Are you seriously suggesting that immigrants of all backgrounds are equally likely to be beneficial to this country?

In fact, if you were to collect samples of natural born American citizens in the same two sets of places you'd reach the exact same biased conclusions about Americans.

In fact, if you were to collect samples of natural born American citizens in the same two sets of places you'd reach the exact same biased conclusions about Americans.

What conclusions are you referring to, in particular?

The respective ones. If you collected statistics about Americans in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals (shocker of shockers). That's the point: it's just about the silliest, most extreme way to bias your sample.

Police officers have a completely different view of immigrants than do people on college campuses.

I'm challenging you on that. I think your statistics would show that certain classes of Americans are comparatively very criminally oriented, and certain classes of Americans are not. Similarly, if you collected statistics about foreigners in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that foreigners here without a visa of any kind are much more criminally oriented than foreigners here on, for example, a student visa. You seem to want to dismiss the usefulness of those statistics just because they're only dealing with a particular segment of the population.

I didn't say anything about certain classes of Americans. I said that if you sampled the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals in general. That is the point. Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased. Just as asking a surgeon about athletes is biased (hint: surgeons have a lot more contact with injured athletes than the average person).

So I ask again (and I won't use students this time, since you didn't get the point the first time): If you asked police officers about their experiences with immigrants here on E1 visas, would you conclude that people here on E1 visas are a bunch of criminals? What does that tell you about people here on E1 visas?

I'll be very clear. Immigrants and non-immigrants are not equally beneficial to the country. No one is equally beneficial to the country.

That doesn't mean none of those types of legal immigrants cause problems for those people, it means they don't cause enough problems to draw the ire of those people.

I don't know, man. The state of California and the federal government take their rightful 38% share from my income. I'm not a citizen.

My girlfriend also pays her rightful 38% share of income. She is a citizen.

And my income is a bit higher so in absolute terms I contribute more as an immigrant than my girlfriend does as a citizen. Percentagewise it's the same because we're in the same tax bracket.

Anecdata, yes, but my point is that everyone who is in X tax bracket pays Y% taxes. Want immigrants to contribute a higher percentage of their income to local communities? Give them higher salaries. ;)

EG: I pay 6.2*2=12.4% as social security, but unless I contribute for at least 10 years, those contributions are lost. So many H1B holders end up paying 12% more in taxes than their American counterparts...

And unlike an H1B, my O-1 visa is not dual intent. That means I get to stay in constant purgatory. Haven't really looked into it, but I probably should.

Either way, legal immigrants contribute just as much, if not more, as citizens do.

Edit: Looks like they support sending social security payments to foreign countries, if you meet requirements. That's neat. https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10137.pdf

There's two types of immigrants in that regard. One has family back home that they support by getting a better job abroad. They might be the majority, I don't know.

Then there's the young person who moved abroad right after college or studied abroad in the first place. They're looking for better opportunities for themselves. Many start families abroad and their children are citizens.

Many if not most immigrants are hybrids of above. One family member moves abroad with the goal of sending money back home to provide for their family. But the endgame is to eventually bring the rest of the family over once the first immigrant finishes bootstrapping their new life.

I would wager that most immigrants who do have family back home, would love nothing more than to bring the rest of the family over to their new country.

As for supply and demand. I believe the supply and demand of the job market as a whole is exactly what is causing immigration. I believe those market forces will continue to pull in immigration, legally or not. Market forces have a hard time understanding law.