
Watch What Happens When You Push Away Skilled Immigrants - shreyanshd
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-24/making-life-awful-for-skilled-immigrants-is-a-mistake
======
peterburkimsher
Immigration policies already set a very high barrier to entry, especially
considering that 20% of the US population is functionally illiterate [1].

Immigration is the only hope for me to ever have a family. I was born in
Switzerland to British parents who lived in France (in Geneva this is not
unusual). Because I'm a citizen by descent, I can't pass on nationality to
future children. My girlfriend is Taiwanese, and I'm a conscientious objector
who will not take on Taiwanese nationality because of their mandatory
conscription.

My life plan revolves around immigration visa requirements. I studied
Electronic Systems Engineering at Lancaster University in the UK. That got me
a Masters degree from a Washington Accord accredited university, in an
English-speaking country (language requirements), in a STEM field (usually on
the skill shortage list). Then I used Working Holiday visas to get experience
in many countries, before deciding to stay in Taiwan for 4 years to get years
of continuous relevant work experience.

Now I have the pre-requisites, I'm trying to find a job, but the majority of
job listings require me to already have a visa.

Any leads for jobs would be helpful. I was focusing on New Zealand, Canada, or
Australia, but by now I'm getting desperate and I'll take anything.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy)

~~~
handsomechad
Can someone who understands the mechanics of this ELI5 how this works?

so the parent is a UK citizen but can't pass his citizenship on to his
children? And his future wife is a taiwanese citizeen, but because he would
have to enlist in the taiwanese army to become a citizen, they cannot raise
their family there? Can someone flesh out the details for the clueless and
unworldly like myself?

What part do each of these things play in the parent posters predicament vis a
vis starting a family:

a) Being born in Switzerland b) Parents being British c) Parents being French
residents d) Girlfriend being Taiwanese e) Mandatory Taiwanese Conscription
Laws

What UK law prevents parent from marrying his GF and raise his children in the
UK? Why can't he live in Taiwan as an expat and not join the army?

~~~
DanBC
> What UK law prevents parent from marrying his GF and raise his children in
> the UK?

It is very difficult to immigrate into the UK. This is because fucking idiot
racists appear to be influential in the polls, and governments keep tightening
the requirements to appease the racists.

OP is a British citizen. OP is a British citizen by descent, which means their
children are not automatically British citizens. OP's future wife is not a
British citizen.

If OP wishes to move his wife and children here for more than 6 months they
need a family visa. [https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa](https://www.gov.uk/uk-
family-visa)

The family visa has minimum income requirements. [https://www.gov.uk/uk-
family-visa/proof-income](https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/proof-income)

For the spouse you need a combined income of £18,600. If you already have
children you need an additional £3,800 for the first child, and £2,400 for
each additional children.

The rules for who is or isn't a UK citizen are quite complicated. Being born
in the UK is neither required nor sufficient to get citizenship. If British
parents give birth abroad their child will be British by descent. That child's
children will be British if born in the UK, but not if born outside the UK.

------
belorn
Arguing immigration policy is usually better to do based on morality. Economic
grounds is a hard proposition, since assuming the government budget is
balanced we can split any given population in two groups; one which under a
given time frame increases budget deficit when grown and the other which
causes surplus when grown.

If we only look at the economical aspect then the question about immigration
is simply a crass question about averages. If the average applicant with their
dependents are in the later group for the defined time frame then its a good
policy to allow and encourage growth, and if its not then its better to
prohibit. Here in Sweden a researcher did such study and unsurprisingly the
result showed that for the time frame of 20 years the state economics from
immigration is a net negative. It is very possible that over an enough large
time frame that result will change but their study could not make such
predictions.

The averages for H1B applicants and their dependents could be different but
the article here only cite a study that correlate economic growth for
companies that hire skilled immigrants. Its a good incentive for doing more
studies but I would focus the moral perspective of liberty and humanitarian
aid when it comes to immigration policy. I have strong doubt that a rigorous
economic study would fall in favor of immigration for any time frame less than
50-100 years, based on my own reasoning, guesses and historical knowledge.

~~~
amf12
> Here in Sweden a researcher did such study and unsurprisingly the result
> showed that for the time frame of 20 years the state economics from
> immigration is a net negative.

I would be very interested to read this study. Can you please provide a
source?

What kind of immigration does the study account for? Is it refugee based or
diversity based immigration which, naturally, could be a burden on the country
because these most likely are not medium-high skilled immigrants. However, the
article here is talking about the H1-B program which is only for employment
based high-skilled applicants (granted some of these could be medium-skilled
but these applicants are definitely not low-skilled) and contribute to the
economy by paying taxes and contributing to the local economy by spending.

> the article here only cite a study that correlate economic growth for
> companies that hire skilled immigrants.

If there is an economic growth for the local companies, this certainly might
correlate with the economic growth for the economy of the country. But I do
agree with you that there should be a more focused study for this.

~~~
belorn
> Can you please provide a source?

Sure, its was fairly rememberable since the new reportage went bad since the
news reporter tried to address and ask question about the political aspects
and the academic economy researcher was very academic about it. When they got
the question "why did you do this study when it could be used as political
material next election" the answer became something like "we were hired to do
a study, and having knowledge about the subject is better than having no
knowledge".

I also noticed that I did miss-remember a detail. The time frame was between
1983 and 2015, so 33 years rather than 20 years.

[https://eso.expertgrupp.se/rapporter/tid-for-
integration/](https://eso.expertgrupp.se/rapporter/tid-for-integration/) \-
report (there is a English summery linked on the page).

[https://www.svt.se/kultur/medier/forskaren-i-
uppmarksammad-i...](https://www.svt.se/kultur/medier/forskaren-i-
uppmarksammad-intervju-aktuellt-valjer-att-framstalla-konflikt) \- interview

> However, the article here is talking about the H1-B program

Yes, as I wrote that could change the result and if so it would make for a
great news. Further studies is something that should be funded as the
political environment around immigration is about as bad as it can be. I also
believe the argument about immigration as humanitarian aid is a good one and
focus the discussion towards reasonable middle ground rather than extremes.

~~~
amf12
Thank you for the source. I'll read it!

> we were hired to do a study, and having knowledge about the subject is
> better than having no knowledge".

Haha. That's absolutely true.

------
firic
> it would strip citizenship from the children of green-card holders and
> illegal immigrants alike, leaving millions of American citizens suddenly
> without a country.

Would it take a person with citizenship and remove their citizenship, or would
it simply not grant them citizenship?

~~~
jkaplowitz
What it would purport to do depends on the precise wording.

What it would actually do is get quickly struck down by the courts with no
effect, since executive orders can't validly contradict federal statutory law
or the Constitution.

Both sources of law currently protect birthright citizenship, except for the
children of foreign diplomats who already don't benefit from it today (no new
executive order needed).

------
jarym
The H1B study sounds suspicious and the defence of the H1B program weakened an
otherwise strong article.

H1B abuses have been long documented so while there are legitimate benefits to
it, they are outweighed by the problems.

~~~
Daishiman
Your assertion that the problems of H1B visas outweigh the benefits is pure
conjecture and, for the most part, not supported by facts.

~~~
cylinder
It's all much ado about nothing anyways. 85,000 new H1 visas a year for a
population of 330 million? Give me a break. Even if these all went to Wipro it
wouldn't even be worth thinking twice about. And the refugee intake is only
49,000 a year. An absolute disgrace.

~~~
xtreme
I am genuinely curious to find out which number or percentage you'd consider a
reasonable number or immigrants to admit each year, and how you arrived at
that number. Are there any published studies that have tried to calculate
this?

------
extralego
I am confused about something that seems very basic, and hoping somebody can
help me out with this.

I have always supported left politics, and I think I understand the basics of
supply-and-demand economics. If immigrants come to the US _looking for_ work
instead of _bringing_ work, there should be a higher supply of labor, driving
the low-end pay-rate down. Given that the low-end rate has gone down
significantly throughout the 3 decades that I have been alive, how do we on
the left reason that immigration is not a factor? Or is it?

Also related: I thought public resources and the labor market were the most
central reasons for nations having immigration policies. Am I wrong about
that?

My parents voted for Trump, (or we might say they voted against Clinton). They
have since decided to support Bernie Sanders next time, but they point to
immigration’s effect on the labor supply as the reason to keep the border
closed.

I would like to think we can address this with far more dignified solutions
than what is being popularly proposed, but first things first; what am I
missing?

~~~
michaelscott
A higher supply of cheaper labour does contribute to the reduced pay but by
far the biggest influence is the stagnation of wages over those 3 decades
(i.e. it's not that wages have gone down, they just largely haven't gone up).

Average, inflation adjusted wage growth has been projected as low as 0.2% year
on year in some cases, and this affects most forms of work not just the low
end.

~~~
laughingman2
With all the productivity gains, if the wage growth has been far less, it's
clear who is to take a huge part of the blame, hint hint, big corporations who
also evade paying taxes.

Its almost as if they don't want a vibrant middle class to spend, thereby
dooming themselves in the long run with stagnation.

------
dropit_sphere
This is a throwaway account, but, hey, they have their place. I'm a regular HN
commenter under another name(that you wouldn't recognize, I'm not secretly
patio11 or something).

The article frustrates me, because it echoes a thought complex that seems
almost willfully obtuse. It fails to address the actual reasons behind a
desire for caution on immigration. This is somewhat forgivable because those
with the most reason to want caution are the least likely to be able to
explain why, or to have the confidence to do so. But it is somewhat
unforgivable because presumably it is the job of those who write articles to
tease that sort of thing out.

The article gives a litany of problems for which high-skilled immigrants are
the solution: pensions, tax bases, shoring up the population of "declining
regions." We are told that the "dark nativist rumblings of right-wing
intellectuals like Anton, are doing the U.S. economy an enormous disservice."

This is Bloomberg, so that is the unpardonable sin, hurting the _economy_. But
maybe there's more to life than the economy?

Consider Sen. Elizabeth Warren's _The Two-Income Trap_ [0]. She posits that
much of the income a family gains from working women goes to positional goods,
like housing or (credentialed) education---but since other women are working
as well, the net gain is much, much lower than what the simple income numbers
would suggest. Perhaps a simpler example is simply housing in SF. Sure, you
get paid a lot, but if your rent is correspondingly high, well...hmm. And
that's assuming that you _are_ being paid a lot.

Money is an abstraction. Sometimes it's a leaky abstraction. What price air?
What price true love? How much do loving, still-together parents cost? How
much to block all ads on the Internet, forever? Just because you can't buy
these things doesn't mean they're not wealth, in the pg "wealth is what people
want" sense.

If you held Google stock, and they doubled the amount of ads you see,
Bloomberg would say you were up. But, well, now the internet sucks for you.

So...how much is your vote worth? How much is it worth to live somewhere where
the opinions of most of the electorate match up with yours?

How much would you pay for your child to attend a school where you're
comfortable with the racial mix of the other students? This is taboo---even my
villanous throwaway persona cringes writing it---but in practice people go to
a lot of trouble. [2][3]

How much is social cohesion worth? [4] How much is a monolingual environment
---and more specifically, the security of the implied cultural hegemony---
worth?[5]

To really drive home the ridiculousness of the article, let's flip the
scenario: imagine new research came out that demonstrated unequivocally that
"immigrants are Bad for the Economy," and mirror-universe Evil Bloomberg wrote
an op-ed citing such. Might you take issue with that, holding that they bring
benefits not measured in GNP, and that this was a case of looking for keys
under the streetlight?

I'm not arguing for any specific policies, which is good for all of us because
I know jack shit about such. Rather, I'm arguing for the basic legitimacy of
the nativist impulse. Humans of any origin like living in safe countries that
they control.

"But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy" \-
[http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm](http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm)

[0][http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/28/book-review-the-two-
inc...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/28/book-review-the-two-income-trap/)

[1][https://www.newsweek.com/why-schools-still-cant-put-
segregat...](https://www.newsweek.com/why-schools-still-cant-put-segregation-
behind-them-622278)

[2][https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/05/15/housi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/05/15/housing-
segregation-is-holding-back-the-promise-of-brown-v-board-of-
education/?utm_term=.d7a2840d2896)

[3][https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128026...](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12802663)

[4][https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/08/resea...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/08/researchers-
put-two-spanish-speakers-on-a-train-and-changed-commuters-views-of-
immigration/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.114e6eb28740)

------
grosjona
Current policies will give more opportunities for Americans.

Trump understands something that technology elites don't; the wealth pie is
limited and you have to be deliberate in how you slice it and who you give
those slices to.

~~~
nickserv
Shutting out skilled, educated immigrants doesn't magically make natives more
skilled nor better educated.

Take a look at the UK and Brexit, they're having problems hiring enough health
care professionals precisely because of their desired post-EU immigration
policies. This before they even apply any new rules!

~~~
growlist
Another way to put this is to say the NHS is insufficiently funded to survive
without ongoing imports of cheap labour from poorer countries. The problem
would be better solved by reforming the NHS/its funding so that we incentivise
the existing population to provide its workforce. Surely propping it up with
ceaseless immigration is a ponzi scheme?

------
sonnyblarney
I find many popular arguments about immigration lack nuance and are sometimes
purposefully misleading.

I'm not fan of Trump, but he wants to institute a 'points based' system, along
the lines of what Canada or Australia has.

Immigrants to Canada tend to be fairly educated, more so than those coming to
the us partly due to this policy, partly due to the irregular migrants coming
to the US.

The article's title and opening argument are basically inconsistent with
reality: a points-based immigration system would likely mean _more_ qualified
migrants, not fewer.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
_[A] special clause in the bill could actually take away points if the
applicant tries to bring his or her spouse...Drafters of the proposal said
that it was modeled on similar systems used by Canada and Australia. But this
is actually not how other countries treat family members under their points
systems. In the five countries we examined that currently use similar points
systems–Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea and New Zealand, spouses of
applicants do not negatively impact the overall accumulation of points._

[https://qz.com/1195155/trumps-merit-based-immigration-
propos...](https://qz.com/1195155/trumps-merit-based-immigration-proposal-
would-dock-points-for-spouses/)

~~~
iamshs
I find US proposal exact same as Canadian one. Under Canadian system, a person
without any family is able to gain more points than one with spouse. Because
the spouses gets judged on their own qualifications like degree, English
language ability etc.

I think that article is incorrect. Try the points here yourself:-
[http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-
tool.asp](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-tool.asp)

~~~
jkaplowitz
It's correct. Canada includes spouses in the comparison, like you say, but
with far less weighting than the principal applicant.

Usually the numbers don't work out to penalize the couple for the less
qualified spouse in all but the most extreme Canadian immigration examples. A
spouse having the opposite impact (helping the numbers) is far more common.

Under Trump's proposal, having a modestly less qualified spouse would hurt the
principal applicant, unlike the normal Canadian immigration outcome.

I should note that the link you gave is not the points system used for
approval, just the one that affects who can apply when, using certain of the
many application pathways. A different points system is used for approval.

Source: immigrated to Canada myself. I don't have a spouse but I had reason to
study the rules closely.

~~~
iamshs
You score lower points in Canadian system too, if your spouse is less
qualified. But the point impact is maximum 40 points. It can absolutely hurt
some people. Here's the spousal impact:-
[https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-
citizenship/se...](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-
citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/eligibility/criteria-
comprehensive-ranking-system/grid.html#pointsB)

Source: Immigrant to Canada and Australia. Helped at least 10 people immigrate
through provincial nominee and Express Entry programs.

Edit:- Your Quebec reply. My brother immigrated through Quebec route too.
Also, the spousal changes happened very very recently August 2nd. And Quebec
is not the route that most immigrants to Canada take, it is Express Entry.

~~~
jkaplowitz
Updated my comment. It's possible for it to hurt, but that's an unusual
outcome. The marriage usually helps in Canada even when the spouse is less
qualified, unlike Trump's proposal.

[Edited to remove inaccurate info about the 40 points]

You may also be interested in Quebec's system, which as of August 2 makes
children purely positive to the skilled worker points system there, and never
removes points for spouses.

(The marriage only mildly raises Quebec's approval threshold, usually
outweighed by the spouse's qualifications even if far lesser than the
principal applicant.)

Source for the Quebec comments: the specific way I immigrated to Canada was
via Quebec. I have friends who want to immigrate on both sides of the
provincial border, so I continue to pay close attention to both systems.

~~~
iamshs
Those 40 points come out of your own points if you have a spouse. You score
more without a spouse than with a spouse. Trump's proposal is exactly the same
as Canada's in principle, except we don't the points being assigned under
Trump's program.

Also, under Quebec's new proposal if single you need to score 50 points, and
with spouse you need 59 points. Spousal qualifications are absolutely weighted
in. This is not the case with other provincial nominee programs though,
Alberta, BC or Ontario.

~~~
jkaplowitz
For Quebec's system, the spousal increase to the threshold is not a change
from the system before August 2, and as I noted it's a slight impact.
Everything is weighed less for the spouse. A less qualified spouse will still
not usually hurt. I mentioned August 2 since I don't remember whether children
helped in the old system under which I applied; I did remember how spouses
affected things, i.e. no significant change.

You're right that I misread the Express Entry table you linked on where the 40
points come from, although I still think the situation would already have to
be a borderline case indeed with a very particular set of characteristics for
that to matter to the outcome.

In particular, people with a provincial nomination certificate get 600 points
just for that, and most CRS draws lately have been something like 441. An
entirely unqualified spouse won't hurt that.

And for Federal Skilled Worker Program applicants, the Express Entry table
does not determine the outcome, anyway. Just who can apply in which order.

There is a different points grid for FSWP applications after the Invitation to
Apply. Yes, the one with a version of the same 67-point pass mark that has
long existed. With spouses only able to help, not hurt.

I guess that if you've mostly done provincial nomination programs, and I had
only seriously considered FSWP + Quebec for myself, that explains part of our
differing perspectives about Canada's systems. :)

~~~
iamshs
Express Entry nominations have not been rolled out by all provinces, e.g.
Alberta. Provincial nominations are limited to usually 5500-6000 per year.
Provincial nominations for EE have a higher entry bar to get into than the
usual provincial nominee programs.

Um, Express Entry absolutely determines the outcome for FSWP . 67 points is
the first step, you still have to get accepted through Express Entry pool
scoring points out of 1200. Where spouse absolutely impacts your final points
tally. If your profile is not in the Express Entry pool, your FSWP is not
getting accepted.

I have done 3 paper CEC/FSWP applications, 4 Express Entry and 7 Provincial
nominations for Quebec (Grad PEQ), Ontario, Alberta and BC combined.

------
Anita_kiss
1\. Infants are not automatically US citizen when born in the US 2\. The US
needs more highly qualified workers.

How is the birthright changing that? (argument that every baby could be the
next Einstein is not sufficient)

~~~
arcticbull
1\. They are.

2\. The US definitely needs more highly qualified skilled workers, and pretty
much anyone to just keep the population where it is as a birth rate of 1.84
children per couple is below replenishment rate.

As for birthright citizenship, I agree, it's not a necessary part of a fair
and reasonable immigration system. It's really only a new-world concept and
it's declining in the new world too. Australia had and then rolled it back.
I'm neutral on this. Obviously I don't think it should be taken away from
anyone who already has it, that's a dangerous line to tow, but I wouldn't be
opposed to birthright permanent residency with a path to citizenship should
the individual choose to immigrate on their own, or of course if they'd
otherwise be left stateless.

Hong Kong for instance doesn't afford citizenship to anyone not ethnically
Chinese meaning HKIDs are the end of the road for anyone not Chinese.

------
NTDF9
Americans probably don't even realize how evil current administration is
towards legal immigrants.

They are actively pushing away legal immigrants who contribute to society.

I don't see the following people wanting to live in a racist, anti immigrant,
anti intellectual country:

\- Nobel Laureates (budding geniuses especially)?

\- Top scientists?

\- Good engineers?

\- Medical practitioners?

\- Researchers?

\- People who are family oriented?

Can anyone imagine a well-to-do, well-educated immigrant from a good country
ever wanting to deal with US immigration nonsense? Especially, if they can be
kicked out or denaturalized? I certainly can't.

In fact, the only people who would come to the US (now that the curtain on
American racism is up) are the exact people their politicians over emphasize
on aka gang members, asylum seekers, fleeing shitty conditions back home, have
nothing else going on.

Such a paradox!

------
sparkling
> "Cities’ productivity would increase, as would the wages of native-born
> high-skilled Americans, if more H-1B workers and skilled permanent residents
> were allowed to come."

Please stop with this non-sense. You can be for or against the H-1B program, i
don't care, but there is zero doubt that US citizens would be collecting way
higher paychecks if the H-1B program did not exist. Thats simply supply and
demand on the (tech-)labour market.

~~~
marcell
Disagree. There may be a short term bump, but long term it would be damaging.
Tech workers are value creators. Having a hub of talent like SV increases
value and salaries for everyone here because it attracts companies here,
increasing demand along with supply. If there’s no talent in SV, there’s also
no companies here. They’ll just move overseas to where the talent lives.

~~~
garyfirestorm
Again, I have mentioned this in different threads. H1B isn't just for SV.
There's way more companies in US like automotive industry that needs
multidisciplinary engineers (mechanical, controls, signal processing,
programming, active system knowledge). It's just impossible to find people. My
team has about 3 empty vacancies with job postings everywhere, we just can't
find people with skills (I am on H1B, there aren't enough people in many
fields) stop applying H1B = cheap tech jobs logic.

Also, the Masters degree I pursued (in mechanical engineering -
Dynamics/Vibrations/Acoustics) had barely a couple of American kids vs ~8
foreign kids.

