Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible: US Legal Immigration Rules Explained | Hacker News Reader

Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible: US Legal Immigration Rules Explained

cato.org

48 pointszerr112 comments

Conclusion: "The administration should loosen all the restrictions that it has imposed above and beyond what Congress has required, and Congress should overhaul the system to open legal immigration for any person willing to work to contribute to the success of the United States."

In other words, we should "promptly admit a majority of the 158 million who told Gallup that they would want to come," according to the 2018 survey cited.

Left out of the article is an explanation for why the US would be better off it that were to happen.

The Cato institute has actually written a lot of stuff about why they believe that admitting in more immigrants would be beneficial to the US.

A quick search came up with this [1], but they've written a lot more.

You don't have to agree with them, but I'm just saying that they actually have done a fair bit of work in this field and they have given some amount of justification to why they hold these views.

[1] https://www.cato.org/testimony/unlocking-americas-potential-...

All immigration is GDP additive and increases the market for goods and tax income for governments. It offsets low birth rates. If there is a labor shortage it will reduce inflation.

Of course there many considerations but generally it's a good thing.

It's a good thing for those classes of people you just mentioned (governments, business owners). For everyone else it's just increased competition.

I'm pretty sure that's a pretty reductive take, and if you believe that then you should be ok with decreasing birth rates as well? Every baby born today could be competition for you or your kids in ~16-30 years.

I'll bite. Quality of life in terms of natural resources available only goes down with more people. I'd be much happier with maybe 25% of current population level.

That's fair enough, but it would require a pretty radical restructure of our economy to do that. Most of our economy sort of depends on a growing population; this has been an issue with Japan (and their slowly-shrinking and aging population) for quite awhile.

Eventually, of course, we will all have to have a neutral or negative population growth rate, but I have to believe that there's an advantage to being the last country with a growing population, though I don't have data to back that up off the top of my head.

Certainly on all counts there. And enough people believe explicitly in demographic competition to make fair leveling and reduction a problem. But this is what leads to long-term sustainability.

Your comment is a common anti-immigrant trope: we're full/out of water/out of land/out of X!

Where there are shortages why should the solutions be focused on restricting immigration? Should people having children also be penalized?

I didn't say penalized. I think the same is true for everyone worldwide. We're not out of anything. Plenty of room to cram more in. You don't need high standards for clean water, you can tolerate some sewage and dissolved heavy metals. You don't need more than a 10x15x7-ft box to live in with a bathroom at the end of the hall. You definitely never need to have solitude anywhere for your enjoyment, you can be in a crowd of thousands whenever you are awake. You'll live.

I'd live too, but I'd curse the prior generations that left it this way. But we're not far evolved from chimpanzees and we will grow until we collapse.

> I'd live too, but I'd curse the prior generations that left it this way. But we're not far evolved from chimpanzees and we will grow until we collapse.

That's not really what the UN predicts [1]. It looks like it'll peak at a bit shy of 11 billion.

Population growth rates have been going down for awhile.

https://www.un.org/en/UN-projects-world-population-to-peak-w...

Which is mostly a product of cratering birth rates as countries get richer and more developed. I’d argue that’s a sign that we are in the process of collapse. I think we certainly will if 8 or 11 billion people reach the standard of living of the US, just by the ecological impact.

This is just hysterical nonsense. As the population has grown so have standards of living for those in advanced and developed economies. Countries that go downhill do so for reasons separate from population growth.

Much like the "peak oil" hysteria of the 90's your claims require that society as a whole doesn't do anything to solve problems, or adapt to changing circumstances.

If population growth really was the problem, then reproduction would be discouraged. But problems of pollution and resource use can be solved by changing policy and behavior. We can become much cleaner and more efficient without forgoing the very real benefits of population growth.

Trying to limit birth rates is a tragedy of the commons (no individual in your community is incentivized to limit themselves), while trying to limit immigration is a competition between two commons (and thus cooperative within your community).

The business owners don’t get rich from the reduced wages, the consumers do.

Only if the consumers are independently wealthy. Ask any business owner if they will make more money with reducing their workforce wages.

That was a solid chuckle, thank you

Hardly, they're also customers and employers. Also governments are the people, they spend taxes for their benefit.

Competition in the context of capitalism is considered a feature and not a bug

Given the great benefits, I wonder why there is no country on Earth that has open immigration.

> In other words, we should "promptly admit a majority of the 158 million who told Gallup that they would want to come," according to the 2018 survey.

Seems like an alarmist and selective pull.

There's a difference between having a more broadly viable path for legal immigration and instantly admitting anyone who filled out a survey. The context was just making a comparison to frame a previously established inaccurate comparison with other countries, by hypothetically inviting everyone.

> If all 32 million immigrants who attempted the U.S. process in 2018 were added to the U.S. population, it would only bring the immigrant share of the U.S. population to 22 percent—in line with Canada (21 percent). The only way to rival countries like New Zealand (28 percent), Switzerland (29 percent), and Australia (30 percent) would be to promptly admit a majority of the 158 million who told Gallup that they would want to come. On a more reasonable time horizon for natural inflows that accounted for the population growth of U.S.-born Americans, that scale would also be insufficient.

We don't ask of every baby that is being born in the US how they will make the country better. But if given the option to bring in a fully grown adult, who already saves us the cost of an education, is of prime working age, and wants to be in this country, we suddenly care?

When every US citizen who wants a job in the US has one, one they can live off of with a living wage, sure, it’s up for a conversation (when legitimate labor shortages exist vs faux shortages leveraged as labor cost controls).

Why am I going to support immigration that drives down wages for capital returns? Because it makes “the country” more wealthy by making a select few wealthier? Ineffective policy imho. I am never going to be super wealthy, so why would I advocate for such policy? I will always be closer to a minimum wage worker. Some may call the rhetoric “class consciousness”; I think it’s simply being macro economically rational.

By that logic we should restrict the number of children being born. But the growth of our country from a population of 50 million to 300 million did not result in a job loss of 250 million jobs.

If anything, immigrants create many more jobs than they take. The deadweight to an economy is it's non-working population (retirees, children) so an influx of young, working families increases wages overall for natives.

I mean, you've just invented eugenics. Restrict the number of children being born that would not help the economy out. The government did do this once upon a time, but there are tradeoffs like riots you have to take into account. The difference between immigrants and babies is the immigrants can't riot within the US, so the US has no need to cater to their desires. However, immigrants that create more jobs than they take, or raise wages and innovation do have a pretty easy time immigrating to the US (e.g. investor and o1/e1 visas).

> By that logic we should restrict the number of children being born.

I disagree with this assertion. Controlling immigration is reasonable and proper when a nation state has boundaries, citizens vs non citizens, and an economic system to balance. Forcing people who want children to not have children is neither reasonable nor proper. With that said, we are in luck: the fertility rate is rapidly declining in almost every country [1], so this is not a problem we face. The future faces a worker shortage as the world ages rapidly, but we still must solve for today.

> But the growth of our country from a population of 50 million to 300 million did not result in a job loss of 250 million jobs.

To look at "jobs" in a vacuum is myopic. Are they good jobs? Do people need two or three jobs to survive? If not, we do not have enough good jobs, just jobs. We should be measuring someone's resulting quality of life from their economic activity, not the job(s). As I mentioned previously, if you cannot find domestic labor to perform a job at a market rate living wage, then perhaps immigration should be considered. We are at full employment and workers are still struggling to make ends meet. This does not call for more immigration; this calls for mechanisms to more rapidly push wages up.

Take construction jobs for example. At any time, there are about ~300k-400k construction jobs that are going unfilled due to lack of labor. Would those jobs be filled if domestic workers were trained and wages pushed up? Or would builders prefer to hire immigrants to do the work at wages on offer [2] [3]? The evidence shows the latter. There is a market clearing price for every job to be filled.

TLDR Maximize economic success for citizen workers, and then turn the knob on immigration accordingly.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[2] https://limos.engin.umich.edu/deitabase/2024/05/28/undocumen...

[3] https://eyeonhousing.org/2024/03/states-and-construction-tra...

Interesting how legitster's reductio ad absurdum argument got missed here. They're using the birth rate comparison not to actually advocate for birth restrictions, but to expose a flaw in the original economic reasoning.

Legitser is pointing out that every person you add to the population is not just a supplier, but also a customer. They create demand for goods and services even as they help produce them. This makes job creation/job filling calculations a bit more complicated than straight linear/zero sum behavior.

Some quick back of envelope maths suggests job growth might even outpace population growth. I suppose it would have to, else -as legitser points out- the economy would have imploded long ago.

And... we haven't even gotten around to the actual figure that matters: Net migration - People Emigrate too!

Why do you focus on number of jobs vs poor economic outcomes current state across the economy for your median worker? Why do we care if immigration creates jobs from consumption if the jobs created (from said immigration) are going to be low quality, economically unfavorable (to the worker) jobs?

“Think of the jobs!” arguments in this thread are optimizing for economic activity. I am arguing for workers to have better lives through better jobs, not more jobs. To understand this is to also better understand the shift to far right populism in the developed world as it relates to economic insecurity.

I actually completely agree with you that people should have good and interesting jobs. I could use a lot of words, but... I just completely agree on that part.

Now how this ends up in an immigration debate has me slightly mystified, I do have to admit.

I'm treating the "if immigration creates [...] low quality [...] jobs" as one of a set of hypotheticals. Some others being that immigration creates high quality jobs, or indifferent jobs.

So it seems we're in at least partial agreement (hopefully).

Where would you like to take your argument from here?

I think we might just disagree what an immigration system looks like where immigrants compliment vs compete with the domestic workforce. I support immigration when it adds to an economic system, but not when it furthers contention or diminishes the economics of citizens.

You know, I just realized. I'm not sure this is the argument you're making, but:

Modern immigration systems in Europe and North America seem to aim for opposite ends of the spectrum - either attracting highly skilled professionals, or providing humanitarian support for those in dire need. But for middle class workers, regular movement in and out of these economic zones [1] remains surprisingly limited. That's exactly the group you'd expect to both create and fill good quality jobs.

[1] (With the notable exception of movement within the EU internally, which might actually support this point - middle class mobility there seems to work pretty well!)

Most unicorns in the US have immigrants founders. It’s extremely shortsighted to think the way you’re thinking. The immigrants are in essence the ones providing jobs for a lot of us.

Who reaps most of the gains from US unicorns? Founders and early VC investors. This is not a material economic cohort to optimize for, versus workers in the aggregate; visa paths for exceptional talent are still available.

Have you ever heard "the middle of nowhere"? There are many such places. Now imagine vibrant cities and towns in such places.

"Vibrant" is an interesting word with so many lovely meanings and connotations.

Have you considered the people that live in what you dismissively refer to as the "middle of nowhere" might not want their towns replaced with "vibrant" cities full of foreigners?

The context of the current sub-thread is an economic development and wages. So yes, vibrant cities contribute positively to this. As for keeping "cozy" places, that's not a zero-sum game. We can have both.

"Vibrant" is a euphemism. The economic effects of unrestricted mass immigration of unskilled people from third world countries cannot be divorced and analysed separately from the social and cultural effects.

You need only look at any of the places in the US that have already been subject to these waves of illegal invasion, or the various places in Europe that have been flooded with unwanted illegal aliens falsely claiming asylum after travelling through safe countries (with less generous welfare systems) on their journeys to see why people want their countries to prioritise the welfare of their own citizens.

You are talking only about extremes. There is a huge uncovered middle-ground. As for "illegal" immigration, it will always be the case when legal immigration is nearly impossible.

In the early 1900s, the government implemented eugenics for this reason. Nowadays, people feel the country is better off just letting people plan their own pregnancies, which is a looser form of this. The difference between restricted immigration and open immigration would be akin to having a baby when you want to have a baby, versus being assigned random kids to foster.

A society that regulates child birth is very different from one that regulates immigration.

we don't "allow" people being born because peoples have a right to be born, it is rather that people have a right to have children.

> Left out of the article is an explanation for why the US would be better off it that were to happen.

Cato is also the source of the perpetually reposted chart that similarly asserts that the single most valuable credential on Earth—one which provides full employment and financial access to the world's largest economy, consular aid from the world's largest diplomatic corps, protection from the world's most powerful military—ought to be easy to get for anyone regardless of background, qualifications, or willingness to follow instructions.

(Inb4 "It costs thousands of dollars to naturalize!" and "It takes years to become a citizen!" Again, read the above. There is nothing in the US Constitution or the UN Declaration of Human Rights or the holy book of your choice that says that the process of becoming the citizen of any country ought to be anything other than lengthy and demanding. A process which 700,000 billionaire super-geniuses <https://www.uscis.gov/archive/archive-news/naturalization-fa...>[1] are nonetheless able to follow each year for US citizenship, mind you. (There's also a process for having the fee waived <https://www.us-immigration.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to...> if you can't afford it.) Still don't like it? Feel free to try your luck in Switzerland, which requires a mere ten years of residency <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_nationality_law> in country.

[1] Including yours truly—who confesses to being a super-genius, if not yet a billionaire—once upon a time

Maybe it would be better to explain why the US would be better off with a declining population?

Because that’s the status quo if immigration were to be cut off.

On top of that, US economy depends way more deeply on undocumented or migrant labor than most people realize. Good luck getting strawberries or a new roof on your house without immigrants.

I say the US is uniquely well-adjusted to integrating immigrants compared to most other countries and should effectively make its borders open with an instant/automatic documentation process. Get immigrants and migrants out of the under the table cash economy and make them citizens or something close to it ASAP.

Of course Republicans act like immigrants are a bunch of freeloaders despite the US literally denying basic needs like healthcare to you unless your employer gives it to you. Even the most idyllic interpretation of this American Dream involves very hard work. You literally can’t survive in the US without work, the US system really doesn’t allow freeloading. There’s no such thing as dawdling around in free college forever or collecting inflated welfare checks and living large off the government’s dime in the US.

Alternatively, perhaps we should explain why immigration should be disallowed in the status quo where the occupants of America stole the land.

My ancestors stole this land from its precious inhabitants, who am I to say no one else is welcome?

Just because someone wants to immigrate to the US doesn't mean they should be allowed. This is the underlying truth that is indisputable.

This article says that it grants 1 million green cards per year to legal immigrants, which is extremely generous. To say it's "nearly impossible" is absurd. I myself, my wife, and 80% of my friends are all legal immigrants to the US.

> Just because someone wants to immigrate to the US doesn't mean they should be allowed.

I'll bite.

Why not?

We let capital typically move freely. Why shouldn't people be as free to move as money?

I think movement is pretty free for people that can demonstrate they would be net-positive to the country they're moving to. I don't really see why movement should be free for anyone who would be net-negative. It's true that demonstrating the ability =/= having the ability, and I think most systems could be improved to filter for that better, but I don't think that's significantly affecting America's immigration process. It isn't very hard to get an O1/E1 visa, or at least a student visa, if you're decent in your subject area.

Money doesn't consume physical resources the way people do.

Uncontrolled immigration will overconsume whatever resources the country has, and infrastructure can't increase as quickly as unabated immigration. Things like rent will skyrocket and resources like water, sewage, hospitals, schools, etc. will get overconsumed without the ability to increase it quick enough. It will make the country worse very quickly.

Let's look at it at a more local level. If somebody wants to move into your house without permission, why shouldn't they be allowed to?

My house is not a sovereign state, and a sovereign state is not a house. I reject this argument by analogy as a logical fallacy (and more to the point, overly reductive, since my household's action space is drastically different from and mostly smaller than a sovereign state's action space).

A better analogy would be city to city moves, and as far as I am aware the aggregate percent of immigration inflow falls below far below domestic inflow for areas the most growth. Texas adds about a new large city (~130k) per year with net domestic migration. So clearly there are enough regional resources to support movement of individuals.

Wherein is the friction? Utilization of the social safety net? Given that undocumented immigrants are cut off from almost all social services outside very basic ones like access to public schools, for which their rent and sales tax payments are likely to cover (unless in an oddball state like Ohio or Pennsylvania). They aren't getting healthcare except by the extreme standards that we force individuals to go to the ED for basic medical care if they are indigent.

Obviously there are differences, but it is still a fine analogy.

If I own property I can determine who can use it. I live in a democracy so I own my country as well. It is shared with others, but a house could also have split ownership. If you have split ownership on a house you have to come to an agreement on who can come into the house. Why is a country any different?

It is not just about using resources. If somebody broke into my house and just lived there, but didn't use any food or bandaids I would not be thrilled with it. While it is better than if they used my resources I don't want somebody I don't know in my house.

I have the exact same standard with my country. I don't want anybody who hasn't been documented in the country. If you are born here you get a birth certificate and you haven't committed any crimes. If you come here, I want to have some level of knowledge, like if you are a criminal or are carrying the plague.

Your analogy to a city doesn't apply because a city doesn't have sovereignty. It cannot stop people from coming into it like you can with a country or house. If you think it acceptable to break down the sovereignty of a country, then there is no reason why I can't do the same to houses.

We have a globally accepted idea on this, so the burden is on you why we need to destroy it.

> Your analogy to a city doesn't apply because a city doesn't have sovereignty. It cannot stop people from coming into it like you can with a country or house. If you think it acceptable to break down the sovereignty of a country, then there is no reason why I can't do the same to houses.

> We have a globally accepted idea on this, so the burden is on you why we need to destroy it.

Per sister comment to yours, we don't have a "globally accepted idea" as states (which do have sovereignty, unlike both homes and most cities) offer benefits to undocumented immigrants, suggesting that by way of policy they are okay with different standards of immigration. If two people arguing for the same policy disagree completely on the internal consistency in supporting their argument, this suggests that the argument lacks coherence.

I continue to reject that the analogy of a home has useful equivalence to a sovereign state regarding immigration on grounds that it is a logical fallacy.

Almost everybody agrees that a state can determine who can enter and how long they can be there. Homes are similar because almost everybody agrees that the owner can determine the same thing.

When 99.99% of people agree on the similarity of two different things then the burden is on the 0.01% to prove the alternative.

If you refuse to make a coherent argument other than they are not identical then there is no point in continuing this conversation.

> Given that undocumented immigrants are cut off from almost all social services outside very basic ones like access to public schools, for which their rent and sales tax payments are likely to cover (unless in an oddball state like Ohio or Pennsylvania). They aren't getting healthcare except by the extreme standards that we force individuals to go to the ED for basic medical care if they are indigent.

This is patently false, and goes to show you don't understand the issue at all. They have tremendous benefits. In New York State, they constitutionally are required to give housing and support, which is why you hear of stories of illegal aliens getting hotel rooms, gift cards, and cell phones.

Undocumented immigrants in California can apply for health plans through Covered California and may be eligible for certain public benefits. However, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for certain federally funded programs.

Health coverage Covered California: Individuals can apply through Covered California to see if they are eligible for a health plan.

Public benefits CalFresh: Food assistance

CalWORKs: Cash assistance for people with children

County Adult Assistance Programs (CAAP): Cash assistance for individuals without dependents

Medi-Cal: Health insurance

Legal resources Bay Area Legal Aid Free Advice Hotline: (800) 551-5554 National Immigration Legal Services Directory: A resource for immigration legal assistance

Know your rights

California law prohibits law enforcement from asking about a person's immigration status for immigration enforcement purposes.

> This is patently false, and goes to show you don't understand the issue at all. They have tremendous benefits. In New York State, they constitutionally are required to give housing and support, which is why you hear of stories of illegal aliens getting hotel rooms, gift cards, and cell phones.

The solutions being pushed are federal. Federal is intended to guard border, but it sounds like some states are fine with providing benefits. So is the friction with states exercising their rights to provide services to people in their borders, or with the provision of federal benefits?

Maybe I've lost the bead here, does the current administration support more or less federalism?

You said that illegal immigrants weren't getting any services and weren't getting health services. Do you admit that you were wrong?

We have plenty of controls on money movements. Immigrants who are financially self-sufficient can come here to visit quite easily and freely. They just can't take up jobs. We even let them buy up land, which many countries disallow.

I agree. In my friend group, I know dozens of people that came here legally and are now citizens. It's far from 'impossible'.

Absolutely, this "impossibility" is a dishonest exaggeration with propaganda intent to loosen immigration further.

In the same vein as the "shortage of engineers" ("we want cheaper payroll please") articles that circulate from time to time.

So, I agree that there isn't a big enough shortage of engineers to prompt a need for easier immigration there, but I also agree that Americans aren't as technically skilled as they should be compared to foreigners.

Those are two very big buckets to compare.

Frankly when it comes to skilled immigration, it make sense to, above a certain skill threshold, have basically an open border.

For instance, if you had a bona fide airtight screening test for Einstein tier people, why would you ever not let them freely walk in?

Even the most hardline right wingers aren't going to complain about a few thousand geniuses a year.

But where that threshold should be and what the integrity of the screening process is are other questions.

It really isn't very hard to get a temporary O1 Visa, which can turn into a permanent E1/E2 visa. You just have to be extra-ordinary in your field. Pretty much every country wants to import people they know will make their country a better place—even North Korea lets Americans ("the enemy") teach at their universities—and it's not hard to demonstrate this.

> You just have to be extra-ordinary in your field.

So pretty much most HN commenters, then.

Seems like implicit bias. "Many people in my circle have an H1-B visa, thus it is far from impossible to get one."

H1-b visas are non-imigrant visas...

I'm perfectly aware most people would fail this easy task, but a thousand years ago most people would fail to read. Just because it's easy, doesn't mean most people will succeed.

Only ~5,000 people get E1 visas each year. That's 0.003% of the people who want to immigrate. There are surely many, many more people that are highly skilled and would be beneficial to have in America. Maybe it would be "easy" for you and your friends to get an E1 visa, but it should still be much easier to get a permanent visa for skilled work.

> Just because someone wants to immigrate to the US doesn't mean they should be allowed. This is the underlying truth that is indisputable.

Why? Why is it indisputable?

America existed very prosperously for over 200 years with such a system - the only thing we did was weed out smuggling and criminals.

That was then, this is now. A country is allowed to enforce its borders and protect its citizens from an uncontrolled influx of foreigners.

You didn't provide any analysis into why things are different now, and offered up a truism. A country is "allowed" to do anything it can get away with. Like declaring war on all of its neighbors. I don't feel like I need to be protected from foreigners. Why do you?

There are alternatives.

The US existed very prosperously without the current system of asylum requests, immigration judges, Green Cards or Visas, while also enforcing its borders and protecting its citizens from an uncontrolled influx of foreigners.

About 2% of the millions who arrived at Ellis Island were turned back.

Norway does not require a visa or residency permit for foreigners to live on Svalbard. "Regardless of citizenship, persons can live and work in Svalbard indefinitely." (Wikipedia.) That said, there are "Regulations relating to rejection and expulsion of persons from Svalbard". They are applied equally to all citizens.

And yes, it is possible for a foreigner to live in Svalbard, without need for a permit, and gain Norwegian citizenship.

Svalbard’s visa free status is by treaty (mostly with Russia), it is not something that Norway came up with on its own.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Treaty

And your point is ... what? That it's not possible for the US to come up with something like that on its own?

I don't think any one country would do this on their own, but a contested region that caused people to cooperate surely would. Like if Antarctica was turned into an international region, a bunch of countries would make it visa free as a matter of treaty.

Okay, but the thesis is: "Just because someone wants to immigrate to the US doesn't mean they should be allowed. This is the underlying truth that is indisputable."

There is part of Norway where anyone is allowed to immigrate to, so long as they follow the same rules which equally apply to Norwegian citizens.

That one counter-example would seem to put the thesis into dispute.

The appeal to 'uncontrolled influx of foreigners' is just strawman xenophobia, since even in the 19-oughts when immigration was one percent of the US population every year, there were still controls, and not everyone was accepted.

> There is part of Norway where anyone is allowed to immigrate to, so long as they follow the same rules which equally apply to Norwegian citizens.

But it isn't really a part of Norway, or wouldn't be a part of Norway if Norway didn't give into Russian demands after WW2 (Russia had a claim on it as well, and it could have gone their way instead). That is a fluke, it isn't something Norway exactly wanted, but it was something they were willing to accept.

You still need a Schengen visa to get there (since you have to transit through Norway proper, Russia doesn't do flights there anymore). They will immediately kick you out if you don't have means to stay (regardless of nationality), so the whole influx of foreigners moving into Svalbard to squat w/o a job is simply not allowed (since you need money for a hotel or apartment or you'll freeze to death/get eaten by polar bears...and there are only a limited number of those available).

> The appeal to 'uncontrolled influx of foreigners' is just strawman xenophobia

While it may still be a strawman, Svalbard doesn't really provide for an effective counter-example as evidence.

If living there can give you Norwegian citizenship then yes, it's really part of Norway.

The Svalbard treaty says outright "The High Contracting Parties undertake to recognise, subject to the stipulations of the present Treaty, the full and absolute sovereignty of Norway over the Archipelago of Spitsbergen". It's part of Norway.

You do not need a Schengen visa if you go directly there by boat or charter plane. That may be very expensive, yes, but a visa is not required.

Yes, you can be kicked out without a job or way to live there. Going back to the US in 1900, https://lost-in-history.com/an-immigrants-ellis-island-fate-... says in 1900 an immigrant to the US at Ellis Island was required to have at least $50, and of course the travel ticket was expensive.

The underlying point is that someone who wants to immigrate to Svalbard, and has enough money for the trip, can try to do so without first seeking permission from the Norwegian government, and without claiming refugee status.

Just like how the US in 1900 accepted immigrants without needing visas.

Neither the US in 1900 nor Norway now can be described as failing to 'enforce its borders and protect its citizens from an uncontrolled influx of foreigners' because in neither case is it uncontrolled, highlighting how blinddriver's answer has no logical relevance to the topic.

>America existed very prosperously for over 200 years with such a system

The difference is visible in maps of "foreign country where most non-native residents come from" across the US.

Before the 1970s, this was very diverse. People came to the US from all over. They came, learnt English, and became Americans.

In the decades since, the map has become a single colour in every state from North to South because the overwhelming majority of immigrants are illegal immigrants from a single pretty impoverished country. They move to the US, do not integrate, don't learn English, and don't become Americans.

And guess what? People don't like it.

Are you talking about Mexicans? I live in Arizona, which has been a recipient of Mexican immigration at scale for longer than most other states. The Mexican immigrants do integrate, they do learn English, and within a couple generations they’re very much Americans. Sure, first generation commonly struggle with learning the language. Second generation have gone through our school system and speak perfect English. My third generational Mexican friends/family are very much Americans.

I live in Illinois, where some towns I have lived in had a 49% Latino population.

Most people learned English. Most before they came here. People who cannot speak it are rare and are disadvantaged by that fact. But also - the US has no official language specifically because the founders did not know which language would become predominant! English, Spanish, French and German were the major candidates and we still have French, Spanish and German speaking communities of native born citizens whose families have been here hundreds of years.

> 1 million green cards per year to legal immigrants, which is extremely generous

That's a 0.3% rate. How is that "extremely generous"?

0.3% is extremely generous. Those are just green cards/permanent residents. That doesn't include the number of legal immigrants on various other visas. That's 3 million legal immigrants per year. The number of legal immigrants allowed to the US is higher than any other country in the world.

It's not generous. Did you RTFA?

Milton Friedman:

> If you have free immigration, in the way we had it before 1914, everybody benefited. The people who were here benefited. The people who came benefited. Because nobody would come unless he, or his family, thought he would do better here than he would elsewhere. And, the new immigrants provided additional resources, provided additional possibilities for the people already here. So everybody can mutually benefit.

> But on the other hand, if you come under circumstances where each person is entitled to a pro-rata share of the pot, to take an extreme example, or even to a low level of the pie, than the effect of that situation is that free immigration, would mean a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level. Of course, I’m exaggerating, it wouldn’t go quite that far, but it would go in that direction. And it is that perception, that leads people to adopt what at first seems like inconsistent values.

> Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It’s a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It’s a good thing for the United States. It’s a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it’s only good so long as its illegal.

> That’s an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it’s no good. Why? Because as long as it’s illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don’t qualify for social security, they don’t qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don’t qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They’re hard workers, they’re good workers, and they are clearly better off.

Why is there so little legal immigration? Because American policymakers wanted more illegal immigrants. It was a good deal for everyone. You have cheap foreign workers contributing to the economy, but not qualifying for social services or legal protections. Previous politicians didn't mind looking the other way about how the sausage got made.

Of course the age where politicians would make unappetizing Faustian bargains behind the scenes for the benefit of their constituents is probably gone.

Couldn't you satisfy the patterns Friedman identifies just by having perpetually renewable work visas and a path to full citizenship after an arbitrary time like 10 years?

Why should we set our slaves free after 10 years, when we can work them until they collapse in the fields and die there?

"Because as long as it’s illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don’t qualify for social security, they don’t qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket."

This stopped being accurate about a decade or two ago.

The amount of welfare going to illegal immigrants is criminally overstated. For the most expensive entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, immigrants contribute vast amounts without drawing anything.

> Milton Friedman:

> > If you have free immigration, in the way we had it before 1914, everybody benefited.

The USA didn’t have free immigration before 1914. The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed in 1882 and renewed in 1892 and 1902. Immigration from China continued to be banned until the Magnuson act of 1943 and Chinese-Americans were not permitted to own property in all jurisdictions until the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1965.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson_Act

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_...

I worked in the US for about a year before moving to Europe.

I would love to go back. The process of migrating to a new country with nothing but an H-1B visa tied to your job is extremely stressful.

Some people find it worth the effort, but I believe in going where you’re treated best. That said, I made some good friends there, and living in an English-speaking country makes many things much easier.

However, legal immigration can only function without making the host country unbearable for locals if illegal immigration is completely stopped. Every Mexican person I knew had several family members living in the States illegally and not contributing to the economy in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, I know a bunch of STEM postdocs who had to leave due to visa complications.

The country needs to choose whom it wants to let in. As long as illegal immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are allowed to stay without proper scrutiny, legal immigration will push away many of the best people you’d want in your country.

It's interesting how Cato, that would once have been considered relatively fringe, is ending up opposing some of the more nationalist instincts of the administration.

Not really - this is just more Koch free-trade “libertarianism” where the costs are socialized and benefits accrue to only the wealthiest capitalists. Par for the course for Cato.

The benefits don’t accrue to the capitalists they accrue to consumers.

Capitalists don’t get rich stealing from workers. The get rich improving the lives of consumers.

In a capitalist organization, by definition the capitalists take the productive output from the workers, and sell it, pocketing the difference, and deciding dictatorially how to distribute the revenue. So yes, by definition they are grifting off of the workers.

The alternative to immigrant minimum wage strawberry pickers is native born strawberry pickers who would demand significantly higher wages. The capitalists get rich by selling more strawberries at a lower price. It can be both bad for native born strawberry pickers as well as good for consumers. But there are few native born strawberry pickers who have a political voice. Substitute strawberry pickers with software developers, and now you’re talking about the native born HN crowd.

I think Cato has always held that we should loosen our restrictions on the border, so if an administration goes against that stance then they're going to oppose parts of that administration.

How many immigrants are allowed in is orthogonal to whether the process is efficient and direct. The process is insanely complicated and takes years and no small amount of luck, or dodging arbitrary discretionary decisions by mid-level bureaucrats. Reforming the process entails nothing about whether that means more or fewer legal immigrants are allowed in, and removes a huge incentive to bypass the process.

In a previous job I helped H-1B cardholders get green cards. I kept getting applicants approaching me saying that they could get one easier with $5,000 in Chicago than waiting all this out. It was hard to argue against that.

The US can use a lot more legal immigration. There's nothing wrong with a skill-based immigration program that doesn't necessarily only select for Nobel prize winners. With another hundred million people, and improved land use, we're talking perhaps another 100 years of Pax Americana. I think American should do this for her own sake and for the sake of humanity.

Nobel Prize winners are only allowed because the country is overwhelmed with illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees who contribute little to the system.

However, there is a group that benefits from undocumented workers taking underpaid, off-the-books jobs, and they hold significant influence in policymaking.

Isn't "contributing little to the system" and "taking underpaid jobs" a contradiction? If you are taking a job, you are contributing to the system.

*little

The country could focus on legal immigration and increase the contribution from little to more.

Do yourself a favor and just download the PDF, the page is huge with many large images.

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2023-06/policy-ana...

Just getting a visa has suddenly become near impossible it seems.

My daughter just applied as part of a small tour of models/entertainers that were going to help raise funds to build a church (in the US), and was denied, due they said, to no evidence there was anything to compel her to leave the US and return home.

She is a minor, still lives with us at home, and goes to senior high school, i mean, WTF? Also, I quote, she 'wouldn't want to live in US, if they paid (her) to'.

This same group have been going for several years now, but suddenly they were all denied this year.

The kicker is the visa fee of around $300 is forfeit, the denial notice says you can't appeal, but you can apply again, if you pay again. Riiggght.

I really feel scammed. Is it possible to sue? I know an Aussie friend who successfully sued Australian immigration in a similar case for example.

And why was this currently socially relevant post that comes from an organization which despite certain biases has lots of experience examining this very issue, flagged? Who are all these intolerant idiots flagging such content, and more importantly, why does this site keep maintaining such a stupid policy of letting a few rando readers with all their personal ideological baggage flag whatever the hell they want?

The implication here is that illegal immigration is somehow morally and/or legally justified if legal immigration is too hard. Or that a country is morally obliged to accept immigration of a level specified by a random person on the Web. Neither of which I find any inclination to agree with.

The article states almost hilariously: "By design, it excludes the vast majority of potential immigrants."

Yes. That's the point. It's by design. By design, the US does not want to accept lots of random immigrants. You don't need to explain how it's difficult by design; it was designed for that purpose.

As someone with a foreign born spouse that would like parents to visite often, the legal immigration system is absolutely terrible.

However, I think there is no real incentive for compromise between the political parties until the border is secured and laws are enforced, because the status quo actually works better for some pro-immigration forces.

They should reform everything, but I do think that the border needs to be secured and enforced before that can realistically happen.

They need a path for legal immigration. They need to reform H1Bs so that they prioritize US degree holders and there is no country based quota on converting to permanent residence and those foreign citizens are not paid less or require complex sponsorships that ties them to an employer. They need to increase the speed that everything is processed and adjudicated at and enforce the laws and secure the border once they reach a compromise. They need to figure out a way to allow low skilled labor into the country. They should offer long term visit visas for foreign relatives that don’t actually want to live here. It’s bizarre that my sons grandparents basically need a green card to come and go as they please. They should amend the constitution so that foreign tourists who are here for a very short period of time don’t get birth right citizenship.

There is just a huge amount of common sense fixes that need to be done, but once the fixes are applied they need to be totally and completely enforced.

I feel like the reason immigration is a controversial issue is because people don't feel like one's circumstance of birth is really their "fault". If you don't have a choice in the matter, can you really be blamed? And thus, there's no reason people born in America should get any special privileges compared to those born elsewhere.

I agree. If we could snap our fingers, and fix everything that went wrong in someone's life due to unforutunate circumstances, there is no reason they should be blamed. However, until we can, we have to blame people, even if they are not complicit in their circumstance.

For example, if someone puts a gun to your head, and tells you to shoot a random passerby, I won't blame you very much when you stand in trial without a gun to your head. However, if that gun never leaves your head, e.g. you're part of an enemy military, it seems rather justified to shoot to kill on sight. Maybe you don't want to be there, but you cannot change your circumstance and neither can I, so I have to find fault (or die).

Immigration seems similar. People who want to immigrate to the US are not complicit in their circumstance. If they could have been born in America, and gotten the education, resources, and connections Americans have, they would have. We can snap our fingers, and let them change nationalities, but it will not magically give them the same education, resources, or connections Americans have. And thus, we must find fault in them unless they come in with said education, resources, and connections.

This is just game theory. I consider the purpose of "fault" or "blame" to determine who gets punished so that I am better off. Thus, if I will not be better off with someone immigrating into my country, I should blame them for the circumstances of their birth. Is it fair? "Fair" is a tricky word. At the very least, it seems right.

An issue I find with lots of people on the pro-immigration side is they claim immigrants (1) take jobs I wouldn't want anyway, (2) boost the economy, (3) increase birthrates, and so on, but this doesn't answer why we should allow immigration. Everyone, even the restrict-immigration crowd, is pretty pro-immigration when it comes to people that will make their lives better. But, in America at least, the pro-immigration crowd seems to want completely open movement. Why would that be better than having your cake and eating it too? I.e. let anyone who is good for the economy in, and leave everyone else out?

This historical pattern is quite usual though right? Like Singapore did a similar thing. At the outset, before the country is rich, there's not the same incentives to immigrate as later. Price of admission rising as demand increases isn't that surprising.

But again like another commenter mentioned, these arguments never care to address why the people already there would, as a whole, benefit from others coming.

Sure, the state benefits from increase tax receipts, and the corporations benefit from increased labor supply. But all the people as a whole get is increased competition for everything.

So I assume these Cato people are in a class that stands to benefit, and couldn't care less about other classes.

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