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Notes -
Raising the Price of Admission
I find myself immensely frustrated by Trump's recent moves to cut down on immigration, especially replacing the EB5 with his new golden ticket scheme.
I've always wanted to move to the States, but by virtue of being Indian, and in a profession with strict regulatory requirements, it was never easy. As of right now, I can't sit for the USMLE if I wanted to, but I believe that is a problem my uni could solve, unfortunately I'm locked into the UK for at least 3 more years and don't have the time to breathe down their necks.
If I wanted to spend $1 million for the old EB5, I'd probably have to sell a significant fraction of my familial assets, and they're not mine yet, I have a sibling and parents to think of. The fact that we even have that much, when my father made $50k at the peak of his career as a OBGYN surgeon, represents a lifetime of my parents being frugal and living beneath their means. My dad started out from scratch, a penniless refugee, and all his life he worked tirelessly to make sure his kids wouldn't have to work as hard as he did. To a degree, he's succeeded. I nearly make as much as he does, but that's virtue of grinding my ass off to escape India. I had to settle for the UK, whereas I'd much rather be in the States.
The EB-5 program already functioned as a high barrier to entry, requiring not just capital but also the ability to invest in ways that met the job creation criteria. By raising the price to $5 million, the U.S. is effectively signaling that it no longer wants "entrepreneurial upper-middle-class" immigrants - it only wants the ultra-wealthy. The problem, is that the truly ultra-wealthy already have multiple options. The US is relatively unique in dual-taxation, and has heavier taxes overall when compared to some of the alternatives. They can buy citizenship in other countries (Malta, St. Kitts, etc.), take advantage of residence-by-investment programs in the EU, or just maintain an arsenal of visas that allow them to live anywhere they please. The U.S. loses out on exactly the kind of people who were willing to put down roots and contribute significantly to the economy while still needing the opportunities that U.S. citizenship provides.
If Trump (or any administration) wanted a truly meritocratic system, they should be auctioning off a limited number of economic immigrant slots each year. That would at least allow market forces to determine the actual value of U.S. residency. A points-based system, like Canada’s or Australia’s, could also make more sense: prioritizing skilled professionals over sheer wealth. A million already strongly filters would-be immigrants. Five is exorbitant, especially if it's a flat sum.
(Let's leave aside the other requirements, such as running a business that creates a certain number of jobs)
Jevon's paradoxmakes us expect that increasing the price of a good by 5 times will not 5x the revenue. It'll decrease it in expectation. If Trump prizes himself as a businessman, this should be clear to him.
Even the abolition of birthright citizenship strikes me as a violation of the American ethos. It was certainly being abused, anchor babies being a case in point, but when even green cards are this hard to get, prospective skilled migrants greatly appreciate the peace of mind that their kids are entitled to citizenship provides.
End it for illegal immigrants if you have to, why lump in everyone else there legitimately? I wouldn't mind people using their visitor visas to get a fast one in being debarred too, but I look at the current state of affairs with great dismay.
At any rate, I'm not an American. I do wish I was, and my impression is that most of you would be happy to have me. Well, I'm used to life being rough, and the UK isn't the worst place I could be. I still think that even from an absolutely monetary point of view, this is a bad plan.
I hope I've made a decent case for why you're not getting much out filtering the immigrants for quality at that point, and the ones who are that loaded are probably not nearly as keen. They're easily Global Citizens for whom nationality is a formality.
Well, I'm still going to see if I manage to figure out the USMLE thing by the time my training in the UK ends, but there must be thousands of skilled immigrants in a similar boat, just noticing a rather significant leak in it. Then they're confronted by a sign at Eliis Island that just any ocean-crossing vessel won't do, they need a yacht. We don't deserve to be clubbed in with those who break the rules.
EB-5 is already over for Indians and Chinese, with wait times of over 5 years. At the current rate and as a doctor, you are probably better grinding for EB-1 or going for a nonimmigrant visa and hope you get lucky and figure something out. The fact is that the number of Indians with the means and desire to immigrate is absurdly, overwhelmingly large. Any system that doesn't just unleash total replacement of the native population (see Canada) will inevitably the majority of well-meaning fine people who want in. It's like the admissions system to Harvard, where there's no illusion that they're selecting the "best" or even any idea what the "best" might be, but irregardless they have to keep 97% of applicants out.
Anyways, don't blame Trump for changing EB-5 because you weren't going to get it anyways, and either way the number of spots on EB-5 is so small that it was destined to be overrun irregardless.
Specifically the EB-5 number is so small that the actual immigrants themselves are unlikely to have any substantial impact in the long run. The entire program isn't for the benefit of the immigrants, but just a slightly roundabout stimulus program that is hopefully slightly less wasteful than direct helicopter money. Anyways with such a small number of spots, any impact that could be made is going to be through an even smaller number of exceptional people, and idk if changing the cutoff will make it more or less likely to admit unicorns, but I also don't think it's obviously worse.
Then you definitely won't be getting it if they implemented an auction.
I would be happy to have you, but not 10 million of you.
Letting in all Indians at or above self_made_human's intelligence / merit would not lead to total replacement of the native population, though? They aren't all doctors or FAANG engineers
Google lied to me and said there were 10 million+ doctors in India but actually there are 10 lakh+ doctors in India.
Nevertheless if you had a system that made it easy for Indian doctors to get a visa, you would find that thousands of diploma mills would spring up overnight churning out millions and millions of degrees. And somehow all of them will have the full Indian government licensing, accreditation, and whatnot to seem as legit as anything can be without actually existing.
We already have the flood of fraudulent paperwork with Indian companies filing dozens and dozens of H1-B applications per person, just to abuse the lottery, and trying to catch even a fraction of them is a losing battle.
Yeah, and if you have a competent right-wing administration overseeing the immigration process, and also immigrating costs $1M USD, then this won't be an issue
In a democracy you absolutely should never make laws that only work well as long as you're in power but become a giant thorn in the side once you aren't anymore. In fact, while Musk & Trump are certainly trying to change that, the current government staff is still massively left-leaning. So such a law would be a thorn pretty much instantly.
I mean it's going to be hard to have any immigration laws work well if half the time the executive is held by people who want unlimited immigration. A lot of the policies people here would prefer aren't currently politically practical but they'd still be better if they were
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The obvious next step seems to me to be removing those laws again before the next election.
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