[raincom]

It is not a right, for sure. However, there are historical reasons why they are county wide quotas. Before the 1965 INA (Hart-Celler Act, which JFK wanted), they had a national-origins quota system: each country's quota was based on the existing immigrant population of that national origin already in the United States, using data from the 1890 census. Because the U.S. population in 1890 was overwhelmingly from Northern and Western Europe (especially Protestants), this formula strongly favored those groups. Immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was heavily restricted because most of them are Catholics. Once Catholics got political power, thanks to JFK, this is reformed in favor of what we see country based caps.

The national-origins formula was explicitly designed to maintain the existing ethnic composition of the U.S.--in other words, preserve what policymakers at the time considered the “traditional” American demographic makeup.

[_DeadFred_]

In fact it's the opposite. We used to have a system that promoted western european, and we decided to change that. So we split them up in a way that encourages diversity. People from populous nations think this isn't fare. American's think it is explicitly fair, that our system makes sure people from all over the world come and join us, not just immigration dominated by the highest populous countries.

I understand the diversity is good, and that immigration can create that take. But I don't understand that 'immigration good, policies for diversity bad' take?

[toast0]

> American's think it is explicitly fair, that our system makes sure people from all over the world come and join us, not just immigration dominated by the highest populous countries.

I'm an American, and I don't understand how it is explicitly fair that India and China with areas of very large and populations of very large have the same immigration caps as Belize. Especially when something happens and Sudan becomes Sudan and South Sudan and the same people and the same area now have twice the cap; how is that explicitly fair? If India reorganized as the Union of Indian Republics (which I hope is not an offensive hypothetical name), where each state became a full country with an ISO-2 code and an ITU country code, would it be fair that each of the 36 member states have the same cap as any other country? Also, I'm not sure why the overall caps haven't changed since 1990. It feels like they should be indexed to something.

I think this version of quotas/caps is better than the previous version, but that doesn't make it explicitly fair.

I would be interested in knowing what the priority dates would look like if we adjusted the overall caps every ten years after the census to some percentage of overall US population (the 1990 cap was set at approximately 0.3%) or annually based on estimates works too, and also adjusting up the per country caps a bit too.

[true_religion]

Basically the idea is that foreign nationals can only have as much leverage as the quota. This is based partly on old fears that European powers would recolonize the US.

Whether or not is necessary or not, I can’t say but if India separated into 500 different counties, then the US would only be catering to 500 micronations, maybe even divided on ethnic lines, and not a single powerful one which could get cultural dominance.

For a historical case, look at the British Empire. If given a large quota, most immigrants would be from the original isles because that’s who have the financial means to cross the ocean, while the billion plus people living in colonies like India wouldn’t have a chance until the Empire breaks.

[_DeadFred_]

No, this policy is currently kept based on our reason for immigration, to encourage diversity. We would lose that, and make immigration be basically for highly populous countries. That isn't why the USA has immigration. We don't have a system purely to get bodies in the country.

The USA is not the British Empire. The USA did away with preference for western Europeans and replaced it with a system for everyone. It pisses me off we are told we are being racist by... making sure all races get a chance to come here?

[_DeadFred_]

Refugee programs are separate from the immigration caps already.

If it was free for all, because of the way math works, you would get mainly immigrants from the higher populous countries. We have as our reason for high immigration being diversity, and we would lose that, and replace it with 'immigration is for Chinese/Indians/other populous countries'. That isn't why we have our immigration system, nor why people support it.

[pandaman]

Is it fair that Bugatti Chiron has to obey the same speed limit as Geo Metro? The country cap is the limit on the speed of immigration from that country. If we establish such a limit for any reason, why does it have to be proportional to the size of the country? If anything, it should be lower for the bigger countries if we consider this a safety measure against a country gaining too much influence, similar to trucks having lower speed limit than cars on some roads.

[raincom]

I have no problem with your notion of diversity. The whole EU population is 450 million, and there are 27 countries within the EU. So, the question: is China/India less diverse than the whole EU? Some say "yes"; others, "no". Both provide good reasons for their answers.

However, one can't deny the original immigration template with a variable. Original value for this variable: "national-origins". That value is replaced with "country wide quotas". The other value is f(diversity): another formula f based on the variable 'diversity'.

American citizens and their politicians have total freedom to replace the template, or change the current value for one of the variables, or replace with another variable.

[amanaplanacanal]

Policies encouraging diversity aren't necessarily good or bad on their own. It may be that it is time to readjust those quotas based on the current needs.

[IAmBroom]

Fascinating, and thank you for this history.