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Comment by neartheplain | Hacker News Reader

This is a survey of researchers’ perceptions. It is not a serious look at the realities of immigration systems.

Look at China’s rank in the survey, and then consider how China grants only a few hundred permanent resident cards per year:

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-03-24/Is-China-moving-to-loo...

Compared to the US, which despite its bureaucratic pitfalls and inefficiencies grants over 1 million green cards annually:

https://www.boundless.com/blog/biden-immigration-bill-increa...

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> Compared to the US, which despite its bureaucratic pitfalls and inefficiencies grants over 1 million green cards annually:

Which mostly go to people in the very, very, very long backlog.

> Which mostly go to people in the very, very, very long backlog.

There is an upper limit that restricts the number of greencards given to applicants of any one country to 7%.

The reason there are very very long backlogs for China and India is because they both combined account for only 14% of the green cards awarded each year. The remaining green cards are mostly unused.

This is not true. Green cards are distributed across countries respecting the 7% limit, but the remaining green cards are distributed to those in the backlog.

This is specifically not happening. There have been multiple attempts to pass a bill to recapture the unused greencards - none of the bills have been passed.

I am talking about the employment based greencard backlog. I’m not familiar with the situation with other categories.

Aren’t most GCs going to family-based immigration? Or that’s on top? Those are two very different paths to immigrate to the US.

China has 3 times the population of the US and has a smaller economy than that of the US. Thus they have a oversupply of labor.

I'm sorry, but we are constantly told what a wonderful effect immigration has on economic growth. Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, and so many more billionaires are immigrants, and there's no lack of articles telling us so [1,2]. If we apply the same logic, China's smaller economy would need even more immigration than that of the US.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/10/05/a...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/immigrant-billionaires-unite...

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