4 ms·

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, whatsoe

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.
vlovich123 5y ago
I don't know about Australia, but Canada also has a much stronger refugee program than America that bypasses the whole points system. The US refugee system got worse under Trump & I suspect it'll be a constant pendulum swing now whenever the GOP gets into power. You can't have one without the other. The other challenge for America is that it gets drastically more applications than Canada does (not to mention that IIRC Canada does have a bottleneck). I think putting region restrictions/incentives for immigration might be better, so that you give preference to residency outside of already populated areas/less populated states.
- klipt 5y ago
  How do you enforce regional restrictions on immigration? Once someone is a citizen they can move anywhere within the country. If you want to make it attractive to live in some region, just create good jobs there and people will follow. Trying to force immigrants to live there if there are no good jobs sounds like a terrible bandaid.
  - valarauko 5y ago
    > How do you enforce regional restrictions on immigration? Once someone is a citizen they can move anywhere within the country. I'll preface this by saying that this my anecdotal understanding of the Canadian immigration process. Essentially provinces can nominate the immigration of certain desirable professionals, boosting their cases to the top of the queue for an immigrant visa. It comes with a requirement to live and work in the sponsoring province for a minimum period of time - something like 3 years. Immigrants are also eligible to apply for citizenship after 3 years of residency, and citizens have the right to live and work anywhere. From my understanding of the provincial nominee system is that they strongly prefer that you have an existing social and family network within the province, encouraging you to stay put even after you become a citizen.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    First, green card != citizenship. You don't get citizenship until 5 years have passed & residency limits are typically in the 3-5 year range, not beyond. Once someone establishes roots for 3-5 years, they usually stick around there long term anyway (unless they're young & childless). Secondly, you know how you fill out taxes every year & you have to say where your primary residence was for tax purposes? That's how you enforce it.
908B64B197 5y ago
> 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. It's to avoid people using passports of convenience to game the system. > He's been in the India backlog for a decade. Truth is, a lot of that backlog is self-imposed. H1B are supposed to be for real employment for a specialty occupation. There are "Body Shops", mostly Indian owned, that will submit fraudulent applications to import cheap underqualified labor in the country. [0] [1] If the people working at these body shops or their owners simply decided to start following the law, this would clear the backlog almost instantly. > 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. And yet how does it explains the brain drain these two countries have towards... the US! [0] https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-shop-secret/78781/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-s... [1] https://cis.org/North/Indian-Body-Shop-Indicted-Abuse-H1B-Program https://cis.org/North/Indian-Body-Shop-Indicted-Abuse-H1B-Pr...
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > It's to avoid people using passports of convenience to game the system. Yes I'm sure people looking to immigrate to the US are checks notes becoming British Citizens. A country with notoriously difficult immigration requirements. Citizenship requires 5+ years in most instances to obtain (with a few small exceptions). Generally speaking all first-world countries have stringent rules. > Truth is, a lot of that backlog is self-imposed. H1B are supposed to be for real employment for a specialty occupation. I'm not sure that's what self-imposed means. > And yet how does it explains the brain drain these two countries have towards... the US! Immigration to the US is effectively suspended. [0] These days those folks are going to Canada. [1] '"While the States has gone, 'Let's make it difficult to get the employees here on a visa,' Canada's gone the exact opposite, and it's beneficial for Canada," says Alex Norman, the other co-founder of TechToronto. "You had a fast-growing ecosystem here that's been getting a shot of steroids."' That's what it looks like when you hang a "NO VACANCIES" sign in the window. [0] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/suspension-of-routine-visa-services.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/s... [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/01/27/799402801/canada-wins-u-s-loses-in-global-fight-for-high-tech-workers https://www.npr.org/2020/01/27/799402801/canada-wins-u-s-los...

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.

vlovich123 5y ago

I don't know about Australia, but Canada also has a much stronger refugee program than America that bypasses the whole points system. The US refugee system got worse under Trump & I suspect it'll be a constant pendulum swing now whenever the GOP gets into power. You can't have one without the other. The other challenge for America is that it gets drastically more applications than Canada does (not to mention that IIRC Canada does have a bottleneck). I think putting region restrictions/incentives for immigration might be better, so that you give preference to residency outside of already populated areas/less populated states.

klipt 5y ago
How do you enforce regional restrictions on immigration? Once someone is a citizen they can move anywhere within the country. If you want to make it attractive to live in some region, just create good jobs there and people will follow. Trying to force immigrants to live there if there are no good jobs sounds like a terrible bandaid.
- valarauko 5y ago
  > How do you enforce regional restrictions on immigration? Once someone is a citizen they can move anywhere within the country. I'll preface this by saying that this my anecdotal understanding of the Canadian immigration process. Essentially provinces can nominate the immigration of certain desirable professionals, boosting their cases to the top of the queue for an immigrant visa. It comes with a requirement to live and work in the sponsoring province for a minimum period of time - something like 3 years. Immigrants are also eligible to apply for citizenship after 3 years of residency, and citizens have the right to live and work anywhere. From my understanding of the provincial nominee system is that they strongly prefer that you have an existing social and family network within the province, encouraging you to stay put even after you become a citizen.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  First, green card != citizenship. You don't get citizenship until 5 years have passed & residency limits are typically in the 3-5 year range, not beyond. Once someone establishes roots for 3-5 years, they usually stick around there long term anyway (unless they're young & childless). Secondly, you know how you fill out taxes every year & you have to say where your primary residence was for tax purposes? That's how you enforce it.

908B64B197 5y ago

> 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. It's to avoid people using passports of convenience to game the system. > He's been in the India backlog for a decade. Truth is, a lot of that backlog is self-imposed. H1B are supposed to be for real employment for a specialty occupation. There are "Body Shops", mostly Indian owned, that will submit fraudulent applications to import cheap underqualified labor in the country. [0] [1] If the people working at these body shops or their owners simply decided to start following the law, this would clear the backlog almost instantly. > 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. And yet how does it explains the brain drain these two countries have towards... the US! [0] https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-shop-secret/78781/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-s... [1] https://cis.org/North/Indian-Body-Shop-Indicted-Abuse-H1B-Program https://cis.org/North/Indian-Body-Shop-Indicted-Abuse-H1B-Pr...

arcticbull 5y ago
> It's to avoid people using passports of convenience to game the system. Yes I'm sure people looking to immigrate to the US are checks notes becoming British Citizens. A country with notoriously difficult immigration requirements. Citizenship requires 5+ years in most instances to obtain (with a few small exceptions). Generally speaking all first-world countries have stringent rules. > Truth is, a lot of that backlog is self-imposed. H1B are supposed to be for real employment for a specialty occupation. I'm not sure that's what self-imposed means. > And yet how does it explains the brain drain these two countries have towards... the US! Immigration to the US is effectively suspended. [0] These days those folks are going to Canada. [1] '"While the States has gone, 'Let's make it difficult to get the employees here on a visa,' Canada's gone the exact opposite, and it's beneficial for Canada," says Alex Norman, the other co-founder of TechToronto. "You had a fast-growing ecosystem here that's been getting a shot of steroids."' That's what it looks like when you hang a "NO VACANCIES" sign in the window. [0] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/suspension-of-routine-visa-services.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/s... [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/01/27/799402801/canada-wins-u-s-loses-in-global-fight-for-high-tech-workers https://www.npr.org/2020/01/27/799402801/canada-wins-u-s-los...