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I doubt. Forget citizenship, the US is not processing permanent residency for its employment based applicants, many of which are MDs working in hospitals. The b

I doubt. Forget citizenship, the US is not processing permanent residency for its employment based applicants, many of which are MDs working in hospitals. The backlog spans more than a decade and if the applicant passes away, their family is subject to self deportation. The backlog is due to antiquated per country caps which result in prolonged waiting times for populous countries (I am personally waiting for the last 11 years). Forget citizenship, forget changing legislation to give them green cards faster, the agency (uscis) is poised to waste 100,000 of such green cards this year (which cannot be recaptured without legislation next year). These numbers would otherwise be useful for applications whose petitions were approved up to 2013. Truly dystopian. https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-100-000-green-cards-at-risk-of-going-to-waste-in-covid-19-backlog-11628080201 https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-100-000-green-cards-at-ris...

wil421 5y ago
Why shouldn’t we have per country caps? India and China could easily become the majority of immigrants due to the population size. Mexico is the top country of origin for lawful residents but they are our closest neighbor and many families have ties to both countries, especially in boarder towns. Followed by China and India.[1] [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-finding...
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  And... why is that bad?
  - wil421 5y ago
    Personally I don’t think it’s bad and allows immigration to happen from more cultures and regions. GP was the one who had an issue with the per country caps.
- 0xcafecafe 5y ago
  The US issues approximately 1 million green cards per year. 86% of those (860k) are for family based and 140k are for employment based. Country caps for family based GCs is not a bad thing and in fact it does address your point domination by populous countries. In absence of a secondary differentiation criteria, per country caps are a good thing for family based GCs. But for the 140k employment based GCs, it depends on the company hiring the individual based on a skillset/qualification and sponsoring them for permanent residency. Google doesn't differentiate between an engineer from Argentina and an engineer from India (arbitrary example). Why should one get a greencard within a year and the other have to wait 10+ years? John oliver did a piece on it last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > ... per country caps are a good thing for family based GCs. Would you mind going into detail on why you think that? To me, it's not obvious.
    - PaywallBuster 5y ago
      Obviously these people can perfectly live on their own and forget their family behind
    - 0xcafecafe 5y ago
      " In absence of a secondary differentiation criteria," I was addressing the concern of the PP who mentioned immigration being dominated by a few populous countries in absence of country caps. Ideally the immigration system should be revamped bottom up to include a point based system which gives points to educational qualifications as well as familial ties. The current political climate leaves that option out of the window. Hence at least removing country caps from employment based immigration (which is 14% of the total annual quota) is a reasonable common sense fix.
      - solveit 5y ago
        > immigration being dominated by a few populous countries in absence of country caps. Why is this bad?
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > India and China could easily become the majority of immigrants due to the population size. Ok? What’s your problem with that?
  - Veen 5y ago
    It's not very diverse, is it? You'd end up with many times more people from India and China as from the whole of Africa, for example. Basically no one from small nations would get a green card. The problem is that the number of green cards is relatively fixed, so there has to be some way to distribute them that prevents two nations from taking almost all the spots.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > there has to be some way to distribute them that prevents two nations from taking almost all the spots But why? Why is it so important to you what countries people are coming from?
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > It's not very diverse, is it? The responsibility of an immigration program to its citizens isn't necessarily to maximize diversity. It's to maximize the benefit to the country. A points-based immigration program would allow the country to optimize along any number of axes: under-represented minorities, skills, etc. > The problem is that the number of green cards is relatively fixed, so there has to be some way to distribute them that prevents two nations from taking almost all the spots. Is it? Canada brings in 3x as many immigrants per capita as the US does. It's brought in 1% of its population each year for roughly the last 100 years - so the equivalent of 3-4M green cards per year. I think there's probably a lot of wiggle room.
      - 908B64B197 5y ago
        > A points-based immigration program would allow the country to optimize along any number of axes: under-represented minorities, skills, etc. That's what the cap is for. > Canada brings in 3x as many immigrants per capita as the US does. It's brought in 1% of its population each year for roughly the last 100 years - so the equivalent of 3-4M green cards per year. Almost every week there's a thread with Canadian Engineers whining about low pay. How are these out of control immigration quotas helping them out?
- arcticbull 5y ago
  They're based on country of birth, not on country of citizenship of the individual or country of recent residency of the application. There's no reason, whatsoever, to have immigration tied to where your mother happened to be physically located when you came into the world. It's meaningless. One of my buddies was born in India, lived there for a couple of years and moved to the UK. He's a UK citizen. He's a principal engineer at a top Bay Area tech company. He's been in the India backlog for a decade. Who cares if India and China become the majority of immigrations? What difference does it make? What the US needs is top-down immigration reform and a points-based program like Canada and Australia. Those countries get to cherry-pick the most skilled immigrants and the most likely to thrive in their new homes. Who cares where they were born?! That's literally the least interesting thing about an immigration petition.
  - PaywallBuster 5y ago
    There wouldn't necessarily be a indian/chinese majority if immigration were to "cherry-pick the most skilled immigrants" As the current system is being abused by Indian consulting companies plahying the numbers games and filing for as many people as possibly to place them at low(er) income roles https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-abuse-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-abuse-h-1b-pr...
  - vikingerik 5y ago
    > What the US needs is top-down immigration reform and a points-based program like Canada and Australia. Right. Trump tried proposing a merit-based immigration system while he was in office. It quickly got shouted down and fell off the radar, by people and factions who didn't want to consider that different people have varying levels of merit to offer society.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      The US immigration system is already strongly weighted by merit but the lack of family immigration causes a lot of folks who marry internationally to just emigrate (like me!) - the issue with attracting "good" immigrants isn't going to be solved by making it more merit based - it'll be solved by making it more fair and predictable. Families can spend decades partially locked into green-cards that can be revoked without warning forcing them to relocate their lives. This isn't an attractive option for most people looking for a new home.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  As usual, no reply to this comment is actually addressing the question: > Why shouldn’t we have per country caps? So, I'll give it a shot. Let's say that 1% of the human population happens to have great genius. They're the cream of the crop in terms of ability, though perhaps they lack opportunity. Statistically, where are most of them going to be born? In the most populous countries of course... If you choose a flat-rate cutoff for importing talent on a per-country basis, you're choosing "diversity" (of birthplace...which might not mean anything at all) over "talent". Which would be fine, except that this particular route to residency was ostensibly created to bring in talent specifically. Although, immigration is a highly politicized issue and practicality usually has little to no bearing on the policy in this area. It appears many other issues in America are heading that way...
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Why have caps anyway? There was nothing such in place 400 years ago, why should there be now?
  - jacob2484 5y ago
    Who will pay for all the social services required? The existing tax paying citizen via increases taxes and lowered standard of living. We already have a shortage of housing, overcrowding in schools & major budget deficits. No, open borders are not the answer - no country has/allows them because of the reasons above.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Maybe allow them to steal some land and build there without regulations? Just like the previous people did?
      - jacob2484 5y ago
        Are you offering to volunteer your place to live? A lot of things, like slavery and public beheadings were done 400 years ago, which aren't done today. Any other arguments you can provide to make your case rather than revisionist history? You asked a question, I tried to provide an answer to it which is reflective of the common viewpoint.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
refurb 5y ago
The per country caps are intended to drive diversity, otherwise all of our immigrants would be from 1 or 2 countries. It’s a good thing.

wil421 5y ago

Why shouldn’t we have per country caps? India and China could easily become the majority of immigrants due to the population size. Mexico is the top country of origin for lawful residents but they are our closest neighbor and many families have ties to both countries, especially in boarder towns. Followed by China and India.[1] [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-finding...

spywaregorilla 5y ago
And... why is that bad?
- wil421 5y ago
  Personally I don’t think it’s bad and allows immigration to happen from more cultures and regions. GP was the one who had an issue with the per country caps.
0xcafecafe 5y ago
The US issues approximately 1 million green cards per year. 86% of those (860k) are for family based and 140k are for employment based. Country caps for family based GCs is not a bad thing and in fact it does address your point domination by populous countries. In absence of a secondary differentiation criteria, per country caps are a good thing for family based GCs. But for the 140k employment based GCs, it depends on the company hiring the individual based on a skillset/qualification and sponsoring them for permanent residency. Google doesn't differentiate between an engineer from Argentina and an engineer from India (arbitrary example). Why should one get a greencard within a year and the other have to wait 10+ years? John oliver did a piece on it last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > ... per country caps are a good thing for family based GCs. Would you mind going into detail on why you think that? To me, it's not obvious.
  - PaywallBuster 5y ago
    Obviously these people can perfectly live on their own and forget their family behind
  - 0xcafecafe 5y ago
    " In absence of a secondary differentiation criteria," I was addressing the concern of the PP who mentioned immigration being dominated by a few populous countries in absence of country caps. Ideally the immigration system should be revamped bottom up to include a point based system which gives points to educational qualifications as well as familial ties. The current political climate leaves that option out of the window. Hence at least removing country caps from employment based immigration (which is 14% of the total annual quota) is a reasonable common sense fix.
    - solveit 5y ago
      > immigration being dominated by a few populous countries in absence of country caps. Why is this bad?
chrisseaton 5y ago
> India and China could easily become the majority of immigrants due to the population size. Ok? What’s your problem with that?
- Veen 5y ago
  It's not very diverse, is it? You'd end up with many times more people from India and China as from the whole of Africa, for example. Basically no one from small nations would get a green card. The problem is that the number of green cards is relatively fixed, so there has to be some way to distribute them that prevents two nations from taking almost all the spots.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > there has to be some way to distribute them that prevents two nations from taking almost all the spots But why? Why is it so important to you what countries people are coming from?
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > It's not very diverse, is it? The responsibility of an immigration program to its citizens isn't necessarily to maximize diversity. It's to maximize the benefit to the country. A points-based immigration program would allow the country to optimize along any number of axes: under-represented minorities, skills, etc. > The problem is that the number of green cards is relatively fixed, so there has to be some way to distribute them that prevents two nations from taking almost all the spots. Is it? Canada brings in 3x as many immigrants per capita as the US does. It's brought in 1% of its population each year for roughly the last 100 years - so the equivalent of 3-4M green cards per year. I think there's probably a lot of wiggle room.
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      > A points-based immigration program would allow the country to optimize along any number of axes: under-represented minorities, skills, etc. That's what the cap is for. > Canada brings in 3x as many immigrants per capita as the US does. It's brought in 1% of its population each year for roughly the last 100 years - so the equivalent of 3-4M green cards per year. Almost every week there's a thread with Canadian Engineers whining about low pay. How are these out of control immigration quotas helping them out?
arcticbull 5y ago
They're based on country of birth, not on country of citizenship of the individual or country of recent residency of the application. There's no reason, whatsoever, to have immigration tied to where your mother happened to be physically located when you came into the world. It's meaningless. One of my buddies was born in India, lived there for a couple of years and moved to the UK. He's a UK citizen. He's a principal engineer at a top Bay Area tech company. He's been in the India backlog for a decade. Who cares if India and China become the majority of immigrations? What difference does it make? What the US needs is top-down immigration reform and a points-based program like Canada and Australia. Those countries get to cherry-pick the most skilled immigrants and the most likely to thrive in their new homes. Who cares where they were born?! That's literally the least interesting thing about an immigration petition.
- PaywallBuster 5y ago
  There wouldn't necessarily be a indian/chinese majority if immigration were to "cherry-pick the most skilled immigrants" As the current system is being abused by Indian consulting companies plahying the numbers games and filing for as many people as possibly to place them at low(er) income roles https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-abuse-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-abuse-h-1b-pr...
- vikingerik 5y ago
  > What the US needs is top-down immigration reform and a points-based program like Canada and Australia. Right. Trump tried proposing a merit-based immigration system while he was in office. It quickly got shouted down and fell off the radar, by people and factions who didn't want to consider that different people have varying levels of merit to offer society.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    The US immigration system is already strongly weighted by merit but the lack of family immigration causes a lot of folks who marry internationally to just emigrate (like me!) - the issue with attracting "good" immigrants isn't going to be solved by making it more merit based - it'll be solved by making it more fair and predictable. Families can spend decades partially locked into green-cards that can be revoked without warning forcing them to relocate their lives. This isn't an attractive option for most people looking for a new home.
sombremesa 5y ago
As usual, no reply to this comment is actually addressing the question: > Why shouldn’t we have per country caps? So, I'll give it a shot. Let's say that 1% of the human population happens to have great genius. They're the cream of the crop in terms of ability, though perhaps they lack opportunity. Statistically, where are most of them going to be born? In the most populous countries of course... If you choose a flat-rate cutoff for importing talent on a per-country basis, you're choosing "diversity" (of birthplace...which might not mean anything at all) over "talent". Which would be fine, except that this particular route to residency was ostensibly created to bring in talent specifically. Although, immigration is a highly politicized issue and practicality usually has little to no bearing on the policy in this area. It appears many other issues in America are heading that way...
Ekaros 5y ago
Why have caps anyway? There was nothing such in place 400 years ago, why should there be now?
- jacob2484 5y ago
  Who will pay for all the social services required? The existing tax paying citizen via increases taxes and lowered standard of living. We already have a shortage of housing, overcrowding in schools & major budget deficits. No, open borders are not the answer - no country has/allows them because of the reasons above.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Maybe allow them to steal some land and build there without regulations? Just like the previous people did?
    - jacob2484 5y ago
      Are you offering to volunteer your place to live? A lot of things, like slavery and public beheadings were done 400 years ago, which aren't done today. Any other arguments you can provide to make your case rather than revisionist history? You asked a question, I tried to provide an answer to it which is reflective of the common viewpoint.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

refurb 5y ago

The per country caps are intended to drive diversity, otherwise all of our immigrants would be from 1 or 2 countries. It’s a good thing.