5 ms·

> Family-based migration absolutely does exist in other countries, including those you have specifically named. Sorry, I genuinely meant that its not as extens

• int_19h 10y ago
  The reason why the difference is so big is only partially because family immigration is less extensive in those countries. The bigger part is that US doesn't have a well designed skilled immigration track, while those other countries do. Most skilled immigrants come to US via H-1B or L-1, neither of which were originally designed for that purpose. Because H-1B specifically has an elaborate quota system, the number of people that can come under it is limited. But there's no similar quota on family immigration, and so the immigration system is dominated by the latter. So if you want to see ratios more like in Australia or Canada, the first thing you should do is not clamp down on family immigration, but open up skilled immigration - e.g. by removing H-1B quotas, or (better yet) creating a proper work-your-way-to-citizenship visa with no quotas. That will increase the overall number of immigrants, but most of that increase will come from skilled immigration, evening things out. Of course, at that point you'll want to have some merit-based system (points etc), because otherwise you'll get too many skilled immigrants to process... I think that a lot of people on the left would actually be fine with that kind of tradeoff - point-based system, but without quotas. So larger number of immigrants overall, but eligibility bar is higher, and skilled immigration is more prominent compared to family immigration. Would you be okay with that?
  • masondixon 10y ago
    > So larger number of immigrants overall What is the rationale behind this? Or how will this benefit existing citizens? Where do you draw the line for a cap on immigration, and why? There is an almost infinite number of people who want to come to the US. Decisions must be made fairly and consistently, and to the benefit of the standard of living of existing citizens. H1-B = 236K applicants / 85K spots So that is ~150K high-skilled people who want to come but cannot right now. I would say the first priority is to ensure this system is not being used to drive down wages, and not being used to abuse migrants. If companies still need these people to grow the economy, and cannot find US people to do it, then we should get them in first. Family-based immigration must be done in a way to ensure that we are not creating greater demands on the economy. They should be able to support themselves and not contribute to the decrease in participation rate, and increasing unemployment. > "28% of new [tech] startups in America are started by immigrants," - Ron Conway > "Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Doll..." This says that there should have some kind of entrepreneurial visa.
    • int_19h 10y ago
      > What is the rationale behind this? Or how will this benefit existing citizens? Where do you draw the line for a cap on immigration, and why? There was no rationale. You keep pointing at Australia etc as a desirable model, and I told you what you'd need to do to make your system more like those countries, and what the result of that would be. In particular, those countries don't have quotas on skilled immigration. Well, not explicit ones - any point system establishes an inherent limit. > I would say the first priority is to ensure this system is not being used to drive down wages, and not being used to abuse migrants. I don't think there are many people who would disagree with you. As an ex-H1B, I don't see anything objectionable about the changes presented so far (and if I still were an H1B, I'd actually benefit from them). Here are some nice charts here about who's using the system, and how: https://www.axios.com/h1-b-salaries-2228205505.html https://www.axios.com/h1-b-salaries-2228205505.html Note that what these numbers clearly tell is that it's not Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc that are a problem wrt wages. It's Tata, Infosys and similar sweat shops. Those are also the ones who get most of the H1B visa quota. Ironically, they're also the ones using H1B as a true temp worker visa - they rarely sponsor their employees for green cards. In contrast, for most major tech company workers, H1B is a vehicle to green card and citizenship, and the companies themselves do encourage that, sponsoring employees and paying all filing and legal fees, because they are interested in retaining those workers long-term (and are paying well enough that they're not concerned that people would leave once they're no longer legally bound to the company). So, imposing more stringent lower limits on wages would benefit the Googles of the world at the expense of Tatas, and would benefit people using H1B as immigration vehicle over temp workers. > Family-based immigration must be done in a way to ensure that we are not creating greater demands on the economy. They should be able to support themselves and not contribute to the decrease in participation rate, and increasing unemployment. Strictly speaking, family-based immigration already has such requirements. The sponsor must not only demonstrate sufficient minimum income to provide for the person they're sponsoring, but they're also required to sign a legally enforceable pledge making them financially liable for support of that person: https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/affidavit-support https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-pr... This remains in force until that person becomes a citizen, which would be at least 5 years after getting green card in most cases (you need 5 years of permanent residency to apply for citizenship normally; 3 if you're married to a citizen). This all is very similar to Canada. > This says that there should have some kind of entrepreneurial visa. There are visas for investors, but they require considerable sums of money upfront. I don't think there's anything for people who are not self-funded in that manner, which likely accounts for most of the startups.