> You should perhaps learn a bit more about the history of the country which you want to immigrate to.
Because no one could possibly be opposed to per country caps unless he were a disgruntled Indian.
I was born in New York. My parents were born in New York. Three of four of my grandparents were born in New York. The fourth grandparent was born in Germany. His parents died in a concentration camp because they couldn't come to the US with their teen children. You see they had be been born in Eastern Europe and the racist national origin system was designed to prevent too many people born in Eastern Europe from coming to the US. Kind of like how you don't want too many people born in India or China to come to the US.
> The green card diversity lottery is based on exactly the premise I mention.
With your encyclopedic knowledge of American history I'm sure you are aware of the political origins of that program.
> If you remove the national origin quotas (it has little to do with race and everything to do with where you were born)
Yeah, those things aren't correlated at all. Come on.
> then it would be the exact same process for green cards except you only have a limited number of chances before you cap out the time on your visa and get sent back.
No it wouldn't. There's a different system in place for permanent visas than for temporary ones. Viz. a waiting list. The grandparent post linked the visa bulletin which explains how it works. You have the tools at hand to educate yourself, there's no excuse for ignorance.
> How is that a better, less capricious system than the current one for anyone who isn't Indian or Chinese?
Because human being are human beings, not 1 billionth of India or China. It is a bedrock principle of contemporary liberalism (small l) that people ought be to treated as individuals. The remnant of the pre-1965 racist national origin system is a disgusting anomaly of a worse time.
> The US political system gives disproportionate power to states with smaller population. The US immigration system is disproportionately more difficult for countries with lots of applicants. That's what the US looks at as fair - giving each state or country a fair shot, not each individual.
One terribly unjust system originally put in place to protect slavery doesn't define the United States' entire notion of fairness.
In any event it is nonsensical to talk about giving a country a shot. Countries aren't going to immigrate to the US, people are.
> - Limiting the amount of visas that one country can claim (similar to the green card lottery)
How can anyone in their right mind justify per country caps that signify the racialist compromises of the Civil Rights Act.
I came to this country at 17 as an undergrad and have a US tax payer funded Masters degree from a top 5 university (not that I believe US news ranking is all that important. I've been here 9 years and can fairly say that I'm as an integrated immigrant as any, but i wont be getting a greencard anytime before 2025 because I'm an Indian. From my perch i could also find it maddening that a UX designer who happened to be born say in the EU gets their residency in a matter of months with far less investment or attachment to this country.
People don't come to this country as representatives of their government.
> The green card diversity lottery is based on exactly the premise I mention. Applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the US have a great chance of winning. Applicants from countries with high rates of immigration to the US are ineligible to apply.
Sure. But that has nothing to do with employment-based green cards.
By all means, choose for diversity when it comes to other types of immigrants (extended family, lottery, etc). But it makes no sense to consider country of birth for skilled worker green cards, where employers hire based on talent - and especially so when the beneficiaries already live here and pay taxes here.
> The alternative is to turn the green card backlog into a problem for immigrants of all nationalities rather than a problem for immigrants of some nationalities.
Sure, but a 3-4 year wait for everyone (while living here) is literally an order of magnitude lower than the current 60-year wait for those born in India. Problems like not being able to switch jobs, kids having to leave when they turn 21, etc, are just less likely to occur when the wait is shorter and more transparent.
In order to prevent a shock to the system, per-country caps should be phased-in over 2-3 years. That way, those currently in the system will all get their green cards in the expected 1-1.5 year timeframe, while future applicants will know, prior to applying, that the wait will be 4 years for everyone. HR392 does this.
Think a 4-year wait would be too long? First, let me point out the hypocrisy. Second, a solution then is simply to increase the employment-based numbers, from 140K currently, to around 220K (these numbers include immediate family: spouses and minor kids). This is hard politically, because Democrats would also want to increase chain migration and other categories.
> So yeah country based discrimination baked into US immigration law sucks.
While it sucks for an individual from a high-emigration country, if one of the goals of immigration policy is greater diversity, than country-based discrimination is a fair solution.
> If there was zero discrimination no-one from any other country would stand a chance due to the sheer population size of India & China.
If there was zero discrimination on country of origin, each qualified individual applicant within a given VISA category would be situated equivalently regardless of nation of origin.
India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines (I may be missing one or two other countries) would see an increased number of total immigrants to the US and other countries less, but that's because the per country of origin limits currently put individuals of those countries in a worse position, not because the present system is fair and removing the per country limits would be unfair.
> Both India and China have a lot of diversity and are home to 40% of humanity. A fairer immigration system WOULD see a lot more Indians and Chinese.
However, you've then penalized someone born in in Mongolia, simply because they come from a less populous country, vs the opposite that is happening now.
I'm not claiming there is a moral argument to be made: the way the US residency program is implemented is neither moral or immoral.
> I'd rather have US as the home of the best and the brightest, not based on whether your parents were born in Mongolia or 100 miles away in Inner Mongolia that happens to be in China.
How do you qualify "best" & "brightest?" I'm a 1st generation US Citizen (of Indian decent). Both my parents immigrated here. My dad was drafted for Vietnam and then continued to serve in the US Army for 20 years, and my mom was a lunch lady. My parents don't have CS degrees, and instead worked blue collar jobs to make sure we could have a better life than they did.
> Since you are Australian, you are probably not aware of how biased the immigration system is, against the Indians.
I am not aware of such a bias, and I have a half a dozen Indian relatives living in the USA (I am an Australian with one Indian parent, currently living in the USA ). I have not studied any current place-of-origin biases in particular (I know historically they were dreadful and for all I know they still are. Certainly the rhetoric is).
> ...that of Canada and Australia where the most productive humans with greatest potential are allowed in...
Ah, but it's all about who decides what is deemed "with the greatest potential". It's what is believed to be needed now of course, whether nurses, plumbers, or geneticists, but what about poets, lunatics, or those who write music I don't enjoy?
> Since there are African Americans and people with very little “indian blood”
I mean there are white people with little current Indian blood who meet the requirements because of an old ancestor. Why single out the African Americans?
> Citizenship is also based on ancestry in the USA (natural born citizen).
Sure, but the US is already a multicultural, multi-ethnic society, so... it would be more akin to a hypothetical US that ceased all immigration and naturalization, and only allowed natural born citizenship for a hundred years or so. I do agree that many other countries do this kind of thing, and I'm not sure it's good there either.
>I know you don't want to be competing with the nice Indian fellow, but don't spin your protectionism as somehow being for his benefit.
As I said, I am pro-immigration. I would have no problem him coming over here with a green card and I am for extending the number of green cards given out.
>You simply want to confine him to (American style) poverty to protect your paycheck.
It seems your assmptions about me are quite mistaken.
> The US is not particularly welcoming on an absolute scale due to draconian immigration processes and the rise of an authoritarian political party.
Compared to most other developed countries, The United States has a surprisingly permissive immigration policy. Have you seen the requirements to immigrate legally to a country like Switzerland, Australia, Japan, or Israel? The trouble is that so many people want to immigrate to the US - and there’s no feasible way to just let everyone in - the waitlist is massive. We even have a lottery system, where most other nations demand an above average net worth and some kind of in-demand skill. Despite all of this, to some it seems “draconian” that we don’t just rubber stamp everyone who shows up wanting to get in.
>” the rise of an authoritarian political party.”
I know what you’re alluding to, but both the Republican and Democratic parties have been around since the 1800’s. And, I gaurantee you their modern view on immigration is far more welcoming than how these parties treated immigration in the past.
> 1. It's stated with this phony "non-discrimination" angle. "How dare you xenophobes deny others the right to come into the country and compete for jobs?"
Actually, the quote is:
> I don’t think I deserve special rights because I happened to be born here, and I think it’s unfair to discriminate on country of birth. Other than Native Americans, all of our families are fairly recent immigrants.
...and the factor not considered here is legacy. Including Native Americans, many Americans have fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and even some female relations who fought and possibly died in U.S. uniforms, partly for their families. And it's a general point. Your grandmother might have founded the local library. Your great uncle might have built the local rec center as part of the Lions Club.
So you don't deserve special rights for being born in the U.S. Your predecessors left you with special privileges through various forms of sacrifice over the years.
To be clear, I'm very pro immigration, especially when it comes to bureaucratic nonsense (H1B), but I think a lot of people are (ironically) missing an entire cultural perspective on this issue.
> The fair thing to do would be to accept a random sample of would-be immigrants.
Why? You appear to be making an argument that a sovereign nation has a moral obligation of care for another sovereign nation as a penalty for their success. What is your rational basis for believing that the US should take in immigrants that are unable to contribute to our society?
I'm generally pro-immigration, but this type of argument stinks of an insidious combination of American exceptionalism and white guilt. What makes you think someone who is unable to be productive and needs care is better off immigrating to a wealthy foreign country rather than staying in their home country? In their home country they have shared culture, family, and a social system that allows subsistence living more easily. Someone like this coming to the US would be faced with language barriers, likely homelessness, and an immediate need to rely entirely on the government as they'd have no other support system. I'd argue if they're trying to immigrate to a wealthier nation for other reasons they'd be better served going to Northern Europe, not the US.
> it just keeps immigrants in precarious positions for much longe
That is entirely the point of the system. Let's say if anyone could get a GC, X people would. Let's say you need a work visa and it takes 3 years, Y people would. If you need a Masters+ and it takes 15 years then Z people would. X > Y > Z. The system is designed to discourage certain people and/or just have them drop out of the system out of frustration or ill fortune. It is arbitrary, capricious and punitive. By design.
> I don't see any reason to keep per-country GC quotas in place.
The US is a country founded on white supremacy. The fact that the system makes it harder for some countries is not an accident. It's by design. Take the green card lottery (which, again, Indian nationals aren't eligible for by design). It was invented largely to benefit the Irish [1].
> it doesn't actually prevent immigration (since we still grant work visas with temporary residence - that's a separate process from getting a GC),
It's exactly what it does. Children age out of the immigration system. Others fall out of the pipeline for other reasons and have to leave the country. That's the definition of preventing (certain) immigration.
> Current U.S. immigration law limits the number of green cards issued per country, and people from populous countries like India and China are disproportionately affected.
It still shocks me how many of my friends from $top_US_university got kicked out of the country (or almost did, saved only by marriage). Like, do we really want to kick out a half-Iranian nuclear engineer, who now wants to work as a SWE, because they were born in India?
I get that we can't open the flood gates. But it _does_ make a bit of sense to retain the top % of immigrants based on education in scarce fields, no?
>Even if you're right, I don't think people want a system that benefits a group of people just because they have a bigger population than others.
This does not make much sense. People get green cards, not countries. Imagine if you were at the DMV and each region of your city had its own queue. People coming from the smaller parts leave in 5 minutes, and people hailing from the larger parts have to wait 8 hours for their turn. It's their fault for living in a more populous place?
What did the people in the smaller areas do to deserve their faster queue compared to others, except being born at a certain place?
Work visas should be about the person who passes the interview, is selected and is able to hold said job.
> Then US government is one of the most racist government on the planet. ... For example getting a green card for Indian people.
As an American it is basically impossible for me to immigrate to India and establish citizenship without my parents being Indian and knowing an official language fluently or by "investing" approximately $2 million USD and hiring at least 20 people to work for me.
Because no one could possibly be opposed to per country caps unless he were a disgruntled Indian.
I was born in New York. My parents were born in New York. Three of four of my grandparents were born in New York. The fourth grandparent was born in Germany. His parents died in a concentration camp because they couldn't come to the US with their teen children. You see they had be been born in Eastern Europe and the racist national origin system was designed to prevent too many people born in Eastern Europe from coming to the US. Kind of like how you don't want too many people born in India or China to come to the US.
> The green card diversity lottery is based on exactly the premise I mention.
With your encyclopedic knowledge of American history I'm sure you are aware of the political origins of that program.
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