[non_aligned]

> A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so.

That's largely a myth, though. The vast majority of smart, driven people have no path to lawfully immigrate to the US.

By a wide margin, the main immigration pathway are family visas (i.e., marriages and citizens bringing in relatives). H-1B visas are a comparatively small slice that's available via a lottery only to some professions and some backgrounds - and the process is basically gamed by low-wage consultancies, with a large proportion of the rest gobbled up by a handful of Big Tech employers. And that's before we even get to the fact that H-1B doesn't necessarily give you a path to permanent residency, depending on where you're from.

For most people who aren't techies, the options are really very limited, basically "be exceptionally wealthy", "be a celebrity", or "be one of the world's foremost experts on X".

[Illniyar]

I mean there's somewhere between 10-20k o1 visas issued a year. o1 is literally the visa for smart and talented people.

There is also EB with National Interest Waiver - including for profession like Doctors and such.

Not to mention a lot of employment based visa, if you work for a US employer - L1, EB1/2 directly etc...

There isn't a permanent resident visa for Driven people - but you can get entrepreneur visas if you run a profitable business.

[non_aligned]

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Yes, if you're truly exceptional, you can get in the US. You can also get into any other country in the world. And the Trump administration doesn't seem to be interested in changing that.

But only a tiny sliver of what you would consider successful, skilled people can qualify for O-1. To my original point: if you're "merely" hard-working and good at something, you - as a general rule - have no lawful pathway to immigrate to the US.

Here's another way to look at it: let's say that in any country, roughly 10% of people fall into the category of "talented and hard-working" - not superstars, but the kind of people who would conceptually enrich the economy. Worldwide, that's probably what, 400 million adults? Further, let's say that about 10% would be interested in living in the US. And before all the EU folks sneer at that: that's probably a big underestimate, because a good chunk of the world is living in places with a much lower standard of living. So that's 40 million who probably want to come. And the total number of employment visas is ~100k/year. We aim for the global top <0.1%.

[Illniyar]

A country can only take so much people a year. There must be adequate employment, housing, education, health services and other infrastructure to support more people.

This is especially true for immigration that is not tied to employment. If you can choose to only take the top, which America mostly could as it is the most desired immigration country in the world, you would prioritize the top.

If there's a limited amount of spots, why won't you prioritize the superstars over just talented and hard working?

So the top 0.1% of the total population, that's likely a good deal (on top of the employment oriented visa which have less of a strain on the economy).

[reverius42]

> There must be adequate employment, housing, education, health services and other infrastructure to support more people.

The same logic applies in reverse: there must be sufficient people to create adequate employment, housing, education, health services, and other infrastructure.

Have you considered that a lot of the people wanting to immigrate are able to provide a lot of those things? (P.S. I wonder why ICE keeps targeting construction crews lately -- and is it possible allowing more immigration might actually help us get more housing? Food for thought.)

[trollbridge]

Most people in the world are hard working and good at something.

[non_aligned]

Sure, but if I said that, I'd have a response saying that actually, it's not true. So let's start with a conservative number. It still doesn't add up.