USA TODAY International Edition
Entry to the USA shouldn’t be all in the family
President Trump has a number of bad ideas when it comes to immigration, among them an unneeded and costly border wall ( that Mexico is refusing to pay for) and a counterproductive travel ban.
But one of his proposals actually makes sense. During last month’s address to Congress, Trump said he wanted to move toward a merit- based system for legal immigration.
This could mean many things, so judgment should be withheld until the details are known. But if what the president means is that a higher percentage of immigrants to the United States should be selected for their skill levels rather than family connections, he is right.
While America has a number of short- term visa programs for skilled foreigners, the bulk of immigrant visas — those with a direct path to permanent residency — are awarded on the basis of a family relationship. This presents two problems:
People coming in on a family reunification visa generally have modest job skills. At a time when countries are in intense completion to produce the most sophisticated products and services, and when numerous jobs in semiskilled areas have disappeared, importing hundreds of thousands of low- skilled workers a year makes little sense.
Family reunification visas naturally favor a handful of nations that have gained a foothold in the immigration process. In 2016, for instance, more immigrant visas were issued to Mexicans than to people of all African nations combined.
Existing programs try to deal with this second problem. People can apply for immigrant visas through employer sponsorship, for example, or through a diversity lottery that Congress created in 1986. But these programs, even when taken together, are not big enough to offset the numbers from family- based immigration.
The answer is to trim family immigration and increase the number of immigrants picked for their employment qualifications.
A bill debated in 2007, for instance, would have limited immigrant visas for the siblings, parents and grown children of citizens and green- card holders while maintaining unlimited access for spouses and minor children. The measure proposed making up the difference by selecting immigrants through a point- based system, in which visa applicants would be judged on such factors as work skills, employment history, education and English proficiency.
Under this type of point system, applicants would be assessed by objective measures of skills and education, not on the willingness of an employer to sponsor them.
Existing employer- sponsored programs, such as the H1- B visa for high- tech workers, have been routinely exploited by certain industries.
One obvious group to target would be foreign graduates of top U. S. colleges and universities. It makes little sense to allow foreigners to take coveted slots at these institutions, often with financial aid, only to send them home when they graduate.
With such a system, the United States could gain a more diverse and skilled immigrant pool while still having family- based immigration account for about half of the total.