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Comment by mynameishere | Hacker News Reader

without "cannibalizing" the diversity visas.

Well, the diversity visas were the most brutal possible attack on sanity ever passed by a legislature. "Oh, you came from XYZ wretched backwater, here's your VISA...on the basis of your wretchedness." Sad, sad, sad, to live in such dismal times.

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"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." - a certain statue's impossibly brutal attack on sanity

It is, of course, totally insane to let people voluntarily choose to work here and make voluntary economic transactions with other adults who voluntarily want to pay them money to provide goods and services for Americans to voluntarily purchase.

Well, yes, when you are making the decision based on someone being from a poor country. There are better measures on which visas could be distributed. I strongly support increasing the number of total visas, but that is separate.

> Well, yes, when you are making the decision based on someone being from a poor country.

But that's not the case.

> There are better measures on which visas could be distributed.

Better for who?

Isn't that a sensible humanitarian policy?

Actually a lot of poor countries don't qualify because there are already too many of their citizens living in the US, legally or illegally.

That's the "diversity" part, and the list includes many rich countries too.

Can't tell if serious? A datapoint: I moved to California, from France, on a diversity visa. I have randomly met 3 other french engineers who have done the same in my first couple months here.

In the worst case it's a tiny drop wrt. to general immigration, and I'm ready to bet it tends to in fact attract highly motivated people.

Are you calling most of Western Europe (including Germany, France, all the Scandinavian countries) "wretched backwaters"? What country DOESN'T count as a wretched backwater, aside from the U.S. of course?

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