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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.
Have you considered staying inside your home country? Americans overwhelmingly voted to lower immigration - Trump’s policies aren’t a "suggestion" or some miscalculation, they’re the people’s choice. It's quite selfish to continue to game the system in the face of this.
I have to ask - do you not feel uncomfortable coming to a country where the people do not want you there? I know I could not make such a move.
Certainly. I have, on further consideration, decided not to.
Americans have voted against illegal immigration. Against people hopping the border. You could also say that they're against the expansion of asylum seeking, and that would be true.
Skilled immigration is nowhere near as unpopular, I'd have to look up polls, but I recall it being seen as a positive across the aisle.
Trump is keeping his promises this term, but in a ham-fisted way. You can address illegal immigration while not worsening the already difficult process of legal immigration.
Now, my dear friend. Do I look like an illegal migrant or an asylum seeker?
How exactly have I "gamed" the system? By trying my absolute best to sort out the impediments that would prevent me from legally moving to the States as a doctor? By considering an entirely legal class of visa, the EB5?
I'd be uncomfortable if this was true. It's not.
Here's a handy link to a previous post about my desire to move to the States, where I discussed my desperate efforts to make a now ex-girlfriend understand how amazing the States is as a country, and how its flaws are overplayed.
It's on this very forum. It has 70 upvotes at the time of writing, probably putting it in the top 0.1% of posts ever by popularity.
You are welcome to count the number of people who sympathized with my desire, and clearly said they wanted me to achieve my goal. There are people there inviting me to their homes, offering to show me around, take me out shooting.
They dwarf the mere two or three people who said they didn't want me around. Feel free to look yourself.
I am a law-abiding, responsible highly-trained professional in one of the most respected professions around. I'm articulate, fluent in English at a native level, an anglophile and a big fan of the United States. I hold nuanced political views and am friends with people on both sides of the political spectrum. I nurse no ethnic grudges, I'm not seeking to displace or replace anyone. I'm as Westernized as it gets, and my personal views and beliefs, if they were material, are those you could find in any number of Americans. I'd probably be working in under-served communities that your local doctors avoid if they can help it.
I invite you to present to me an example of someone you think would be a better candidate for an immigrant.
Even in the UK, almost everyone I've met has liked me, and been glad to have my presence. That includes old people at bars who complain about Pakis while telling me they vote SNP, that gentleman ended up saying I was one of the good ones and tried to set me up with a bartender.
I rest my case.
Opinion polls on immigration are largely cognitive dissonant bullshit, and nobody means the same things with any of the words they use. People notice where they live getting increasingly alien and dysfunctional, and the nice way to complain about that is to complain about illegal immigration. That goalpost has gradually shifted to fraudulent asylum claims, or fraudulent temporary worker visa, etc. Are they really fraudulent? I don't know. Do people feel like the outcomes of these policies aren't what they were promised, and are using the word "fraudulent" to express how they feel personally lied to about the impacts of all forms of immigration? That'd be my guess.
And especially with H1B, which is the current code word for "skilled immigration", it's the worst shit show anyone has ever seen. People being forced to train their own replacement, people blatantly abusing the system to replace american workers with lower cost wage slaves. I can't go into details, but I'm like 80% certain at least the division of a government agency I have to work with has become a fraudulent H1B colony. All my points of contact have become Indian over the last 5 years, their basic competence has plummeted into hell, and this year they actually didn't do anything. Redelivered last years deliverables, with great difficulty, and basically went "We're the government, eat shit, we don't have to do anything, we can't be fired." This is a ubiquitous experience, and to whatever degree "skilled immigration" polls positively, it is not inclusive of whatever the fuck that is which our overlords appear to consider "skilled immigration".
The Motte is not America. You may be better served taking the temperature on twitter, if for no other reason than the contrast.
You can't take the temperature on a site that shows you an algorithmically-curated selection of what is being posted. It just tells you what Musk wants you to see, either for (his) business or (his) pleasure.
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