American immigration is different - and better - than any other nation’s system for the simple reason that it is dominated by family flows. Family ties make up 65 percent of legal migration to the United States, not so-called merit-based migration (which is the norm in other nations). The Migration Policy Institute says that England and other English-speaking countries tend to offer around 30% of permanent visas to family members of their citizen, and the rate for other European countries is 40% or lower. The American way is not only rare, it is unique in the world.
Most reformers on the political right and left want to make American immigration just like every other country. They want to end “chain migration” which is how the American approach has been pejoratively described, and institute the kind of merit-based approach used everywhere else. What others call merit-based, I call transactional. And that strikes me as a dangerous way to structure entry rules because it is founded on a notion that somebody has to add value in order to be worthy of admission. But what if a future (or current!) standard of value is wrong? Secondly, do you really want to judge immigrants in such a coldly transactional way? That’s the message to immigrants sponsored by employers, which are called EB’s in our government lingo.
I say: Why fix what isn’t broken?
At first glance, immigrants to other countries do not assimilate nearly as well as those in the United States. Foreign-born Americans assimilate so well that immigrants are more patriotic than native-born Americans, on average. My book - The Immigrant Superpower - presents a YouGov survey that proves this very point.
If you like Transactional Immigration, You are in Denial
A recent report by David Bier highlights another danger to a system of employment sponsorship, and his reporting is eye-opening. The status quo category of employment-based visas which is, to repeat, already in place, is catastrophically dysfunctional. Here is something broken! As Bier reports, the system of EB visas was put in place in 1992. Applicants applied either from abroad via U.S. consulates or from inside the U.S. (if they were already in country as students or temporary workers). Admission rates were roughly 90 percent for both types. What Bier discovered is that applicants from aboard started getting rejected more often just a few years after the program began. Abroad applicants are now rejected more than half of the time despite having already gotten job offers from U.S. companies, paperwork approved by the Department of Labor, and background vetting approved by the Department of Homeland Security. This is entirely because bureaucrats in the State Department have been denying the visas — and it has been going on for decades (meaning during the Obama administration, Bush administration, Clinton administration).
Since 2008, about 8 percent of employer‐sponsored immigrants were denied while adjusting status. Meanwhile, workers abroad were about 8 times more likely to be denied. The average denial rate abroad was 63 percent.
The unequal treatment between EB applicants abroad v. domestic is disturbing. But what I want you to think about is how easily - and quietly - it has been for government bureaucrats to use their discretion to distort the intent of the law.
U.S. consular officers clearly think that EB immigrants are some kind of baseline threat to the economy, and so apply a level of scrutiny and disapproval that is scandalous. State Department officials think that any foreign worker presents an economic harm as a rule, so that only the exceptions can be allowed entry. They are denying valid applicants. That’s troubling for a lot of reasons, but who can blame them when so much immigration law is imbued with a lump of labor fallacy?
All immigrants add value, regardless of their education, so long as they are patriotic. Anyone who looks into the research should know that migrants don’t steal jobs from natives — certainly no more than interstate transplants from California are stealing jobs in Texas. There is a balance between the micro cost of immigrants “taking jobs” and creating demand for other jobs. It’s on the macro scale where the logic really falls flat. Every additional person who joins your macroeconomy adds to the bottom line of GDP. Think of a tug-of-war where you can have an unlimited number of people pulling for your team. Who wouldn’t?
[N]early all LPRs have higher employment rates than U.S. workers. And refugees and asylees show highest rates of self-employment and employing others, relative to other LPRs.
If you favor fundamental immigration reform, God bless you. We need more patriotic immigrants to strengthen our already mighty land. But beware of the chimera of “merit-based” reform. What happens if a fourth agency is given veto power over individuals who want to join the American team? Nothing good. On that note, always beware of giving more discretion to bureaucrats. It never ends well.
P.S. @David_J_Bier is very impressive. Keep an eye out for his work.
