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I think you've correctly identified what Americans mean when they say "I'm not anti-immigration, I'm anti-illegal-immigration." After all, if they were just ag

• ori_b 15y ago
  I'm a Canadian currently living in the USA, so maybe I'm biased, but I would personally remove a number-based quota. I would, however, put in a quota based on the amount of education, capital, and whatever else would provide an estimate of the benefit that this immigrant would provide to the country, penalized by the difficulty that the person would have in integrating and establishing himself. So, for example, someone with a doctorate, a job offer from an employer, significant capital, and fluency in the language should NEVER have an issue getting into the country.
  • geebee 15y ago
    I agree with you, this change would be very beneficial to the US. I've always felt a points-based system (like Canada or Australia) would make more sense. Nobody is happy with the current system - seriously, not a single person thinks the current US immigration system makes sense. The problem is there are so many competing visions for how it should be that reform is nearly impossible. Keep in mind, if I wrote a post arguing for a cap of 1.2 million a year, some people would upmod me because it's high, others would downmod be because it's too low, others would down mod me because it's too high, others would upmod me because it sets a firm limit. The number of strong opinions on this topic is bewildering (but not at all surprising).
    • huherto 15y ago
      This. I have a Master's from a top U.S. University. Both of my sisters live in the US. I have personal resources well above the average American. But, under the current law this is not enough to move to be close to my sisters. In a point based system, I will get points in several categories.
      • BadassFractal 15y ago
        Same here, still years away from getting residency.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  • eru 15y ago
    Basically, everybody who we can reasonably expect to pay more in taxes than they get handed out by the government, should be allowed in.
    • philwelch 15y ago
      You can achieve this insanely easily, too. Just register every immigrant that comes across and give them a temporary 2 year visa (conditional on the normal things like criminal record, documented connections to terrorist groups, war criminal status, and so forth). Over those two years, compare their tax returns to their use of services. After 2 years, either grant a permanent visa or let their visa expire and deport them. If they're either using services or paying taxes we'll have a way to find them, and if they're not doing either, they're obviously not causing any obvious problems.
      • yardie 15y ago
        Once you've made it past the immigration counter enforcement is virtually impossible. Most cities and counties don't want to be involved in immigration enforcement because its disruptive to the community. And it's left to the visa holder to go willingly. A big problem is people arrive on tourist visas and don't leave by the appointed date. ICE can't really do anything about it unless you try to leave through a border checkpoint. This causes an incentive to stay rather than leave.
        • philwelch 15y ago
          Maybe without all the absurd, overcomplicated immigration laws to enforce, ICE will have the resources to implement the followup checks and send local agents to apprehend and deport people.
  • joebadmo 15y ago
    Seems like you're giving access to the people that need it the least. Seems like you're simply shifting the self-interested (I don't mean this in a derogative sense) motivation of making this country better by not allowing 'job-stealing' immigrants to the equally self-interested one of making this country better by only allowing those who will improve it. I'm not completely sure how I feel about the issue, to be honest, but I'm an immigrant (my parents brought me when I was an infant), and I probably wouldn't have made it here under either the criteria that exist now nor the ones you are promoting. What I know is that the dream of immigration to the US is about having a better life for you and your children. Don't the poor and uneducated deserve that dream just as much as anyone else?
    • geebee 15y ago
      "Don't the poor and uneducated deserve that dream just as much as anyone else?" Of course! The question is, how many poor and uneducated immigrants would you advocate naturalizing every year in the United States? 100K? 500k? 1.2 Mil? 4 mil? No limit? I feel that until people answer that question (and it will vary from person to person), there's no way to have a meaningful conversation about illegal immigration, which is about setting and enforcing limits.
      • philwelch 15y ago
        I think quotas are the wrong way to frame the question, at least until we start running out of land. I'd be glad to let 100 million Einsteins and Teslas immigrate if they were available.
        • pyre 15y ago
          How about two separate systems. A quota-system and a points-system. You don't fall into the quota-system if you score high enough in the points-system.
        • geebee 15y ago
          Part of the problem is that it can be difficult to identify the Einsteins early enough to give them the visa when it would still matter. However, I don't think it would be difficult for an established scientist to gain US residency even under the current miserable system. Top athletes, entertainers, business people, scientists, and so forth inhabit a completely different universe. As for "running out of land"... that's actually a little ambiguous. California could probably triple in population, and we'd still have some rural-ish areas in the extreme north. Japan, because of the density of its cities, actually preserved its rural character in some areas, and this is a country with a population density of 337.1/km2! In other ways, California has already "run out" of land. Ever drive from Orange county down to Tijuana? With the exception of a military base, it's basically sprawl all the way down. I suppose we could increase the coastal population by building high density housing on the coast...
  • ashbrahma 15y ago
    There is a separate permanent resident application category with no quota for those individuals. For doctorate holders, it is the EB1-EA. If you have significant capital and invest in the US, you can apply via the EB-5 category.
    • mahyarm 15y ago
      EB* takes several years to be processed, even EB1-EA. Employers will not wait several years while you twiddle around outside of the country, so how almost everyone does it is to get an H1-B and apply for the EB* soon after while on the H1-B. Or they use it as leverage to get more work out of the immigrant. There is no H1-B speed EB visa and thats what needs changing. And you can only have an H1-B visa once, you can't renew for new ones indefinitely.
      • mahyarm 15y ago
        For example australia has employer sponsored permanent immigrant work visas that are processed fairly quickly.
  • sixtofour 15y ago
    The US has plenty of rich, educated people. What we need (according to current illegal immigration activity) are less educated lower wage hourly workers. I don't see a lot of Canadian PhDs smuggling themselves in to the US, compared to Mexican laborers. Because there isn't demand to support the risk. The US seems far more willing to pay for laborers than PhDs.
    • pyre 15y ago
      It's a lot easier to stay 'under the radar' in an hourly job (i.e. cash) than it is to do so as a knowledge worker making a large salary.
    • ori_b 15y ago
      Actually, you don't see any sort of skilled Canadian smuggling themselves in at all because it's ridiculously easy to get into the USA if you're from Canada. You walk up to the border, say "I have someone who wants to employ me in the USA, and I have a degree. Give me a TN visa." One hour later, your visa application is processed, and you continue across the border to start your new job. However, even if that wasn't the case, You wouldn't see Canadian PhDs smuggling themselves in because they can get perfectly good jobs outside of the country. They don't need to go anywhere illegally, because they have plenty of options to go elsewhere. If it wasn't for the TN visa, I would be working in Europe, Asia, Canada, or nearly anywhere else, because someone from there would be trying to attract me. It's not that there's no demand to support the risk. There's plenty of demand. There's also enough demand elsewhere -- if I had trouble getting into the states, some other company would have me, and I would be contributing to the economy there.
  • ewanmcteagle 15y ago
    It was the refuse of Europe that made this continent what it is not the elites. We would be selecting for qualities that have an unknown relationship to our past results (and perhaps values).
  • InclinedPlane 15y ago
    Personally I think that idea is anti-American. The very premise of America as an immigrant society is that we don't judge your worth, we let you prove it. It's so important we even put it on the statue of liberty, it doesn't say "give me your wealthy, your well educated, your industrial tycoons". And honestly I think that is one of America's greatest advantages. Reliance on credentialism ends up too often being just another class-based divide rather than meritocratic in any sense. Look at Andrew Carnegie, as an immigrant he had little to set him apart, but eventually he became one of the wealthiest men in the world. There are many, many more examples just like his. And yet so often we continue to say "yes, but, let's ignore that and pretend that we can filter people by merit". I don't agree that we can filter people by merit.
    • doyoulikeworms 15y ago
      The fact of the matter is, there is a greater demand for US citizenship than "supply" (amounts to political will, really). It makes sense to prioritize for the most productive/least diseased/least criminal/etc when possible to discriminate with reasonable certainty. Of course, this is not to imply that immigrants are neither unproductive, nor unhealthy, nor unlawful. While rags-to-riches stories are great, riches-to-riches probably has a better expected outcome.
  • cema 15y ago
    I agree. But I would also add political asylum and similar human rights considerations (they do exist, but need to be broader, imho). Perhaps this aspect is less relevant to HN, however it is relevant to the immigration issue.
    • ori_b 15y ago
      I agree. I generally don't consider those as part of the normal immigration process -- a side channel into the country, if you will.
• anigbrowl 15y ago
  The rate is not that good of a guide, because the US (as it is now) was so sparsely occupied to begin with. In terms of population density, the US is ranked #180 in the world with 32 people/km2 vs. the world (land) average of 51/km2.
  • geebee 15y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the rate "is not that good of a guide." Do you mean that you feel the rate of 1.2-1.8 million a year isn't as high as it sounds because the population density of the US is still relatively low? Keep in mind, Australia also has a very low population density, but you'd have trouble populating the interior. New Zealand has a very low population density, and is essentially a large national park. Certainly they could up that population density of 16.4/km^2. Should New Zealand aim to increase its population five to ten fold over the next 50 years to catch up? Is New Zealand an "anti-immigrant" country for not allowing this kind of growth through immigration? You can say "yes", but then you'd have a tough time identifying a country that isn't "anti-immigrant", and I think the US would come off as one of the more immigrant-friendly nations out there. Not the most so, but pretty high up on the list.
    • anigbrowl 15y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the rate "is not that good of a guide." Do you mean that you feel the rate of 1.2-1.8 million a year isn't as high as it sounds because the population density of the US is still relatively low? Yes. I do think the US is one of the more immigrant-friendly nations, but the numbers admitted can't be divorced from their context.
      • sliverstorm 15y ago
        I think what you are replying to was attempting to address the fact that America has a lot of land that is either parks (Yosemite), uninhabitable (Death Valley, Great Plains) or simply unestablished. No immigrant is going to move into the middle of nowhere; they are going to move to cities or towns. People vs. total area is a misleading number.
• lotharbot 15y ago
  > I think you've correctly identified what Americans mean when they say "I'm not anti-immigration, I'm anti-illegal-immigration." I know a lot of Americans who say exactly that, and none of them mean what you (or the parent poster) claim they mean. On the contrary, one of the most common statements I hear from them is "make it easier for people to immigrate legally".
• civilian 15y ago
  Good question! Yes, I would remove the quotas. Borders only seek to separate people. The US is a decent country, better than many others as far as stability goes, and I think a lot of people could make a better life here. It would definitely be a burden on our government, but it's worth it.
• philwelch 15y ago
  The US population is around 312 million people. 1-2 million people a year 1/3 to 2/3 of 1% annual population growth through immigration. In contrast, in 1907, the US population was around 87 million and there were about 1.3 million registered immigrants for about 1.4% growth through immigration--anywhere from two to four times the level today.