[0xab]

In terms of immigrants as a percentage of population the US is nothing special. Canada has a lot more (closer to 19% instead of 14%). Many European countries have statistics similar to that of the US (Sweden has a bit more, the UK a bit less, etc).

But I digress. The problem with the existing system is that it is insane and a waste of resources. One has to get a lawyer and wait for a long time with no certainty in the outcome while dealing with an extremely opaque bureaucracy where anything can go wrong at any time.

This has nothing at all to do with volume. Indeed, a simpler more streamlined and less opaque system would help with volume.

Say a system like the Canadian or the UK one. There's a point scale. You can compute the number of points you get ahead of time, now there's a simple web form actually. If you cross the threshold you will get in. There are known wait times, you can just call the embassy. There are points for things the country needs (particular jobs), for certain qualifications (degrees, etc), for language proficiency, some regional tweaks, family, and having an employment offer.

And extremely importantly. You get permanent resident status (green card), not an H1B. What Americans don't realize is that you want to hand out green cards. H1B lower both your salaries and ours. The H1B restricts immigrant mobility, can't move to a better job and raise the average salary, and encourages people to go home with all of their newly gained knowledge and money.

I'll give you a personal example of the difference between a sane and an insane system:

As an 11 year old I filled out all of our Canadian immigration paperwork (my parents checked it but it was correct and they didn't change it). We knew we would get in based on our points. The embassy told us the timeframe in which we should expect our paperwork to go through. It went through a bit early. We moved to Canada.

Now for the US. As a near-30-year old with a US PhD working at a top research institution I have to pay a specialized law firm several thousand dollars, spend weeks getting paperwork, bugging people in several countries to write absurd letters, building a case, etc. All of this to basically the same thing. And in the end, who knows what will happen because there are no standards, no appeal, no one to discuss anything with. Oh, and I have no idea what the processing time is.

So no. It is not an issue of "why can't they just let me in". It's a system that hurts your salary by restricting my mobility, hurts me by making me pay lawyers needlessly, hurts the image of the US by creating disgruntled people, and hurts the economy by routing business and increasingly prestigious conferences elsewhere. It just makes no sense.

[afafsd]

It's interesting, actually. In some ways the US is actually the small-government low-regulation country that it likes to pretend to be, but in other areas it's just a labyrinth of aggresive mollases-paced bureaucracy. Examples:

Example: the DMV. In both Australia and the US the procedure for getting my licence renewed is the same. I go into an office, I fill out a form, they take a picture, and I get a licence. The difference is that when I did this in Australia I waited about five minutes and they printed my licence on the spot, whereas in the US it for some reason takes one or two hours and they print the licence in six to eight weeks. It's not that the California DMV appears to have fewer staff per customer or anything, it's just for some reason their procedures make no sense and nobody is able or willing to fix it.

Other examples: immigration and the TSA, but let's not even go there.

[raverbashing]

> It's interesting, actually. In some ways the US is actually the small-government low-regulation country that it likes to pretend to be, but in other areas it's just a labyrinth of aggresive mollases-paced bureaucracy. Examples:

Exactly this. There's a myth that the US is less bureaucratic than Europe, for example, and while in Europe you have the things like Italy which are horrible (in Bureaucracy terms) a lot of things are simpler.

[talmand]

To be fair, that's a US state problem and not a US problem.

I have had driver licenses from multiple US states. My experiences on the matter vary in extreme measures from one state to the next. This is mostly based on local laws, resources, and demand.

One time, it took hours but I had license in hand before leaving the building. In another case it took around twenty minutes and I had license in hand before leaving the building. Things are different in different places.

Then again, I've never had a license from California so that's a pain I haven't endured.

[bruceb]

To defend the DMV. I renewed my license online and it was mailed to me. Took 5mins.

[lsc]

>It just makes no sense.

Now, I'm not saying this is right or wrong; it's a complex issue, and I am personally undecided. But you seem to be missing a major argument against the "points system" you describe.

The Canadian system explicitly biases the system in favor of the wealthy and well-educated. That's exactly what the "points" system is meant to do. Now, many people think this is a good thing; their argument is that wealthy and well educated people bring good things in to the country. I'm not saying they are wrong, I'm just saying that you should understand how some people feel that is unfair.

The US system does this to some extent, too, for instance the H1B visa is biased in just that way, and even for the lottery, we set minimum "you can likely support yourself" levels, And we have special ways for really wealthy people to jump the queue, and of course, the way the lottery is set up, one could argue, is quite racist. But you can also make the argument that the US lottery system is a lot more fair to people that have the ability to support themselves, but maybe weren't wealthy enough to get an advanced degree.

[jarek]

> but maybe weren't wealthy enough to get an advanced degree.

Of course, in many countries the ability to get an advanced degree is not very dependent on being wealthy

[lsc]

>Of course, in many countries the ability to get an advanced degree is not very dependent on being wealthy

I... find your assertion to be unlikely. Of course, I could be wrong. Do you have statistics? Is there a country where there is not a very strong correlation between high parental income and advanced degrees?

[nikanj]

Finland should have no correlation here, as all the schools are free and you get an allowance from the government for the duration of your studies. Unfortunately it turns out a high income correlates well with having an advanced degree, and a parent with an advanced degree correlates well with a child who has one.

Which results in a situation where the higher socio-economical status of your parents makes you much more likely to have an advanced degree, even though there should be no correlation.

[drpgq]

Obviously IQ has something to do with this.

[simonbarker87]

Most of the people in my PhD lab were paid to be there, fees waived and 50% from what would be described as low income backgrounds - anecdotal I know, but in the UK you don't need to be wealthy to get an advanced degree ... although getting the first degree got a bit more expensive a couple of years ago.

[watwut]

The correlation in Europe tend to be between parental education level and child education level. The correlation between parental income and education level of the child is weaker.

Being educated does not imply being wealthy.

[dragonwriter]

This is true in the United States (there is a very strong correlation between wealth and education level, but the correlation between parent's education level and child's education level is stronger than the correlation between parent's wealth and child's education level; IIRC, there still some evidence that the wealth plays some role independent of parent's education level in determining child's education level, but its a smaller role.)

[jarek]

No statistics, sorry. If you want to look yourself try the usual suspects, India, Iran, ex-Soviet states...

[read]

This is the first post by 0xab after 1992 days of being a registered HN user. Imagine (a) the determination needed to not yield to temptation and post something over 5.5 years, and (b) how upsetting immigration is to someone as determined as this PhD for his first comment to be on immigration.