[hn_acker]

> And yes, many want to get rid of it, because it’s a loophole in the skilled immigration system.

Why does "the skilled immigration system" represent the whole immigration system? What makes family sponsorship a "loophole" to H1Bs, when family sponsorship could instead be framed as an equivalent form of legal immigration with a different purpose?

> and hundreds of thousands of low skill people come over because they’re someone’s cousin.

Accepting the "low skill" framing and setting aside the fact that family-sponsored immigrants can have "high skill" without proving it through the H1B process, I don't think it makes sense to have an immigration system based solely on "high skill", because not every member of a family should have to be "high skill" for the entire family to move to the US.

[hn_acker]

I erroneously used "H1B" as a shorthand for employment-based immigration. While H-1B provides a pathway to permanent residency, it is a non-immigrant visa until the State Department approves the visa holder's residency application. The EB visa line (such as EB-3 and EB-1) are immigration visas from the start.

To make my previous comment better fit with what I intended to communicate at the time, I would correct my previous comment by replacing:

- What makes family sponsorship a "loophole" to H1Bs, when family sponsorship could instead be framed as an equivalent form of legal immigration with a different purpose?

with

+ What makes family sponsorship a "loophole" to employment-based immigration, when family sponsorship could instead be framed as an equivalent form of legal immigration with a different purpose?

and replacing

- Accepting the "low skill" framing and setting aside the fact that family-sponsored immigrants can have "high skill" without proving it through the H1B process,

with

+ Accepting the "low skill" framing and setting aside the fact that family-sponsored immigration-seekers can have "high skill" without proving it to the government through the "high skill" pathways,

.

[rangestransform]

Why shouldn’t we try our best to make sure only net positives get in, and make sure they can’t bring net negatives with them?

[hn_acker]

To avoid losing the context of my previous comment in this chain, here is the relevant excerpt:

> I don't think it makes sense to have an immigration system based solely on "high skill", because not every member of a family should have to be "high skill" for the entire family to move to the US.

Now moving on to what you said:

> Why shouldn't we try our best to make sure only net positives get in, and make sure they can't bring net negatives with them?

Making prospective will-work-as-a-condition-of-immigration human beings who provide for their families choose between

(1) staying outside of the US,

(2) sending their families better income from the US only to eventually leave the US and return to worse job opportunities, or

(3) sending their families better income from the US while resigned to live permanently separately from their families (semantics note: vacationing to visit one's family on the rare occasions when one can afford to do so does not count as "living temporarily with your family")

is inhumane: a nation should not permanently hold continued legal immigration status hostage to require will-work-as-a-condition-of-immigration human beings to undergo the potential mental, emotional, and social suffering of being physically apart from their families. There should be at least one additional option:

(4) having to work for a capped, meaningfully finite duration of time before one's family members can immigrate without being forced to take the will-work-as-a-condition-of-immigration pathway.

[rayiner]

How is it “inhumane?” People who don’t want to leave their families behind, especially extended families, can simply choose not to immigrate. It’s not “inhumane” to make people stay in their own countries.

[rangestransform]

We could have a long term dependent visa that permanently renders them ineligible for government assistance

[rayiner]

> when family sponsorship could instead be framed as an equivalent form of legal immigration with a different purpose?

What would be that purpose?

[hn_acker]

(I made some corrections [1] to my upper comment to make clear that when I mentioned H-1Bs I intended to refer instead to must-work immigration pathways in general, including but not limited to H-1B and EB-3.)

The previous context included:

>> A lot of people would prefer if even family sponsorships didn't exist.

> And yes, many want to get rid of it, because it’s a loophole in the skilled immigration system.

From the start of US immigration law, the must-work immigration pathways have never been the only (non-asylum, non-TPS) immigration pathways. What is your basis for framing family sponsorship as a "loophole" to the "skilled immigration system", accounting for the fact that some immigration pathway (whether agnostic to family unification or specifically allowing family unification) has long existed separately from the "skilled immigration system"?

Do not let the following tangent distract you from my previous question, but: H-1B itself does not provide a pathway for "family sponsored" immigration. H-1B allows immediate family members to temporarily stay in the US as dependents using H-4 visas. A person who uses H-1B without intent of becoming a permanent resident is by definition not an immigrant. If an H-4 holder becomes a legal permanent resident, it is because their H-1B-holding family member can become a legal resident (i.e. become an immigrant) as specifically allowed by the H-1B itself, and being a legal resident or citizen provides your family with H-1B-agnostic pathways for becoming legal residents.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46937673