GP mentioned “abandoning your parents” when you immigrate as if that’s absurd. In reality it’s the most normal thing imaginable.
I know hundreds of people who live outside their home country and I can’t thing of a single one of them who took their parents with them. When does that ever happen?
That's what I'm responding to. That the first immigrants to America came under very different circumstances. Circumstances that wouldn't get them into America today.
Abandoning your parents isn't absurd when you don't have other good options. It's also not the most normal thing imaginable. Would you abandon your parents and go to another country if they can't join you at all?
We want the "best and brightest" but we also want them to have to abandon their parents to do it? Many of the best and brightest have other options.
My wife "abandoned" her entire family to come to America at 18, didn't speak a word of english, had a suitcase and barely enough money to survive a week.
She doesn't regret it and her family doesn't think they were abandoned.
This "abandoned" idea is great example of a poor idea that goes into policy that doesn't match reality.