patrick.net

It seems like a good idea to me. My ideal system would be take all Visa applicants in a given year, stack rank them based on objective criteria like college degrees, iq tests, special skills, dollar value of employment offers, etc. Accept the top 1% (or whatever percent we want based on current needs). Immigrants could bring immediate family (spouse and children) all would get green cards and eventually citizenship. Disabled parents could be brought in on non work visas if the kid is a family type that wants to watch out for them. Siblings and cousins are out of luck but can enjoy brief visits on tourist visas.

We would reserve a small number of visas, 10k per year for refugees, but again stack ranked by hardship level, can only bring immediate family, etc.

No other visas allowed.

Does anyone have a good argument against a largely merit based system like this?

I'm going to list the objections I have heard so far to a merit based system, let me know if I'm missing anything:
- Un-American
- Current laws not enforced, if they were, current system is good enough
- Current system is good enough
- Implementation detail problems, how to rank immigrants, how to enforce / administer system, cost / complexity of system
- We don't need any new immigrants
- Too many Asians