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Comment by westwing | Hacker News Reader

The idea that immigration is declining due to social and political issues lacks perspective.

Despite all the rhetoric, the US is high among the most equitable, least racist, safest and politically free countries in the world.

If immigration regulation were relaxed, there would be a flood of well-educated people from China, India and many other nations.

On the other hand, immigrants from western Europe don't have much to gain from moving the the US. They basically would be trading higher salaries for higher expenses.

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I can tell you as a matter of fact that many immigrants, even outside of Western Europe, no longer see as much of an incentive to emigrate, and when they do the US is no longer the undisputed #1 place to go. I would imagine this is certainly even more the case in China and India, where development is even faster, and you can even notice immigrants leaving the US.

This isn't really a concern when at the same time the people wishing to immigrate vastly outnumber the people accepted for immigration, as evidenced by the yearly limit for most visas being reached within days.

The vast majority of people that want to immigrate to the US are not going to contribute to innovation, and those that do are accepted.

Why did you move the goalpost towards "innovation"? If you're on an H1B visa, you're probably contributing to some company attempting to be innovative. If not, who cares? The economy doesn't run on innovation alone.

The thesis of the article is that the US economy's "Great Stagnation" in productivity is due to a lack of innovation. There are no goalposts being moved.

Contributing to a company attempting to be innovative doesn't mean that you are being innovative, and so the degree at which you are capable of innovation doesn't matter very much. As for people being recruited specifically for innovation, there is essentially no limit in their immigration.

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