[vkou]

People who recognize that countries become wealthy when people do useful work in them.

An educated, young person doing useful work that comes to your country is a massive gift, and a debit to the country they have left.

[Saline9515]

Highly educated US graduates currently experience difficulties in landing a first job[0]. Should they or the foreign workers be prioritized?

[0] https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/jobs-unemployment-rise-youn...

[vkou]

Let me flip it around for you.

Would the country benefit if skilled young people started fleeing it? People that you've invested decades of labour and education into?

Surely, this would be great news for the ones who remained. Why shouldn't we pursue policies that result in just that?

---

If net emigration of that demographic wouldn't be a net benefit, why do you think the reverse is a net harm?

[Saline9515]

A democratic State is supposed to work in the interests of all of its citizens. Degrading the economic environment to lead young graduates to "flee" is clearly against this mandate.

The strategy that you mention is however used, with success by countries that are either dictatorships (e.g Algeria) or that have too many men, due to archaic sexist traditions of aborting females (e.g India). Maybe you'd prefer that the USA become more like those two examples?

[donkeybeer]

You failed to understand a warning vs an endorsement.

[amanaplanacanal]

Some folks are basically against all immigration, not matter how you frame it.

Which seems weird to me as an American. All of our ancestors were immigrants, immigration is what made the US what it is. It feels like they want to turn the US into something completely unamerican.

[Saline9515]

The framing is weasely. Saying that black is bad does mean that white is good. If you need such argumentation to "prove" a point, maybe you are wrong from the start.

[Balinares]

Strong disagreement -- your point sounds more weasely to me, to be honest. The situation as described is zero-sum; a talented youth leaving place A in favor of place B leaves the same amount of talented youth in the overall picture. If their departure is detrimental to place A, then the value that goes missing in that place does not vanish, it ends up in place B.

So, the point stands. If talented youth left the USA in significant numbers, would that be detrimental or beneficial to the USA? And you can feel either way about the answer there; however, you then can't have it different for talented youth leaving their own current home to bring their talent to the USA. Not in good faith anyway.

[jalapenos]

Not if you're an educated young local person who got nudged out of a job as a result.

The "country" is an amorphous - having the money to move out of your parents basement is not.

You could just as soon zoom out to the earth rather than fetishizing "the country", then it's zero sum.