Why Legal Immigration Is Impossible for Nearly Everyone (2023)

cato.org

5 points·speckx··2 comments

I may not like CATO overall, but I do love me some informative flowcharts.

I've seen a few like this over the years, and pretty much all of them agree that the system is painfully convoluted. (Or else all of them have failed to depict its true simplicity, which seems like quite a stretch.)

Yes it's true that the system is difficult to navigate, but that's a problem that only the lucky few have. The vast majority of people who would like to emigrate to the US aren't qualified anyway, so for them it's much simpler. But as the article explains, over 30 million people want to come to the US in one year and that's just not realistic so there isn't really a solution to this. The population of the US is less than 400 million. Can you imagine 30 million more per year?

They could fix things to make it more streamlined for the 1 million or so who are qualified to get a green card, or even increase the quotas, or even easier, guarantee that unused quotas carry over. But then it will remain true that the vast majority of people who want to come, can't. This is a function of America's success.

For this to change, i.e. where most people who want to come here can, it would take nothing less than the US losing it's status as the best country in the world for opportunity.

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