longeyes said:
A modest proposal:
We take in people who are likely to enhance America. I happen to believe that means people of like mind, of like values, and, yes, of like culture.
First point: this is, at the root, an argument in favor of central planning, the very opposite of capitalism.
...But it's not your decision on whom to admit. If done, it would be implemented by a group of bureaucrats, based on politically-driven policies handed down from Washington: in short, the very way it is done now. While I disagree with the present system of quotas, it is an effort to accomplish the result you want: to let in those most likely to have something to contribute.
There are problems with looking too closely. A sickly-looking fellow came here from Serbo-Croatia a long time ago, a young man with no job, little money and suffering chronic migraines. Another young man, a hunchbacked dwarf and avid socialist, came to the U.S. from Russia. He was broke, too. Not real likely prospects?
Keep 'em out, and your lights go out! The first is Nikola Tesla, father of the alternating-current power distribution grid; the second is Charles Proteus Steinmetz, who did much of theoretical and applied work behind the parctical aspects of it. ...Papa Steinmetz mellowed into a crusty but likeable sort; Tesla was a brilliant looney all his life.
It's very difficult to accurately predict just what good a person might do.
Immigration faces much the same problem as criminal justice; the system's got to have enough "slop" in it to avoid refusing or convicting the innocent,
even at the cost of letting a few baddies slip through. There is no perfect justice this side of the grave; the only choice is which way you want to stack up the errors: missing a few baddies to get nearly all the good ones, or getting almost all the baddies at the cost of losing some good guys.
There really isn't an easy answer.
People who don't value America's core principles and won't further them are not great candidates for keeping the America we want.
They're also quite unlikely to do well here. ...And most such are not very likely to want to come here, either.
Limiting chances for legal immigration only turns away those who are most likely to be interested in becoming citizens; and it swells the pool of illegals, allowing better chances for persons not all interested in citizenship or the "core values" to slip in with 'em.
Like any product, limiting supply simply drives up the price and encourages the use of substitutes, including really lousy imitations.
--Herself