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Comment by digianarchist | Hacker News Reader

The problem with removing the cap without a windfall to take care of backlog, is that nobody applying today will be getting a Green Card for the next 10-20 years. Green Card recapture mostly resolves this.

It’s funny because on family immigration, the US is very liberal compared to Canada. You can sponsor parents relatively easily (lottery in Canada) and even siblings (not even possible in Canada).

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Sponsoring elderly parents to retire in the US seems prohibitively expensive in terms of healthcare cost. Maybe that's why Canada disallows it, since their healthcare is covered by taxpayers unlike US healthcare.

But then what do you do, return to your home country when you parents need help? Abandon your new life and job, which you built over 20 years?

Yes.

Jeff Sessions, is that you?

ACA/medicaid pays healthcare expenses for elderly parents in US - no problems here. Technically government can go after sponsor for first 5 years after immigration for medicaid money but there are no known cases of government actually doing it. If parents qualify for ACA (need to make 20k/year - can be childcare “payment” for grandkid) then it’s like $20/month and sponsor is not even on theoretical hook to repay.

ACA doesn't pay long term nursing home fees for e.g. bedridden parents though. That can easily cost a fortune.

for siblings the wait time is decade+

True but no other western country I know of allows it at all.

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