Over 44 million residents of the US were not born in the US, as opposed to 8 million in Canada. As a percentage of the population, that's lower than Canada, but by weight of sheer numbers, the US shouldn't have any problem with this.
The US takes over 1.2 million immigrants into the country every year, we just don't have much of a skilled immigration system - ours is largely based on family reunification. Canada and Australia, on the other hand, have a points based system that favors immigrants with education and skills.
I actually do blame the high tech industry for some of this. I just don't think it's a "bug" that the US system was largely based on a very indentured approach, where high tech companies got to decide who is allowed into the US and the circumstances under which they are allowed to remain, with long, grueling waits for a green card, where a would-be immigrant was beholden to an employer (called a "sponsor") and could be fired and deported at the employer's pleasure.
Facebook, Google, Apple, all the big companies - you see, what they wanted was a freer, more open system where skilled immigrants got to choose what they'd study, where they'd work, what companies they'd work for, and even whether they'd work in tech in the first place, in accordance with their own personal values and interests and market signals such as salary, cost of living, and work conditions.
That's what google and Facebook wanted. Unfortunately, all they could get was an visa that they bestow and control, putting them in a position to determine micro aspects of a would-be immigrants life.
Right. This utterly corporate self serving H1B guest worker visa system that undermines markets and is an affront to freedom did terrible damage to the public perception of skilled immigration.
Want to be clear, I don't blame anyone for working on an H1B, this wasn't your choice, and it was your only option. Don't blame you for going to Canada, either. But I just don't buy it from the corporate lobbyists. This was hardly a bug, to the companies that make heavy use of the H1B, the control over the worker's right to live int the US is a feature, and they lobbied hard for it.
The US has the largest immigrant population in the world and one of the highest immigration rates among developed countries. I resent how casually blatantly false anti-US comments like this get voted up without any data to back them up, almost like it's a fad to talk-down America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...
Why didn't you try to look at some numbers? If anything, immigration to the US has accelerated in the last 50 years. 4.7 percent of the population were immigrants in 1970. The number increased to 13.7 percent in 2019.
"Since 1970, the share and number of immigrants have increased rapidly, mainly because of large-scale immigration from Latin America and Asia. The vast diversification of immigration flows was ushered in by important shifts in U.S. immigration law (including the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which abolished national-origin admission quotas; the creation of a formal refugee resettlement program with the Refugee Act of 1980; and the Cold War-era grant of preferential treatment to Cuban immigrants); the United States’ growing economic and military presence in Asia and Latin America; economic ties, social linkages, and deep migration history between the United States and its southern neighbors; and major economic transformations and political instability in countries around the world." - [0]
People from Asia and Latin America, those who contribute the majority of the boom in migration since 1970s, are those by default don't speak English natively and have distinct culture. 22 percent American spoke a language other than English at home.
> Modern US cities are not capable to accept and absorb large scale immigration of people who are not already integrated into society. People who do not speak local language and have very different culture.
Incorrect. As of 2018, 20% of NYC residents are naturalized citizens (born abroad), 10.9% are legal and 6.3% are undocumented immigrants. [1]
The US has certainly not closed its gates on immigrants for good. Immigrants as a percentage of population is close to the highs of ~15% seen in the late 1800s and early 1900s and has been steadily rising since the 1970s.
America has always had huge amounts of immigration though. The entire country is built on it, just like other former British subjects like Australia and New Zealand. I'm genuinely unsure who has to get on board given that most Americans can trace heritage to immigrants? We're not talking about unskilled or illegal labour.
The argument being made conflates illegal and legal immigration. American legal immigration continues to exceed one million annually, easily dwarfing any other country.
I haven't checked the stats, but I believe the US population growth is supported by mass immigration? The US system works well for immigration, as it gives (or purports to give) opportunities to do well, while spending few resources looking after those that fail.
"Since 2000, legal immigrants to the United States number approximately 1,000,000 per year, of whom about 600,000 are Change of Status who already are in the U.S. Legal immigrants to the United States now are at their highest level ever, at just over 37,000,000 legal immigrants"
Immigration is not only still possible, but booming.
The number of immigrants living in the US is 12.9% - which is close to an all-time high from about a hundred years ago (14% or so).
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