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Comment by portaouflop | Hacker News Reader

So the doors are closed for legal immigrants - by the very definition people who are allowed to immigrate? Or do you mean that there is less immigration to the US in general? Or that only the illegal uneducated are „allowed“ to immigrate?

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Per https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/2023_0818_pl... (table 1, "PERSONS OBTAINING LAWFUL PERMANENT RESIDENT STATUS: FISCAL YEARS 1820 TO 2022"), legal immigration seems to have stayed pretty steady since the 90s. Compare to the 1900s though when the same amount became residents (per capita a much higher amount)...

Lots of interesting stats in there actually - like the fact that "EXPULSIONS AND NONCITIZEN APPREHENSIONS" has actually doubled the record high in the last 2 years of data...

Anecdotal evidence of course but I’ve had coworkers who get masters degrees because that somehow helps their chances of getting permanent status or something similar.

Is it possible that it’s more and more competitive as there are more people who are trying to immigrate?

If the number of legal immigrants has remained steady within a given time period, but the number of illegal immigrants has increased within the same time period, we can infer that the total number of prospective immigrants has also increased; This inference paired with the first fact presented can allow us to safely assume that competition for legal immigration has in fact increased.

I think the OP means there’s now fewer opportunities for people to legally migrate to the USA.

I don’t have data, so I don’t know if that’s true though.

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