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Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

My grandparents were all immigrants who didn't need to jump through hoops to come in. IMO, this should still be possible. I think we should have a open lottery that meets 95% of immigration demand, and have some sort of competitive/fast-track process for skilled workers that would weed out the bodyshops.

That said, this post is crafted marketing nonsense.

For example, a statement like this from a company founder is ridiculous: "In fact, the restrictions on H-1B visas make that entire topic moot since highly skilled talent must meet strict wage requirements set by the US government based on prevailing wages in the county you're hiring the person into, in the skill-level and profession of that person."

Let's be real here. Every big bank and insurance company has battalions of "Senior Programmer/Analysts" churning out J2EE for $35k/year or less. "Prevailing wage" is a term of art that doesn't mean what it sounds like it ought to.

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Immigration is not only still possible, but booming. The number of immigrants living in the US is 12.9% - which is close to an all-time high from about a hundred years ago (14% or so).

Source: http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-populat...

Yes -- and a quarter are illegal! From your link (http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-populat...)

"We estimate that 28 percent of all immigrants are in the country illegally. Roughly half of Mexican and Central American and one-third of South American immigrants are here illegally."

Per the population figures in the link... Approximately 6 million people from Mexico and Central America alone don't have legal status. Those people are more vulnerable to all sorts of employer abuses, usually don't have healthcare, can't legally drive in many cases and face all sorts of other challenges.

>My grandparents were all immigrants who didn't need to jump through hoops to come in. IMO, this should still be possible. I think we should have a open lottery that meets 95% of immigration demand, and have some sort of competitive/fast-track process for skilled workers that would weed out the bodyshops.

Doesn't US have a green card lottery?

Yes, but it is tedious. It takes about two years (this October you applied for 2016) and your winning chances are between 1 and 2%.

Yes but it's very difficult to win. There are two 'rounds'. You have about a 1% chance of winning round one and then a 50% chance of an interview (which you must pass). It's a route I've tried 6 times now with no luck (and it's an annual event).

Yes, but the quotas are too low.

We literally have 5 million Mexicans living in the US as second class people without access to worker protections and other institutional things. It's a situation that shouldn't exist.

My grandparents came here in the 1930's and 1940's. In those days, entry was pretty trivial. No reason why it shouldn't be that way again.

The sad reason why is the welfare state. It didn't exist back then so it didn't cost that much to accept immigrants.

Low skill immigrants cost a lot unless you do the second class mexican thing unfortunately, then they're cheap!

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