It seems pretty easy to me: base immigration on potential income (there are various ways to establish that, which could include but absolutely should not be limited to having particular types of college degree - let's not empower that beast any further). Stay by demonstrating continuing income. And when you've proven you're a positive contributor, you're encouraged to stay.
As an aside, nobody believes that people "take up jobs". They may say it as a slogan but they don't act like they believe it. How do I know? Because people who want jobs move to cities. If anyone actually believed that people "take up jobs" they would move out of cities, where there's lots of competition for jobs, to the country, where there isn't. In fact, people do the opposite. Of course, they do that because the jobs are in the city, not the country. The jobs are in the city because that's where the people are. People create jobs. So, yes, there's more competition in the city but it's still better to look for work there. And it's not just city vs country: people tend to move to bigger cities vs smaller ones. When you want a job you look for places where there are MORE people to compete for the jobs. And that tells us you don't actually believe that people "take up jobs".
Now, maybe you tell yourself that you could get a high-paying job because you're highly-qualified, but all these other highly-qualified people compete for the jobs you want and put downward pressure on your wages. If you believed that, you'd look for work in places where there are few highly-qualified people. And yet, that's not what people do. And it's the same basic thing: more highly-qualified people means more competition for each job, but the greater number of opportunities those same people create, more than makes up for it. Everyone knows this, if you watch their behavior.
Bryan, I’m in line with your position under one condition:
- Let’s stop confusing temporary with permanent migration!
We can and should let many more people come in the US than today and take up jobs. However it should only be done…
1. For countries that cooperate in taking in deported citizens back (see: Pakistan for an example of country that actively hinders deportation efforts)
2. Not allow any form of permanent immigration or even temporary family immigration for ~90% of immigrants. You come in, you work, you make money, you go home. Your spouse and kids cannot come.
3. Temporary immigrants should be completely excluded from all welfare systems and not even participate in Social Security for example. Let their home countries figure this out, not the U.S.
Once that’s done… welcome in! You’ve talked very positively about the system in UAE: so let’s copy *all* of it, not just the “welcome people in to work* part.
I'm curious about your thinking here. If people come here, work, make money and go home, they will go home and spend the money they earned at home. Wouldn't we prefer if they spent it here? (For example, many countries welcome retirees - so that they will spend money in the host country that they spent a lifetime earning somewhere else. This plan would do the exact opposite.)
Also, people who have high potential value to our economy are not going to plan to spend any significant portion of their careers here, knowing that their institutional knowledge, professional relationships, friendships and other social connections, and even contributions to retirement will all be thrown out the window at the end of the visa period. High-economic-value people have other options.
But maybe my "high-economic-value people" are your other ~10% of immigrants.
Stepping back to look at the overall design of this approach, we would wind up with a system that supposedly sends everyone home but the people who would actually leave (or, mostly, not even come in the first place) would be the ones we'd actually like to stay. Meanwhile, those who have the fewest options back home (or anywhere else) would do what they're already doing, and stay.
So I don't think that another version of "shut down legal immigration" would get us anywhere.
1. Because of Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and costs of schooling, aka "the welfare state". Just the economics of the welfare state alone mean that immigrants in the bottom ~90% of the income distribution are going to be a net-loss for the country. Therefore they should not be allowed to stay permanently and instead asked to leave at the end of their contract.
2. Because of cultural reasons: the bottom 90% often bring in unpleasant foreign cultural norms and overall decrease the quality of life for locals. If they're not allowed to stay permanently this won't be a problem. Meanwhile the upper 10% are usually smart enough and adaptable enough to quickly assimilate to local upper-class norms and won't cause much of a backlash.
> Stepping back to look at the overall design of this approach, we would wind up with a system that supposedly sends everyone home
The upper 10% would be allowed to stay as the equation changes at that point. That's how it (approximately) works in the UAE, Singapore and Saudi Arabia. The upper 10% will have no reason not to come, while the bottom 90% is fungible and we don't really care if X% choose not to come because of this new policy, as we only really need ~20-30 million willing temporary immigrants. We literally couldn't care less if "only" 500 million rather than 3 billion bottom-90% workers want to come.
> Meanwhile, those who have the fewest options back home (or anywhere else) would do what they're already doing, and stay.
Once employers have easy access to fully legal *temporary* migrants at the snap of a finger, we could *drastically* ramp up the enforcement of the law that's already on the books where employers of illegal labor get huge penalties and even jail time for non-compliance. Right now enforcing it is not realistic due to how much business depends on illegal labor, but once that problem is resolved the Feds would need to prosecute maybe 50 employers before everyone refuses to ever hire an illegal worker again. At that point the vast majority of illegal immigrants will leave the country - some will possibly come back on a legal visa but without bringing in family.
It seems pretty easy to me: base immigration on potential income (there are various ways to establish that, which could include but absolutely should not be limited to having particular types of college degree - let's not empower that beast any further). Stay by demonstrating continuing income. And when you've proven you're a positive contributor, you're encouraged to stay.
As an aside, nobody believes that people "take up jobs". They may say it as a slogan but they don't act like they believe it. How do I know? Because people who want jobs move to cities. If anyone actually believed that people "take up jobs" they would move out of cities, where there's lots of competition for jobs, to the country, where there isn't. In fact, people do the opposite. Of course, they do that because the jobs are in the city, not the country. The jobs are in the city because that's where the people are. People create jobs. So, yes, there's more competition in the city but it's still better to look for work there. And it's not just city vs country: people tend to move to bigger cities vs smaller ones. When you want a job you look for places where there are MORE people to compete for the jobs. And that tells us you don't actually believe that people "take up jobs".
Now, maybe you tell yourself that you could get a high-paying job because you're highly-qualified, but all these other highly-qualified people compete for the jobs you want and put downward pressure on your wages. If you believed that, you'd look for work in places where there are few highly-qualified people. And yet, that's not what people do. And it's the same basic thing: more highly-qualified people means more competition for each job, but the greater number of opportunities those same people create, more than makes up for it. Everyone knows this, if you watch their behavior.
People don't "take up jobs". People create jobs.
Bryan, I’m in line with your position under one condition:
- Let’s stop confusing temporary with permanent migration!
We can and should let many more people come in the US than today and take up jobs. However it should only be done…
1. For countries that cooperate in taking in deported citizens back (see: Pakistan for an example of country that actively hinders deportation efforts)
2. Not allow any form of permanent immigration or even temporary family immigration for ~90% of immigrants. You come in, you work, you make money, you go home. Your spouse and kids cannot come.
3. Temporary immigrants should be completely excluded from all welfare systems and not even participate in Social Security for example. Let their home countries figure this out, not the U.S.
Once that’s done… welcome in! You’ve talked very positively about the system in UAE: so let’s copy *all* of it, not just the “welcome people in to work* part.
I'm curious about your thinking here. If people come here, work, make money and go home, they will go home and spend the money they earned at home. Wouldn't we prefer if they spent it here? (For example, many countries welcome retirees - so that they will spend money in the host country that they spent a lifetime earning somewhere else. This plan would do the exact opposite.)
Also, people who have high potential value to our economy are not going to plan to spend any significant portion of their careers here, knowing that their institutional knowledge, professional relationships, friendships and other social connections, and even contributions to retirement will all be thrown out the window at the end of the visa period. High-economic-value people have other options.
But maybe my "high-economic-value people" are your other ~10% of immigrants.
Stepping back to look at the overall design of this approach, we would wind up with a system that supposedly sends everyone home but the people who would actually leave (or, mostly, not even come in the first place) would be the ones we'd actually like to stay. Meanwhile, those who have the fewest options back home (or anywhere else) would do what they're already doing, and stay.
So I don't think that another version of "shut down legal immigration" would get us anywhere.
But I may be missing your point.
1. Because of Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and costs of schooling, aka "the welfare state". Just the economics of the welfare state alone mean that immigrants in the bottom ~90% of the income distribution are going to be a net-loss for the country. Therefore they should not be allowed to stay permanently and instead asked to leave at the end of their contract.
2. Because of cultural reasons: the bottom 90% often bring in unpleasant foreign cultural norms and overall decrease the quality of life for locals. If they're not allowed to stay permanently this won't be a problem. Meanwhile the upper 10% are usually smart enough and adaptable enough to quickly assimilate to local upper-class norms and won't cause much of a backlash.
> Stepping back to look at the overall design of this approach, we would wind up with a system that supposedly sends everyone home
The upper 10% would be allowed to stay as the equation changes at that point. That's how it (approximately) works in the UAE, Singapore and Saudi Arabia. The upper 10% will have no reason not to come, while the bottom 90% is fungible and we don't really care if X% choose not to come because of this new policy, as we only really need ~20-30 million willing temporary immigrants. We literally couldn't care less if "only" 500 million rather than 3 billion bottom-90% workers want to come.
> Meanwhile, those who have the fewest options back home (or anywhere else) would do what they're already doing, and stay.
Once employers have easy access to fully legal *temporary* migrants at the snap of a finger, we could *drastically* ramp up the enforcement of the law that's already on the books where employers of illegal labor get huge penalties and even jail time for non-compliance. Right now enforcing it is not realistic due to how much business depends on illegal labor, but once that problem is resolved the Feds would need to prosecute maybe 50 employers before everyone refuses to ever hire an illegal worker again. At that point the vast majority of illegal immigrants will leave the country - some will possibly come back on a legal visa but without bringing in family.