this up recently so mah be wrong.
- gumby 10y ago
  > What is the chaos in the immigration system in the US that benefits you? Sorry I was not clear. The immigration system is absurd and it appears that all the plans are to make it worse for the US (All the announcements I've seen are of enormous benefit to Europe, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore et al). It's a major liability to trying to do business in the US. I mean the general chaos of life in the USA. Day to day life here is a grind (you just have to spend so much time on useless shit that you don't deal with in other advanced economies) but in exchange you get people willing to adopt something new at the drop of a hat, who don't give a shit about credentialism, are willing to take outlandish and ludicrous risks, etc. Think of it as the social or meatspace equivalent of Black-Scholes: options with huge fluctuations have higher expected value than more sedate ones. It has made it worth putting up with the dreadful lifestyle crap of the USA. In terms of QoL, Australia, Germany and France (despite everyone being miserable) are much much nicer and a hell of a lot more fun. But for the work environment, hell, you just can't beat San Carlos<->Sunnyvale. As for the "illegally cross the southern border" part: Of course it is a net positive. Sure. I used not just "legal" labor but union labor to build my house (had my construction supervisor check everybody's paperwork among other things). My housekeeper and gardener are US citizens, unlike me. H1B people are very difficult to get because of the arbitrary crap and uncertainty, but the fact that hiring a foreigner for a startup costs so much more than hiring a local doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. But it's a net positive because those folks who come here "illegally" are the private sector working around a fucked up immigration system: not only are they a huge economic net addition to the economy (one that's integrated across the border in a massive conurbation) not only by doing jobs that go otherwise unfilled (the whole point of the bracero system) but because they pay rent, buy iPhones etc, but they add spice with great cuisines, music, art, etc. They do tend to be very conservative (heavy on "family values", fiscally conservative etc). You bring up a great example of the fucked up immigration system. Before the Obama-era border crackdown people moved back and forth more freely across the border. Over the past couple of years, despite the net emigration south, the number of people leaving would be even greater without the border crackdown (the human equivalent of a wall). yes, as with east Germany, increased border surveillance increases the risk of crossing (or the risk of returning) so people simply stay put. An already visible example of what the East Germans got. > I didn't think the Berlin part of the wall was ever claimed to be for security; the other inner German border was. Indeed the Berlin part was considered an integral part of the security system. Which it was -- it's just that the sign was reversed from how it was described. My wife grew up next to the larger internal border, so as a kid she liked watching East German late night TV shows that came across -- they showed soft porn on TV allegedly in the hopes of increasing the birth rate.

senthil_rajasek 10y ago

"A baseline of "not a felon, terrorist, etc." ..." Australia was a penal colony ... yet they seem to be doing fine for themselves now. My point is ... why change the rules of immigration from what existed in 1800s or early 1900s

rdl 10y ago
1) welfare state -- "bad" immigrants impose higher costs now. 2) technology -- bad immigrants (in the form of terrorists) impose potentially existential costs now. Also, in that period immigration was inherently racist, which I'd absolutely like to change. ("Chinese exclusion act", etc) Economics have also changed; costs of migration into the US are far lower than before, and we are far richer than we were then, so it changed who would immigrate. I'd expect a remote, expensive to reach place with endless land and a shortage of labor to have different immigration policies than a rich country next to a poor country a short walk away.

DiNovi 10y ago

"building the wall" is racism.... regardless, the problem is if you are perceived as not wanting immigrants, the most skilled ones will go elsewhere, because they can.

nothrabannosir 10y ago
> "building the wall" is racism.... It has come to symbolise it, in a sense of "no more Mexicans." But op specifically meant it literally, as in: be strict about visa enforcements. If you have a wall, but a very liberal immigration policy, that's not racist. Again: you're right in other situations, but in this specific case, he was playing with the words.
pitt1980 10y ago
is that true? or do we merely wish it were true? certainly talented people will have lots of different options as to where to apply their talent but lets not pretend that all the places to apply talent are inherently equal, or that that the value propositions of those places is merely a function of whether those places are perceived as welcoming ------------ ------------ though its a highly imperfect analogy to a county, Harvard and Stanford regularly tell 95% of hopeful student that they're not welcome to come and study there, seemingly with little effect on their ability to attract the talent that they do want I think that does indicate that talent attraction doesn't neatly equal welcomeness ----------- also seems worth noting, if one of the US's large assets in attracting talented foreigner is its large market available for entrepreneurial ambitions, one of its main competitors in this space doesn't have any issue categorizing entrants in their society based on their likely usefulness for their hosts https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/world/asia/china-work-permit-visa.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/world/asia/china-work-per...

bayesian_horse 10y ago

You didn't get my point. I was alleging any kind of screening will keep those away which you would deem desirable. Also, despite having probably the most easily "defendable" borders, Canada has quite the population of undocumented immigrants and refugees. Sure they talk a great game of selecting immigrants. But that mostly applies to those who don't come over the southern border or just overstay their visa.

dave_sullivan 10y ago

> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), You seem like a pretty reasonable guy, so I'm curious: how do you justify the cost of building and maintaining the wall? And what are we getting in return? "Fewer mexicans immigrating illegally"? For every dollar you pay in taxes, you want what % going to keeping illegal immigrants out? For me, I really couldn't care less, I'm fine with 0%. The idea that immigrants are more prone to crime or are destructive to the economy is wrong (statistically, if not morally). What's the upside here?

patrickg_zill 10y ago
It's statistically factual, at least in the USA, that illegal immigrants are more prone to crime, and that immigrant households are more likely to use welfare/EBT/etc. than native households. That is, illegals commit more crimes and are less economically productive vs. the existing population.
- sanjeetsuhag 10y ago
  > illegal immigrants are more prone to crime Source ? Also, as compared to what ? Legal immigrants or existing population ?
- pizza 10y ago
  How was this determined?
- dave_sullivan 10y ago
  > It's statistically factual, at least in the USA, that illegal immigrants are more prone to crime The most legit source I could find for this was fox news: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/16/crime-wave-elusive-data-shows-frightening-toll-illegal-immigrant-criminals.html http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/16/crime-wave-elusive-data... There are a lot of statistical slights of hand in there and I don't have time to cite them all. Fox News' reputation for being full of shit is well known; if you're unconvinced of that, there's not much I can say that hasn't been said already. From reading the statistics, my takeaway is, "odds are about even, but let's talk about drug cartels" Is there a better source than that, or is that what you're referring to? > that immigrant households are more likely to use welfare/EBT/etc. You're talking about legal immigration now I think? This has nothing to do with "how do you justify the cost of a border wall to keep illegal immigrants out?" Heh, although maybe you're suggesting we start kicking people out for being broke. That would be a sad state of affairs, if running out of money could get you kicked out of the country. Anyway, my question still remains of "What's the upside of paying a ton of money for a wall on the border of mexico?" I guess you're saying "crime will go down and economic productivity will go up"? In which case, I just don't see that happening as a result of a wall... If drug cartels are driving increases in crime (which I think there's evidence of), they can use drones or tunnels (and they are). They'll still kill anyone that is not them. With a wall, you're only keeping out less sophisticated groups that are not going to be adding to the crime statistics. You're keeping out housekeepers, nannies, and day laborers, not gangsters. As far as legal immigrants not being economically productive, I refer you to the OP titled "Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups". So again, what are we getting for all that money that would be spent on building, staffing, and maintaining a wall?

timthelion 10y ago

Your bio says: "Aside from living on a Caribbean island during crypto export controlled 1990s, I've lived on a tiny artificial platform in the North Sea, plus more reasonable places like London, Amsterdam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and spent 6 months diving in Thailand." So you've moved around a lot. But you want to make it harder for others to do so. It seems to me that you think you are better than others with your desire for a point based system. And your felon policy, should have made it hard for you to move around, given that you claim to have illegally exported crypto ;)

rdl 10y ago
I never broke ITAR -- I strictly complied with it.
- timthelion 10y ago
  That doesn't make it any less absurd for you to have some kind of hatred of anyone who is a felon. You obviously think some laws are wrong given that you explicitly moved overseas to get around them. And you are a hairs width from not having complied, indeed, I think that a reasonable court could have convicted you (did you use knowledge that you gained in the US to help you write crypto?).

philliphaydon 10y ago

As a New Zealander. System doesn't work in NZ...

hippich 10y ago
Could you expand your comment? How exactly it does not work?
- philliphaydon 10y ago
  It's so easy to get into New Zealand, that it's used as a stepping stone for Australia. Spend 2 years in NZ, get PR, 2 more years get Citizenship. Move to Australia without needing a visa to live/work in Australia. You may as well just hand out Citizenship on arrival. The government isn't doing anything to make people want to come to NZ to start a business, so New Zealanders literally just pack up and move to the UK / Australia.

throw2bit 10y ago

I used the Canadian Express entry system and migrated to Canada within months. I hope & encourage every talented immigrants in the US who are being discriminated based on the country of birth (rather than their skills) to follow suit. Do not trust an immigration system based on lottery. Trust an immigration system like the Canadian Express Entry based on points which do not discriminate a person for his/her country of birth. Its absurd and plain stupid that the green card quotas are country based for skilled immigrants in the US ! In Canada, even a temporary worker's spouse can work right from the day they land. Express Entry is humane & values your skills period.