Behind Door #1 are people of extraordinary ability: scientists, artists, educators, business people and athletes. Behind Door #2 stand a random assortment of people. Which door should the United States open?
In 2010, the United States more often chose Door #2, setting aside about 40,000 visas for people of extraordinary ability and 55,000 for people randomly chosen by lottery.
It’s just one small example of our bizarre U.S. policy toward high-skill immigrants.
That is the opening of a short piece by me over at The Atlantic, drawn in part from my TED e-book Launching the Innovation Renaissance (Nook, iTunes).
Who would it help more to come to the united states: a British PhD or a Haitian refugee?
The appropriate question is, who would help the United States more.
Why is that the appropriate question? The united states is a political entity without feelings or desires. Potential immigrants have both.
It’s the outcome that matters to the job security of the politicians making the decisions. It’s a little indirect but basically they’re supposed to work in the interest of the voters, and they need to do some approximation of that to keep getting elected.
Is that what you think Alex was arguing: that the decision will be politically popular? If so, does that make you more or less comfortable with his policy advice? Also, does it make you more or less confident in the political process as a decision making apparatus?
Frankly I’d prefer a market based solution. Choose a quantity and price for new citizenships that maximizes profit for current citizens, and sell them each year. If there is money being left on the table because of immigration restrictions, then we should try to capture that value and not just give it away.
But yes, I think that a scheme based on letting in better immigrants would be popular, because I think most people vote (and should vote) in their own self-interest, and this is manifestly in their self-interest.
I didn’t say anything about Alex, I was responding to the question of how to judge such a policy. Obviously you judge it based on its effect on current Americans. Its’ effect on others is irrelevant, except insofar as Americans care.
Then let’s abolish the United States and let its citizens sort out the national question for themselves.
Also, it’s the same question businesses ask when determining who to let on the payroll or to whom they will lease property even though, as you note, a pass-through entity doesn’t have ‘feelings’ or ‘desires.’
PhD in what?
Theatre Arts, baby!
Maybe the appropriate question is who would benefit white people more?
Racist? Sure, but why is discriminating based on national origin any more defensible than discriminating based on race? They appear to both be wrong for the exact same reasons. Reminds me of the fallacies that Steven Landsburg attacked on this Fox News interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hd8eUzwmqY
Statistics bro
I agree, they both “appear” to be wrong.
Care to explain? Why exactly is racial discrimination wrong? Then, why does this not apply to discriminating based on national origin?
The obvious answer to your question should be the British PhD, because that’s what we’re all about – - – giving the PhD in Literature an even greater advantage while giving “the huddled masses” fewer and fewer opportunities.
Todd, should US policy be to provide the maximum help to the individual granted the right to immigrate? Or should US policy seek to maximize the value to the people of the US, and US society as a whole? Altruism is a worthy aim for persons exercising free choice, national interest is a worthy aim for sovereign state power exercised on behalf of the citizens of the state.
The policy should be about helping the individual granted the right to immigrate, and it’s not about altruism. There are 300M people in the U.S. Trying to determine the net impact on all of them of additional immigration is intractable even if desirable. The impact on the potential immigrant is relatively easy to determine.
We have a way of sorting this out: it’s called an “election.”
Your aesthetic preference for the Haitian over the Brit is your own, and it seems like it’s sufficient for you to act against your own self-interest. But everybody else has their preferences, too. We have a mechanism for making decisions that balance those preferences.
Someone start developing the immigration version of ‘Hot or Not’.
“Wannabe American Idol.” I need to get that trademarked.
It doesn’t seem intractable at all. It seems trivial. And if altruism is not involved, and benefit to the country’s citizens is not involved, what IS involved? Why allow anyone in at all?
The well-being of the immigrant is clearly involved and relatively easy to assess. The well-being of current citizens is also involved, but vastly more difficult to assess. I reject the notion that politicians set policy consistent with voters desires that are consistent with the well-being of the populace. Politicians don’t set policy. Policies are not consistent with voters desires. Voters desires are not consistent with the well-being of the populace.
“Why allow anyone in at all?”
why indeed!
Todd, what is so difficult about it? Presumably people generally offer the same touchy-feely benefits on average (which I think is actually generous to unskilled people), so all that is left is skill and ability. Those with it will benefit us more than those without it. Do you doubt that?
“Trying to determine the net impact on all of them of additional immigration is intractable”
That is too cynical. Many if not most Government policies involve questions of a relatively similarly intractable kind. There are several heuristics such as estimates on jobs created by skilled workers etc., and insisting on complete proofs would only induce policy paralysis.
Also why is what you are saying not about altruism? If not for altruist reason why should one help the individual granted the right to immigrate?
I say it is not about altruism because it is entirely possible, nay probably, that many current residents would stand to benefit more from allowing in the low-skilled immigrant.
But you said the sole criterion should be the how it benefits the immigrant, since anything else is “intractable”.
Dan, the individuals of the state have an interest in the state acting “morally”. I, as a US citizen, am interested in having my government act morally. As an individual I have no ability to make that happen – only the state does.
I think it’s great that the US continues to attract highly skilled people. It would be even better if we fixed our atrocious educational system so that we could develop more of those skills at home. I’m not suggesting that there’s a fixed total of work for skilled people to do and we could thereby reduce immigration. But I can’t help noticing that in every place I’ve worked that had a lot of people trained in science/math/computers, they were mostly immigrants from China, India and Russia. Has the US ever not been a net importer of scientific skill? Why the f*** can’t we fix our schools? (Written with extra feeling because I have two kids in high school and I see what and how they’re being taught. I don’t blame the teachers – no talented person who’s not independently wealthy and indifferent to bureaucratic crap and public disrespect would be willing to teach in a US public school.)
I should hope we would be “net importers” of scientific skill. That’s obviously a positive.
The US educational system is a lot better then people think, it produces legions of productive individuals but unfortunately there’s not much demand to hire. Of course businesses would love to be able to hire scientists for minimum wage and that’s why they keep complaining about their not being enough science graduates but it’s complete nonsense.
Let’s all make up stuff based on our personal life experiences!
I’m afraid it’s true if there were these big shortages wages would be skyrocketing.
Why are there refugees from Haiti?
Extreme poverty is widespread in Haiti.
Why is poverty widespread in Haiti?
The list of reasons is long; however, as the discussion is about immigration, let’s speak plainly. I presume you wish to impute that Haitian poverty has something to do with Haitian genetics and culture such that allowing them to immigrate to a more prosperous country would cause persistent, irreparable harm to the current population large enough to offset any potential gains for both the immigrant and current population. Is that correct?
Culture.
Who cares about the Haitians.. import them once all the lesbian Somalians with Downs Syndrome have come in.
Todd is a socialist who like them all wants to feel he is better than others by giving away THEIR money. Todd, move to Haiti, make them really better off.
I think immigration restrictions should be lower in general but I also think that you guys WAY over-estimate the impact of bringing in a bunch of science PhDs. There’s already a huge glut of scientists in the USA.
Show me the evidence
Show me the evidence that there’s not. You’re the own advocating a policy of specifically targeting a certain group of workers for competition thus driving down their employment prospects and wages. I think an immigration lottery is much more fair.
CBBB: One could claim that people in STEM fields are already ‘advantaged’ by the government’s propensity to fund people to do degrees that provide less information to the employer than a night-course in writing and a intelligence/personality test, perhaps at school exit, could. Given that H1-B visas already allow companies (well, their dodgy immigration lawyers) to bring in workers at a pretty good chunk below the ‘prevailing wage’ (because it’s nice to get someone with ten years experience for what you’d pay a recent community college graduate), why not let those people immigrate and become citizens instead? As it is they are effectively indentured workers who don’t get the benefits of being ‘freed’- making it pretty hard for US citizens to compete.
I don’t understand what you’re talking about in the first part of you comment but the H1-B workers should be allowed to immigrate and be put on a path to citizenship if they’re being brought in already. I’m certainly not against immigration but Alex wants to shift the focus to allowing in immigrants of certain educational and professional background over others which I don’t agree with. There’s plenty of STEM graduates out there now who could do these jobs the real issue is employers want to be able to have a supply of CHEAP workers – when it comes to helping employers find cheap labour economists have a plethora of policy programs when it comes to why workers can’t find jobs – oh well it’s the WORKER’S fault.
What if the Haitian is a hot chick?
I often wonder just how open people would be to letting anyone in who paid a fee to come in, after passing a background check or something. For any number of reasons, it would probably have to be high enough to make people sacrifice something but low enough to not keep out all but the wealthiest individuals. And while it wouldn’t raise a huge sum of money unless we got an absurdly high number of individuals paying, you could at least make the argument that something was being done to bring more sanity to the system. I suspect people would be happier with such a system than with what we have now, but again, I am not sure.
On the same note, would they be open to letting anyone who buys a house with 20 percent down get a green card?
This is on the table somewhere in Congress now, I think Chuck Schumer is involved.
Granting 3 year work visas to any foreigner willing to purchase $500K+ of real estate.
Whatever we end up doing, I know Canada (and a few other countries) do exactly this, try to actively encourage certain kinds of high value immigrants and discourage the low value ones. I have to agree it’s good national policy.
This program, right? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/nyregion/new-york-developers-take-advantage-of-financing-for-visas-program.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
We’ve had the EB-1 visa for investors for years. Don’t use too many of them, most years. Not that many people with a million in the bank looking to move, I guess
The problem with a fee-only visa route is that you’d rule out most potentially very useful immigrants. Most young immigrants might have very high potential but find it impossible to get a loan of $100,000 to pay the visa fee. So the market won’t solve this so long as human capital is not accepted as collateral.
Fee waivers for individuals with high demand skills.
The no-brainer is to give out a lot more visas to people of all skill levels.
+1
Even though Alex and Tyler are constantly regaling us with how many fewer workers we need in all sorts of industries?
No. They are telling us that it is good when industries can produce the same output with fewer workers, because that frees up workers to work in other industries and to produce even more. This implies that we need more workers, not less.
Except Workers can’t move between difference industries so Tyler and Alex’s whole model of reality is BADLY BROKEN.
You really think workers can’t move between different industries? And you think Tyler and Alex’s model of reality is badly broken? Probably 25% of the adults I know have moved between industries in their life times. Many multiple times.
That’s a bunch of nonsense, they might move between SLIGHTLY different jobs (after of course going massively into debt every time getting the next bullshit certification or whatever). Usually what happens when this “freeing up” occurs is the workers go into permanent unemployment or if they do find new jobs it’s at far lower wages (funny how moving to the more productive industry results in crashing wages). Sure maybe this doesn’t happen amongst some elite professional class but it’s lower-level workers who bear the brunt of these productivity enhancements and don’t end up moving anywhere but down.
Any model that has people moving from one sector to another is trivially false.
Look. Tyler and Alex got theirs. Sweet sweet life tenure. Its not their fault everyone else was too stupid to get onto the gravy train.
CBBB if we are going to trade opinions based on anecdotes, I know many, many 40-50 year olds who have had jobs in vary widely varying fields and have not taken on any debt to do so.
How is it anecdotal? I said I admitted this might be true for high-end professionals but for most people the switching of careers usually means going for a $50,000/year manufacturing job to a minimum wage McDonald’s job. Hardly a great deal for the worker.
In this recession workers who have been displaced have been more likely to drop out of the labour force then find a job. I think you have to be REALLY critical of these models that assume workers can switch sectors.
Don’t be too hard on him. There are lots of well-trained and educated people now considering or working in fast food now.
And at that point, it’s clear open-borders advocates are just Asperger’s/manics playing with mathematical models, because if 200M workers are productive, then 300M would be even more so, and if we can just get the US up to 1B, nay 10B! population, it will be Productivity Heaven On Earth.
For some reason, this model of large numbers of marginally skilled workers hasn’t delivered Utopia to the Third World.
Why?
I agree, that is the brainless thing to do.
+1,000,000,000
Did you notice that nobody is ever asking for more lawyers to come to the US?
I wonder how well Australia’s skilled immigration points system is working for them.
http://www.workpermit.com/australia/point_calculator.htm
Every 4 years I look at the GOP candidate and then check the analogous site for Canada. Of course I haven’t actually done it yet…
If you REALLY wanted to help your country, you would.
But Canada sucks
But Australia rules
I don’t doubt that.
What is we started exporting people instead? Wouldn’t that benefit the nation?
Who’d want to buy?
Just price it right…
The US military already does. Some of them ain’t coming back.
Do we care about global well being or US well being? Pick one and it will answer your question.
Maybe in the short run. But considering the democratic nature of U.S. institutions, it is not at all clear that short run and long run global well-being have the same answer.
More importantly, do we know for sure which skilled workers we’ll need in the future? The non superstar immigrants have a long track record in our country of creating the next generation of native-born superstars.
Think about this like genetics. Ultimately if humans were in charge of genetics we’d only pick the best ones (as defined by current fashion). Then we’d watch as our super-race got wiped out by a bug that those with non-superior genetics had an immunity to.
Diversity is a very good policy in nature and generally is also good policy in economics.
I don’t think you know very much about genetics.
I have an idea of what skilled workers we will need in the future: high IQ ones.
Alex, you fool! How else can we expect to breed our Teela Browns?
TallDave,
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-11-29/news/30456557_1_powerball-lottery-winners-wealthy-trio
Alex
That is easily fixed: only allow poor people to buy lottery tickets.
Oh, wait….
No, no, they’re already unlucky.
For my job market paper, I estimated the revenues that the government could earn by replacing the Diversity Visa Lottery with a Uniform Price Auction, while keeping other aspects of immigration policy unchanged. With my estimated demand curve and the current annual quantity of 50,000 residence permits issued, the equilibrium price would be between $79,000 and $96,000, and additional annual revenues would be between $3.86 billion and $4.73 billion.
http://people.clemson.edu/~bruns/ImmigrationDemand.pdf
Wow, that’s a lot less than I would have thought. Can you give a quick explanation of why the number is so low?
My guess: high-skilled workers can get in through other visas. The low-skilled ones with lower ability to pay are relegated to the lottery.
Thank you, libert.
It suggests there are not a lot of high-skill immigrants trying to get in but being thwarted by our lousy system.
That isn’t what I expected. To be clear, I am assuming here that these results are relatively robust. I have not investigated that.
The big pool of high-skilled immigrants thwarted by our current system is Indian and Chinese grad students who are subject to per-country restrictions for EB-2 visas after they finish their programs.
Well, only 40,000 high-skilled people per year who also have $100,000 they want to spend to get to the U.S.
But $100,000 is a token sum for a skilled person, even at the start of their career. Grad school costs more than that and other people pay for it for you.
I didn’t read all of Bruns’ paper, but presumably the Indian and Chinese grad students are accounted for in there.
Frankly, the number is so small that I have a hard time believing it. Economists are generally strongly pro-immigration. There’s no way they’d be if they really thought we were talking about $4B in benefits _before_ consideration of costs.
“Rational immigration policy” is just a conservative form of socialism. It quite literally means letting the government have control of the means of production.
as a thought experiment: if ever there is a dispute as to whom to let in (haitian vs PhD) the “let in” camp has the over-ride over the “don’t let in” camp PROVIDED the immigrant will be the next door neighbour of the “let in” for the next 3 years. That would sort things out in no time. Put your revealed preference where your mouth is.
I like the casual assumption that any right-thinking person would naturally recoil in utter horror at the idea of a Haitian moving onto the block. There goes the neighborhood, right?
it’s not a casual assumption at all. It forces all parties (“let them in” and “keep them out”) to bid at maximum price
What’s the “maximum price” for the “keep them out” guy? I guess you could say if you want to keep them out you have to pay enough money to maintain the would-be immigrant at a US-level standard of living for the next three years. Depending on the PPP difference between the two countries it might not be a bad deal. But we are talking about a lot of immigrants.
Literacy rate in Haiti is 55%; I can see lots of better choices as my neighbor than a random draw from that pool. What’s wrong with that?
Maybe it’s that I have unusually thick skin, but I’m having trouble figuring out how having a single illiterate neighbor is going to meaningfully affect my life in any way.
And presumably he’s at least paying rent. It’s not like I’m volunteering to let them build an entire housing project in my back yard.
It’s not a question of whether it’s Ok to have him; it’s whether you’d rather have him or, say, Tyler Cowen, given the choice.
PS. Where’s he going to pay this rent from BTW?
I don’t know about this particular example, but neighbors matter a lot. One bad neighbor can cause serious problems. I’ve had that experience both in an apartment complex and, to a lesser extent, as a single-family homeowner.
I dunno. How does anyone pay rent? Seems to me most of the Haitans around here drive cabs. (Maybe they aren’t Haitans; they may be Senegalese or Nigerian. They’re very dark and speak French.)
Finch, I agree it’s quite another thing to share a *building,* much less a wall, with someone, as opposed to just a street.
Right. Cold facts, nothing more.
Wouldn’t a non-random system (i.e. based on “merit”) constitute the dread “picking of winners and losers”?
Don’t we do that constantly? Does your company hire employees at random? Did you pick a college at random? unless I have really terrible luck at picking, a pediatrician is a winner and a only-studied-till-fourth-grade, non-English speaker is a loser. What’s dreadful about that?
No. We don’t have a choice in the matter, the government has to pick winners and losers in immigration. Should it pick randomly, or based on some rational basis.
I’m not sure the system favoured by Alex IS as rational as people claim.
Alex, your article practically reads as an anti-immigration piece, attempting to create a wedge issue for immigration supporters to disagree about. (i.e. “You all support gay marriage, but let’s talk about polygamy and beastiality.” , “You all support increased immigration, but let’s talk about tradeoffs between skilled vs. unskilled immigration.”)
Trading off skilled for unskilled immigration is by no means obvious, as this comments section illustrates. Seriously, do you think Americans universally perceive recruiting engineers to be more important than uniting families?
It’d take an enormous amount of luck to try to get a family united via a diversity lottery.
“At a minimum, we should shift from family-based immigration to work-based immigration.”
Rahul, does this sentence not mean what it seems to mean?
Let’s run a poll. I estimate 80% at least favor high-skill over being someone’s brother or aunt or something.
Not me
Congratulations
This works better when you don’t spend 3 months building your credentials as a contrarian troll.
It’s been three months eh? Well see you tomorrow.
“Seriously, do you think Americans universally perceive recruiting engineers to be more important than uniting families?”
Or another way of phrasing it, meritocracy or nepotism, which do you prefer?
JWatts, this is precisely my point. By accepting the absurd premise that increasing skilled immigration must be offset by unskilled immigration, you’ve just referred to unskilled immigration as nepotism (!), when I suspect that you, like most economically-minded folks actually would approve of higher rates of unskilled immigration.
I think Alex believes the following:
1) Skilled immigration is good.
2) Unskilled immigration is good.
3) Skilled immigration is better than unskilled immigration.
Personally, I agree with all three. But were I writing for the Atlantic, I would never thinking of even mentioning 3, let alone framing an entire piece around it. Point 3 is the one that Atlantic readers will disagree over (as will the readers of this blog, apparently), and it’s entirely unnecessary to support the other two points. It’s a wedge issue that only distracts from the overall objective of increasing immigration, just like bigamy with gay marriage. The way the article’s written, I suspect most liberal readers will quickly dismiss the author as a heartless and clueless libertarian, and ultimately become less sympathetic to economists’ pleas for immigration reform.
Bingo!
But only because Alex IS a Heartless and Clueless libertarian (redundant I know).
Awarding a benefit on the basis of blood relation is nepotism. It has nothing to do with skill.
But almost every country has immigration based on blood relations. I don’t see why say Engineers or whatever should get preference. Just force the employers to hire the people already in the country. Why should government policy be crafted to hurt workers because employers want to hire engineers at minimum wage.
It isn’t nepotism if you aren’t supposed to be selecting on the basis of skill. This would be akin to shrieking about ageism at a youth beauty pageant. In some situations being a family member is meritworthy. In such situations, the concept simply does not apply.
Apparently bringing a bunch of less-educated poor people into a first-world economy is a bad idea if it’s in Korea. Of course, all those people have only been schooled until at least 16, so it’s not exactly analogous to the flow of PhD’s over the Mexican border.
That’s a different situation entirely.
It is not a no-brainer: This is a country that permits losers to become winners. Just think of the Jamestown trash, and much later, my family! Conversely, winners at home could become losers here. No, I haven’t heard of any of these either; they are not reported in the press.
Fellow immigrants, let’s not be smug.
No, our country has been one of free markets, and that allowed most to prosper. That does not mean ex ante losers will prosper more. And, oh yeah, we are destroying that free markets thing. Sweet sentiments though.
“Prosper more”? What, is this a tournament, with a handicap for the previously successful? Nothing to do with efficiency.
I’m studying in the U.S. on a J-1 visa, for a Ph.D at MIT in Applied Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy. (The reason I am on a J-1 and not an F-1 is because J-2 spouses are allowed to seek employment; F-2 spouses must simply sit on their hands for the duration of their partner’s education… which wasn’t really an option for me.)
I must leave the U.S. when done my studies and live in Canada (my home country) for at least two years before being eligible for any more U.S. visas (such as H-1B) or permanent residency. The one way around this that I know of is to work for a while on a series of TN visas (available only to Canadians), and then eventually get an exemption from the J-1 home residency requirement, which requires a letter of support from someone very high up. A professor here got this exemption only with a letter of support from the Under Secretary of Energy for Science (under G.W. Bush). So that’s not exactly easy either.
You’ve got my vote over the hypothetical Haitian.
There are a handful of different visas you could try to get. Most of them aren’t easy, and the employment based ones are harder than ever ATM. Still, American employers are violating the hell out of the spirit of the H1B law and managing to hire foreigners with identical qualifications to Americans, so it’s not impossible.
Careless: I’m literally not eligible for any of those visas until I complete the 2-year home residency requirement, because of my J-1 status. The only visa that one can get prior to completing the home residency is the TN (or another J or F, which are for school, not employment).
Damn, this sounds too complicated.
I am so lucky to be European where I can move between 27 countries without any visa at all. I just moved from the UK to Malta (I am German) – http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/leaving-london-moving-to-malta/ – and I needed no visa, no paperwork, no work permit, nothing.
I am not a PhD student yet, I am currently studying for an MA in Philosophy and a BSc in Development & Economics, but I don’t see why I would fill out paperwork for a year or so to come to the US, if I can move between London, Madrid, Rome, Stockholm, Prague without any paperwork.
Come to Europe and have the time of your life!
This policy is far from a no-brainer. As I understand the post, it argues for a bias towards admitting potential immigrants with “extraordinary ability.” But since it is politically infeasible that the total number of admittees will be greatly increased, any increased admission of high-ability immigrants must at some point come from a decrease in the number of other immigrants.
Certainly, it would be a benefit to the United States to continue to attract and admit more immigrants with extraordinary ability. But (putting aside the subjectivity and bias inherent in the measurement of such ability), this cannot be and should not be the only set of criteria for admission. The U.S. has historically been for many people a “shining city on a hill” that represents the potential for a better life for them and their progeny, irrespective of their current lot. It has been an aspiration and an ideal.
Removing from consideration those who would immigrate on this basis undermines the basis of this ideal, what America is and what it has always been. It proclaims that there are now admission standards for America, and that most people will not be able to meet them. “Tired, huddled masses” need no longer apply. And practically, it will serve to lessen our reputation in the rest of the world, as those who might ordinarily hold America in great esteem are persuaded otherwise as a result of the implicit judgment passed on them. “America – Land of the Free” is a much more inspiring call than “America – Most People Need Not Apply”.
“America – The Lucky Over The Good”
But the “Good” are also lucky – I mean they got to be “Good” through luck.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Does anybody remember this?
I recognize it. It was written when there were no civil rights laws or welfare for immigrants and their patrons to socialize the costs of mass, transnational movements of people. It was questionable policy then, and it is downright socially destructive policy now.
Also, it was written by an ethnic nationalist who argued for a Jewish state to be located in Palestine.
You go girl! Tear it down! Let freedom ring!
That would be a poem written by Uncle Sam and later entered into the Constitution, right?
Ah yes, it swells my heart to think of all those Haitian refugees sailing past Liberty in the late 19th century.
Alex,
We have had this debate in Australia on and off for two decades.
However, what few economists consider is the returns to education for locals. If you flood the market for particular skills with immigrants, you effectively decrease the returns to education for locals to gain those skills.
Remember, skills are not finite. People can learn the skills that are in demand. What you are saying is that the best policy is to make is LESS attractive for Americans to educate themselves.
And in many cases, importing skilled labour is simply taking away the productive benefits they could provide to their home country, which may very well have subsidised that persons education.
The best immigration is very low skilled. Since locals are usually in a better position to gain tertiary education, they gain a relative advantage in the labour market.
The Australian situation is different, since tertiary education is available to anyone via an interest free loan from government that is collected out of an incrementally higher individual income tax rate. But the principle is the same. If locals have better access to education, then they are advantaged by having low skilled workers.
Would you prefer to import slaves or masters?
My take on clarifying the skilled labour immigration debate is here -
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2011/12/skills-shortage-myths/
Excellent point which Alex ignores completely. There’s a glut of STEM graduates why should they have to suffer again with increased competition from immigrants. At least with a lottery system maybe all occupations can suffer competition more equally.
There is no glut of STEM graduates, they have lower than average unemployment rates.
But that’s meaningless. Unless you can give me a detailed break down how do I know these STEM graduates aren’t manning the counter at McDonald’s. That counts as employed too.
And what evidence have you offered that they are indeed manning the counter at McDonalds?
Yeah that’s what I’m asking for. I just can’t take some employment statistic like that. Arts degrees look decent enough on paper too until you realize most Arts grads are bagging groceries or pouring coffee. I suspect the same is true for many Science degrees so I won’t accept some general employment statistic.
Once someone immigrates, they are a local. The question is, do you want smart, hard working people in your country? Or other types of people?
But you’re specifically targeting certain fields. It’s already tough to get a job in STEM and now these graduates have to face immigration specifically targeted at them because some employers complain that they have to pay good wages for STEM people and hence “can’t find anyone qualified”.
Progressive desire for radical egalitarianism trumps common sense, example # 1347883399999….
I don’t understand why there should be any limit at all on immigrants with “extraordinary ability.” Any limit, 40,000 or 400,000, is purely arbitrary. I’d admit as many as want to come, and a lot of others too. This is the United States, after all.
But there shouldn’t be a limit on any immigration. I’m for allowing immigration but I don’t think there should be special limits giving certain professions an advantage.
CBBB possibly the reason you can’t find employment is your attitude. Seriously, you post in nearly every MR thread about how a STEM degree is practically useless. From your posts, you sound like some of the losers from my high school for whom it’s always somebody else’s fault that they can’t hold a job… lousy bosses, lousy coworkers, unfair rules… never recognizing the common denominator
Hey Hey I don’t post about STEM in EVERY thread. Yeah the common denominator is I have a STEM degree and sorry pal we can’t all be MIT doctoral program material.
But Tyler and Alex want to keep posting about how more STEM workers are the solution to everything, it’s nonsense.
You just did.
Yeah I don’t mean to sound arrogant, like “oh all of my MIT classmates have no trouble finding work… why do you?”, but I went to Queen’s for undergrad and all the engineering grads I know from there are doing fine, too. And McGill, U of T, UBC are all considered better schools than Queen’s.
I’ve said before that Engineering is a degree with decent prospects but Science and Math have horrible prospects and I don’t see why these fields need to be targeted for increased competition from immigration when there’s already a glut. Even Engineering I doubt there’s an critical shortage, the targeted immigration is a way to push down wages for certain people.
There is no doubt- it’s documented fact that the H1-B visa system is a very dodgy game played with the goal of driving down wages.
Of course, whether the wage differential for a native STEM worker over a checkout operator is reasonable is another argument, but wouldn’t it be smarter to increase the supply of workers in the STEM field by reducing the money wasted on unused arts degrees?
So we can have more unused Science degrees….?
Athletes? What do they bring? Narcissistic selfishness? Whee!
Alex just threw that in there to pretend like this wasn’t just the same rehased STEM argument.
Why don’t we just give all prospective immigrants an IQ test and admit no one under 115? I’m not so concerned about skills, but whatever it is that IQ tests measure, I’d prefer our immigrants to have more of it.
Hannibal Lecter had a high IQ.
If we favor scientists, artists, educators, business people and athletes (athletes?!) on the presumption they will service our needs better than the unskilled (plumbers?) then let us ensure that they do so by indenturing them for a period of time, say six years. Such service would be a trifle given the enormity of the gift given and it would ensure that the favor given is both appreciated and repaid. Six years is the time we ask our own young people to serve in our military.
This is more honest, a system of institutional slavery is much closer to what Tyler and Alex have in time- of course they never put it so honestly.
It should probably be pointed out that, given the relative numbers of “extraordinary” people to “ordinary” in the general population outside the US, our current law is already enriching our immegration population for “extraordinary” people. In addition, nearly 4 million children are born in the US each year and i doubt that anywhere near 40% qualify as extraordinary. There is only so much you can do to attract talent through such a limited channel.
This is an excellent point. Always check the denominators.
This is probably true to some extent- however, many of the people on family-reunification visas will have “extraordinary” abilities of their own. Meanwhile, the diversity visa program has brought in over ten thousand people from countries even the State Department lists as terror sponsors. Then there are the countries that aren’t listed, like our new moderate democratic friend Egypt, which gave the US the LA El Al shooter via the diversity visa program.
setting aside about 40,000 visas for people of extraordinary ability
Bleh. 99.9% of those “people of extraordinary abilities” are not extraordinary by any stretch of imagination. Anything even remotely middling would do – and lawyers know this very well. I know that first hand.
THE NEW, NEW COLOSSUS
Like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Elites. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her entrepreneurial eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your bright, your rich,
Your brilliant minds yearning to earn money,
The privileged innovators of your technology sector.
Send these, the superior, fortune-favored to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The 40k quota for EB1 never fills anyway, and that is where the extraordinary ability visas come in as. The EB-2s are only backlogged for india. Where you see thelimits come in is for EB-3: A college graduate with some experience but no madters. Those wait for years until they get a green card: They typically spend 8 years or more as temporary workers, or do not come in at all. The typical path is H1-B, then application for a green card in year 2or3, and then a long wait for a visa number, using a provision that lets applicants for adjustment of status renew them past the regular term limits.
I have read estimates of well over a million applicants waiting
Bruns’ paper suggests a higher premium might exist for a few years while the backlog is burned through, but says that it’s a well that is replenished at a much lower rate. So if we did something like offer visas for cash, we’d get a lot initially, but then it would dry up.
Why not open both doors and take all the prizes?
And I never even won in the Green Card lottery.
I have now given up and emigrated to Malta instead: http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/leaving-london-moving-to-malta/
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