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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.
That is frustrating. I do wish skilled immigration was generally very permissive in the US. Even though it already directly impacts my ability to get programming jobs (my profession).
I've always had a sense that "stop illegal immigration" is the bailey while "stop all immigration" is the motte. I think Vivek and Elon didn't realize that when they waded into the H1-B visa debate a few weeks ago.
There is this weird emotion I get watching anti-immigration stuff. Its maybe like being the first hipster in your grade level that gets into music, and you find all these awesome classic rock songs. And then everyone else starts getting into music and they just like pop garbage. Don't read too much into that metaphor. Its just the feeling.
I recently joined a family society. On my mother's side we can trace our ancestry back in the US to the 1620's. My dad's family is what I consider more recent immigrants. They came here about 150 years ago sometime after the Civil war. My dad is anti-immigration, my mom is not.
... I just realized what the feeling is. Its elitism. I feel a sense of elitism over most of the anti-immigration people I personally run into. Just as a matter of demographics most people in the US came here or are descendants of people that came here within the last 100 years. The same way that you might look at a guy with a broken hispanic accent who just attained citizenship saying "shut down the border" is how I look at most people saying "shut down the border". Or the same way you might look at a person, still dripping wet after pulling themself onto the lifeboat and saying "we can't let anyone else on".
"Hey scum stop talking about founding stock as if you are part of the founding stock, you are a recent jumped up German immigrant. Be happy we let you in and stop trying to gate keep." Is what I'd say in my head to my dad if we was annoying enough to talk about "founding stock".
Anyways, I hope the political winds shift back on this issue. Middle class immigrants seem like the best immigrant class to get, I don't understand why the US makes it so hard.
I don't want African Muslims in my neighborhoods, and I don't want giant Hindu statues erected in America. I simply do not want more immigrants right now, because the ones we have are not integrating, and there is no reason for them to try.
We need sixty years, two generations, of essentially no immigrants in order to stabilize. The is what we've done in the past, and it had resulted in prosperity and community those times.
As for my bona fides, I don't have any known ancestors in the 17th century, but both sides have borderer roots in the middle 18th century.
Both sides also have Italian, and other immigrant stock, from the early 20th century. Italian great-grandmothers, that sort of thing.
Those borderer men crossed the Cumberland gap and settled Tennessee, and I think they earned the right to bequeath the country they forged to their posterity, and not to, again, African Muslims and Hindus who do not share their blood, their religion, or their values.
Seriously though, it's an embarrassment that people like Ilhan Omar an get elected as a foreign agent in Minnesota, or Jayapal can do the same in Washington. If that is the result of this immigration, then no thank you, we're not full you're simply not welcome here.
Any man who says he is American by something else besides is no American at all, and any American who carries a hyphen carries with him a dagger to plunge into the back of the American nation.
Last thing, you mixed up motte and bailey. The defensible motte is no illegal immigration. The bailey is no more foreigners, denaturalize and deport the paper citizens, too.
Ah ya I did mix up the motte and bailey.
Anyways most of the US was settled by 1870, some parts were a little more filled in, and they were done by 1900. That's why I like civil war as a good cutoff. Plus the civil war shaped the nation just as heavily as the revolutionary war.
We have above us an example of a more American person than most actual Americans.
My ancestors founded this country, and it was based on an idea, not blood. A bunch of nationalist and monarch loving central Europeans started coming over in the 1900's and started trying to make it all about blood. If it's blood then the English, the Dutch, and the descendants of slaves can stay and everyone else can fuck off.
A bunch of them even think that fighting in European and Asian wars (aka every 20th century war) should grant them special consideration. Yuck.
My ancestors founded this country and trying to explain to them it's not about blood and their posterity but about "an idea," would leave them very puzzled. And to be frank, I would be pretty shocked if your ancestors didn't either. The writings of the time, e.g., a relative of mine died in King Phillip's War, make it pretty clear they were concerned with blood at least as a rally against the Indians (and later black slaves).
I encourage anyone who qualifies to participate in the various family societies like the Sons of the American Revolution. They average age may be 75, but they're good people and are a great way to feel more apart of wherever you live.
Oh yes, the German and especially catholic waves of immigrants post 1850 were a terrible idea and many, including my ancestors at the time, repeatedly said so. It's only gotten worse since then.
Palatine German immigration to the USA began around ~1709, it reached its height from the 1720 - 1750.
so not the "German and especially catholic waves of immigrants post 1850"?
They're German but very pre-1850 and heavily / mostly Protestant.
I probably should have phrased that part as "post-1850 German and especially Catholic immigration... ." I didn't mean to include the earlier anabaptists in that sentence.
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