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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.
Large portions of Trump votes are likely based on illegal immigration or concerns about inflation, his election isn’t itself evidence that any majority of the US is deeply against having an Indian doctor move here.
And not just any Indian doctor. I think it's entirely fair to say that my values, attitudes and beliefs are far closer to American than Indian.
Hell, even the way I talk, I've been asked dozens of times by Brits if I'm an American based on my accent.
But yes, I sincerely doubt that the average American would be against a foreign doctor who had passed all the competency requirements, and had even gone through training in a Western country.
As a pretty average American compared to most of this forum, I'd be okay with you or anyone else living here only if you did most of the following: got married (ideally to an American), had kids, learned to hunt or fish, started going to church or at least showed up and participated in public events hosted by churches, took an interest in local politics, and participated in traditional civil religion ceremonies (e.g. 4th of July cookout), got and kept a stable job, and generally deferred to the local culture, social conventions, and moral code (e.g. no loud ethnic music or fireworks at weird times, no opening abortion or gender transition clinics, no complaining about halal/no vegetarian food).
If you don't want to do those things, I honestly don't really want you in my country at all, no offense personally. If you must come, I hope you stay in the rootless cosmopolitan containment zones (blue cities).
I think this is how many (most?) non urbanite Americans actually feel but as @WhiningCoil points out, even the reddest red state hobbits have been successfully trained by state education to crimestop when thinking these thoughts, so they make mouth noises about "illegal immigration."
Also, just curious, but since you are transhumanist (IIRC) atheist, isn't the social and political climate of the UK much more amenable to your beliefs and political goals? America has a large population of recalcitrant believers in the imago dei, including not a few members of the elite, who completely oppose transhumanism.
Also, speak English [or rather, the country's language whatever it may be] in public spaces. Yes, even when speaking to other people who share a different common tongue.
This may be so self-evident to some as to be not worth mentioning.
Cliques of people speaking a language you don't is demoralizing at best.
Good point.
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Assuming you're American, would you speak Spanish to a fellow American expat in Mexico City? Or Thai to one in Bangkok? I read once that certain Aboriginal Australians would beat to death anyone who uttered so much as a single word of another tribe's tongue on their soil and expected everyone to switch languages even mid-sentence as they were crossing tribal boundaries, but in practice this is an impossible standard to uphold unless you are a hyperpolyglot or simply never visit non-Anglophone countries.
If I was emigrating to there, and it was a public space? Absolutely. Admittedly, that is one of my pushes away from emigrating to a country with a different language, as I am terrible enough at my native tongue.
Be aware that immigration != tourism.
Fair enough, I respect that. I just don't know how one would consistently distinguish between tourists and immigrants just from hearing them speak in public. The children and grandchildren of immigrants also lose their ancestral languages so quickly that it doesn't seem like that big of a problem in the long run.
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