[cmahler7]

I don't see how anyone can be against this. Should we really take an unskilled immigrant who can't speak english over an AI researcher? This is a similar merit system as used by Canada and Australia.

Reminder that people who couldn't work or speak english were sent back at Ellis Island. People who came here knew they were going to have to work and wouldn't be getting handouts. The idea that we just took in whoever wanted to come here is revisionary history used to push agendas.

[dang]

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments. That's not a legit use of the site, so we ban accounts that do it, so would you please stop?

HN is intended for gratifying intellectual curiosity, and the two things are pretty much incompatible, because political and ideological flamewar burns up everything else.

[cmahler7]

I've given obviously contrarian opinions on subjects posted to HN, but none of it was off-topic to the posted subject. If you don't want these topics being discussed just delete the thread, what's the point if contrarian opinion is going to be banned?

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

[eregorn]

I'm pretty sure it's very easy to be against this. An immigration policy should ideally be either uneducated immigrants that take jobs Americans don't want and entrepreneurs to support more jobs. Preferring highly skilled immigrants that take the jobs Americans do want is the worst case.

Assuming an "American first" policy, this is ironically in a way very much the opposite since only refugees are being cut. People coming for work is going to be the same under this.

In fact this bill would probably not hit the senate floor at all [1]. It has too much opposition from Republicans whose states would collapse under the bill and Republicans that want an actual decrease in immigration. Democrat opposition is a given as well.

(1)https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/08/02/trump_...

[cmahler7]

the "jobs americans don't want" meme needs to die. The whole reason there has been no wage growth for the middle class is because we bring in uneducated workers who drive wages down, basic supply and demand. Eliminate that and those jobs would pay more and americans would do them. The reason republicans don't want it is because their donors don't want to pay higher wages.

The reason america is #1 is because in the past we brain drained other countries, the Manhattan project was run by Hungarian jews hitler ran out, NASA rockets were built by Nazi scientists. Now for some reason we want to do the opposite, might explain why we are on the decline.

[eregorn]

Regardless of what you think about the meme, it is an accurate description of the situation. If you feel uneducated workers are taking jobs Americans DO want, then by definition its not a job Americans don't want.

Its why I specifically mentioned the bill not actually decreasing immigration. Under this logic the last thing you'd want is to shift the immigrants to take the even better jobs. Most people that believe there isn't a shortage of uneducated workers don't believe educated workers are in short-supply either.

[tclancy]

>Reminder that people who couldn't work or speak english were sent back at Ellis Island.

Which is why the questions were translated into 39 languages? http://www.essortment.com/requirements-immigrants-ellis-isla... There's nothing in the manifest documentation to suggest this either: http://www.gjenvick.com/Immigration/EllisIsland/1905-02-HowI...

Admittedly, this is the result of 10 seconds of Googling, but I'd like to see some counter-evidence for your claim.

[cmahler7]

I was wrong on english but people were still required to be able to work and not be reliant on government. This included pregnant women and children if they didn't have a husband or father

This was the immigration law at the time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1882

[claudiulodro]

I'm fine taking both. The AI researcher is going to need a housekeeper, taxi driver, dry cleaner, lunch from restaurants, and dozens of other services and products performed by unskilled labor. Unskilled immigrants' children will be the next generation of AI researchers and businesspeople. People don't come to America for the handouts. They come because it's a place where hard work leads to prosperity.

I say this as the software engineer son of an immigrant housekeeper.

[dragonwriter]

> I don't see how anyone can be against this. Should we really take an unskilled immigrant who can't speak english over an AI researcher?

Probably; the nonskill categories in US immigration are mostly family-unification categories. The people it brings over have stronger US roots than economic migrants without close family tied here, plus bringing them in reduced outbound remittances and increases domestic velocity of money, spurring demand and creating jobs.

Bringing in additional competition for US workers in high paying jobs keeps wages down and increases returns on capital, which certainly benefits capitalists and the immigrant in question, but less so the country.

If Trump wanted to “make Mexico pay” for the wall (or, better, actual useful US government services), he'd increase the quotas for legal, family-based immigration from Mexico, keeping money that would otherwise flows out into Mexico in remittances in the US domestic economy through more (taxed) exchanges.

[cmahler7]

Those non-skill jobs are going to disappear soon, then we just have millions on government benefits, to go along with the 47 million currently on food stamps. We don't need more unskilled labor, get those 47 million to work instead

Cutting the overall amount of immigration but raising the quality is a win, especially compared to importing H1-B slaves which actually does lower wages for high skill jobs.

[dragonwriter]

> Those non-skill jobs are going to disappear soon

Doesn't really matter to the point; non-skilled (or even skilled, but not elite)) immigrants qualified for family-based immigration are quite often supported by their US-based (citizen or permanent resident) family via remittances now; bringing them to the US keeps more money in the domestic economy even if they aren't working, driving domestic demand and creating domestic jobs.

> Cutting the overall amount of immigration but raising the quality is a win

Sure, it's just a question of whether “utility to capitalists” or “ties to the US and contribution to retaining economic activity in the domestic economy” is your benchmark for quality. Clearly, you favor the former, though I can't see why.

> importing H1-B slaves which actually does lower wages for high skill jobs.

H-1B workers aren't slaves, and increasing supply of high-skilled labor decreases market clearing cost independent of whether the visa used to import the labor is an immigrant visa or a non-immigrant visa like the H-1B. I'd abolish the H-1B outright, without any additional skill-based visa quota in other categories, but also allow supernumerary (unrestricted by categorical caps) entrance with work permission and a path to permanent residency of individuals not otherwise excluded from immigration, subject to both annual fees and supplemental income taxes.

[raldi]

Immigrants, particularly undocumented ones, contribute more to our economy than they receive as handouts.