Quote:
Originally Posted by sterlingice
Hah! We do try to encourage it - it's what having the best university system in the world does. But we're trying hard to dismantle that. And, if you're the "best and the brightest", why would you come work in the US when, no matter how good of an upper middle class lifestyle you have, you're always one medical issue away from being bankrupt? You can go anywhere else in the "Western world" and have a more moderated variance on how successful/unsuccessful you can be (if you're the best and brightest, you know the narrative about "come to America and become a millionaire" is just that - a narrative) and not risk losing it all on a stupid health roll of the dice.
SI
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IMO not even close, so much more we could do. Yes, we are getting a ton of students in Higher Ed but we also need the professionals (e.g. medical doctors from India, nurses from Philippines, PhDs from China etc.).
The H1-B process is very arduous, complex and there are limited quotas. I'm thinking, if you qualify (e.g. let's just say people with Masters/PhD, in STEM, pass a security background check etc.) you get into the fast line for a green card/naturalization.
(BTW- an additional "want" stipulation is you give up citizenship of birth country. Another discussion from a while ago re: dual citizenships).
Healthcare is obviously a major issue but don't think immigrants care too much about that initially.
Re: immigrating to other western countries. Sure they can if they are the best and brightest. My point is to make it much easier for them to come here and immigrate than to other western countries. Admittedly, western countries' best and brightest probably won't come here to the US as much as other best and brightest from developing, third world countries, and Asian countries (think of all the knowledge capital we can get from HK, Taiwan as an example). That's where the US competitive advantage is.
This is why I'm all for moving towards merit-based immigration vs family-based immigration. And even though Miller is championing merit-based, I don't view this as inherently racist (although per Brian's point there is some component of it in the decision making). Instantly help our competitiveness, hurt other countries' competitiveness (in the long term), declining birth rate, SS contributions etc.