I could never get the point of these crazy-ass restrictions in the first place. If the US was serious about attracting such people, they would have visa-on-arri

I could never get the point of these crazy-ass restrictions in the first place. If the US was serious about attracting such people, they would have visa-on-arrival (or online) and some kind of automatic green card, like many other countries do. It's not like there will be an overwhelming flow of people from Russia, just to get a plane ticket nowadays is like $2k - and you can always enforce the criteria you'd like (income, education) before entry. The current "campaign to attract" will probably require travel to some random country first to get a visa, and presenting tons of random documentation, and waiting for arbitrary amounts of time in random places (US, Russia, third-party countries for a visa). It will only attract people who are truly hell-bent on moving specifically to the US.