Immigration Part 4: How to De-Shittify Our System
What if we did something weird and built a system on purpose?
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The United States’ immigration system is quintessentially American, by which I mean: It was designed a long time ago, doesn’t work as intended, and hasn’t been fixed due to political dysfunction. It fails to meet the needs of native-born citizens, prospective immigrants, employers, laborers, or just about anybody — it’s the most “who the fuck is this for?” endeavor since Mars Needs Moms. A better system would be more adaptable and do a better job of matching prospective immigrants’ skills to America’s needs. It would also not be such a Byzantine nightmare that even people who make it through the system probably end up hating their new country at least a teeny bit.
So, what would a better system look like? I hope that you’re interested in hearing me, a comedian best known for creating a Supreme Court comprised of real animals with fake paws, try to answer that question.
Our current system is mostly based on family connections. There are various visa programs for people with certain skills and unique circumstances, but the main way to migrate to the US is to have a relative who is already here. We settled on this system for one good reason and one bad reason: The good reason was that immigrants with family ties are more likely to prosper, and the bad reason was that when we built this system in 1965, people thought that prioritizing family connections would strongly favor white people. Of course, that ended up not being true, which is how Trump’s “chain migration” rants turned into the Song Of The Summer for Fox News viewers in 2018.
A better system would consider many factors instead of mostly just one. To achieve this balance, many countries use “points-based” systems, in which prospective immigrants get points for certain attributes, and you can obtain a visa by accumulating enough points. These systems are common in advanced countries like Germany and Singapore and also in primitive backwaters like Canada and the United Kingdom. Points-based systems have become somewhat right-coded, but they’re not inherently restrictive: You could have a points-based system that’s lenient, restrictive, modern, antiquated, highly rational, or a complete fucking mess. Saying “we’re using a points-based system” is like saying “we’re dining family style”: It refers to the process, but the choices made within the process will determine whether you like the outcome.
Below are the things that I think should get a prospective immigrant “points”. My goal is to advantage migrants with the greatest potential to become productive members of society. If I do this right, I’ll piss off both right-wingers and left-wingers: Right-wingers will say that I want to throw open the doors to throngs of filthy peasants, and left-wingers will say that I’m trying to filter for the “right type” of immigrant (and also call me racist, because accusations of racism in left-wing dialogue are like fries at Ruby Tuesday’s: They automatically come with everything). Both sides will be somewhat correct: I am trying to clear a path for the “low-skill/high-energy” people who play an important role in our economy, and I am trying to give a leg up to people who have a good chance of seamlessly integrating into society. So, let’s do this; I look forward to your lengthy, all-caps e-mails, right and left-wingers.
Here are factors I think a points-based system should include:
Clean criminal record and no ties to extremist groups. This is the only criteria that would be compulsory: A clean record is a must. Sorry, Boko Haram members with experience in AI: The Boko Haram thing is a deal-killer. Also, various gangs and mafias count as “extremist groups”. This may be a hit to our second-generation-filmmakers-making-Oscar-winning-films-about-violent-subcultures industry — and I mourn the loss of the next Godfather or Goodfellas — but I think it’s necessary.
Family Ties
What was the name of Mallory’s boyfriend? Where did Alex go to college? Who played Eugene in the episode where Alex hires a tutor? These are questions that any prospective immigrant must answer before coming to America.1
But seriously, folks: Though one of my goals is to remove family connections as the dominant factor determining who can immigrate, I still think it should be a factor. People like being near family, which makes no fucking sense to me but it’s nonetheless true. And people who settle near family can mooch off of relatives instead of mooching off of the government.
Skills
Some countries split “skills” and “education” into two categories, but whatever: Whether education should be separate from skills is a potato/po-tah-to question. The key thing is: This category would largely determine whether a prospective immigrant can do things that America needs done. At least as important as the level of accreditation is the type of accreditation. Which is to say: If you have a PhD in engineering, welcome to America. If you have a PhD in Philosophy Of Puppetry, we’ll get back to you. Similarly, accreditation in a trade could be extremely valuable if it’s a trade with high demand. It’s in everyone’s interest for immigrants’ skills to be closely matched with areas of need, so this should probably be one of the most important categories.
Work history
People who have worked are likely to continue working. And the often-unsaid thing that I’ll go ahead and say is: People who work are unlikely to be losers. My unscientific observation is that there’s a strong correlation between being an unemployable deadbeat and being a total piece of shit. Conversely, a person who holds down a job — any job — for a long period of time is probably at least semi-normal. By factoring in a demonstrated ability to get a job and keep that job, we’re likely to get more Beau Biden-types and fewer Hunter Biden-types.
English proficiency
This is where I might lose some people on the left. I may be accused of favoring English-speaking cultures, even though my antipathy towards the former British Empire is long-standing and obvious (see: The pot-shots I took at the UK and Canada earlier in this column).
Most people in this country speak English, and it’s good when we can speak to each other (except in elevators — that’s awkward). A person who gets on Duolingo and achieves basic proficiency stands a greater chance of success in this country than someone who speaks no English at all. Learning a second language is hard, but people do it all the time, and I think the average American’s day-to-day experience with immigration would improve if delivery guys at least knew the words for “food”, “delivery”, and “downstairs”.
A job offer
A person with a job offer is definitionally “in demand”. Some systems give extra points for offers that are above the “going rate” in that field, which serves as a check against downward wage pressures. Job offers are already part of our system: There are various ways for companies to “sponsor” employees. Folding this concept into a points system would make it part of a holistic process instead of part of a cobbled-together hodgepodge from the depths of hell.
Age
If there’s one thing that this blog has railed against more consistently than the former British Empire, it’s the elderly. We should not filter immigrants by skin color, but we should absolutely filter them by hair color: Keep those goddamned silvers out of my country.
But seriously, folks: The social safety net is an insurance system, and an older immigrant is essentially signing up for that system late. We should prefer people who have their prime working years in front of them.
Where the person wants to settle
The factors I’ve described so far are common features of points-based systems in other countries. But something I’ve never heard discussed is that it should probably matter where in the country an immigrant intends to settle. Some American cities have tight labor markets and housing shortages, while in Baltimore, you can buy a house for a dollar, and that still seems like an over-charge. American border cities often feel overwhelmed, and, sure: If every immigrant goes to Douglas, Arizona, then that’s hard on Douglas. There should be a mechanism to ensure that immigrant populations are spread out somewhat evenly.
This would also give localities some control over their immigrant intake. Immigration policy is federal, so you effectively have voters in places like Vermont and Idaho influencing what happens in Florida and Texas — that’s weird. You also have mostly-rural conservative voters keeping immigration flows low, while mostly-urban liberal voters would like them to be higher. We’ve seen the whole “immigrant goes to Brooklyn” thing — that’s played out. Immigrants who want to go to St. Louis or Montpelier — weirdos though they may be — should get preference.
Perhaps the best thing about a points-based system is that it could be flexible. The number of “points” required for a visa shouldn’t be set in stone; it should be revisited regularly. And so should the weight of the various factors. This would allow us to ensure that both the number and composition of immigrants meet our needs as those needs change. A loose labor market (like during a recession) should lead to fewer immigrants, and a tight labor market should lead to more. It’s fair to worry about the government managing that valve imperfectly — “imperfectly” is the only way that Congress does anything. But right now, there simply is no valve. Conditions change and our policies stay the same, and flows of illegal immigrants wax and wane in response to conditions, but we don’t vet that population at all.
After sixty Pulitzer Prizes, billions of new readers, and a Time magazine cover that dubbed me “The Man Of This Or Any Other Century, Past, Present, Or Future”, my four-part series on immigration is over. I have argued that a country should enforce its borders, though for both practical and ethical reasons it’s good to favor high immigration inflows, and now I’ve given a rough outline of how those inflows might be managed. And with that, I’m done writing about policy for a while and plan to inundate you with a nonstop deluge of culture war trash. Picture that scene in Flashdance where Jennifer Beale pulls a chain and gets drenched with water — that’s about to be you, but the water is Twitter fights. Because I’m now on-record about what might be the most salient policy issue of the day, and I can resume my normal programming of cheap laughs from trivial bullshit.
Immigration Part 1: The "Abolish Borders" Argument
**This is part one of a four part series on immigration. The other three parts will arrive in the next few weeks, unless nobody reads these things, in which case I’ll pull the plug and write about the social media outrage du jour.** Do countries have the right to keep people out? If your response to that question is to yell “obviously yes!” and throw your laptop across the room, let me point out that: 1) We have to establish the legitimacy of borders before we can discuss how borders should be managed, and 2) That’s
Immigration Part 3: The Ethical Case for More Immigration
In part two of this series, I made the practical case for more immigration. That seemed like a good place to start, since politics is mostly about practical arguments. But it’s not entirely about practical arguments; most of us have a moral compass that guides our decisions. If we could raise our GDP by nuking Angola, most people would surely balk due to a fussy insistence that bathing a country in nuclear hellfire is bad. Ethics aren’t just for Buddhist monks and those killjoy Landers sisters; most of us have ethics in our decision-making mix. So, I think those considerations are worth writing about.
Answers: Bubbles the Chimp, Hooters University, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.
I agree with all of your proposals, because I’ve seen a very similar immigration system working in Switzerland, where I live. Switzerland has much more immigration than the US—25 percent of people living here are immigrants. Switzerland also admits refugees at a per capita rate that is literally hundreds of times higher than what we do in the US. And yet Switzerland has almost no trouble with immigrants, and the Swiss economy, as measured by per capita GDP and Gini coefficient, is much stronger that the US—people are richer and healthier, and there is less income inequality and crime than in the US.
Switzerland makes it easy to immigrate legally, but virtually impossible illegally. In addition, prospective immigrants must undergo a criminal background check, must have a job of some kind (it doesn’t have to be a high-status job), and, within a year of arriving must pass a test of basic competency in the language of the canton the immigrant lives in. The Swiss also put some effort into helping new immigrants integrate, through short, free classes that are sponsored by the community.
Switzerland’s example shows that immigration really can be a win-win. Jeff, I appreciate that you are incurring the wrath of the left and the right alike to speak up for sensible policies that will benefit everyone.
Here in the midwest, the immigration conversation is mostly about people fleeing places like Venezuela rather than immigrants seeking economic opportunity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/us/chicago-migrants-residents.html
How would the points system be affected by the need of the immigrant? A lot of refugees wouldn't score many points, especially the ones that are fleeing the worst conditions. If there's a parallel system that processes asylum seekers without giving them points, then many people with few points would just use the asylum process instead and we'd still have a lot of the same issues.
I'm not sure if the points based countries have a good system for dealing with that. The UK has a points system and the (second generation immigrant) PM doesn't seem to have a plan better than "stop the boats".
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/23/world/europe/uk-brexit-migration-sunak.html