That's an interesting article, but if the proposals for limiting the number of immigrants in that article, like speaking English. paying a bond, asset and income tests, would probably drive progressives apoplectic if proposed as actual legislation.

Although, would be super interesting to see this as a proposal from a "moderate" Democrat.

Also completely ignores traditional criteria for immigration, like oppressed people, security concerns, spouses and family members, and health status.

Also, author jokes about population density of places like the UK, but how long would it take to actually build the infrastructure to accommodate a mass influx of new residents, especially if they tended to congregate in a small number of areas with good jobs or other people of their ethnic or linguistic groups?

They're not so much proposals as things that might be discussed in lieu of a number that is a 'magic number'.

More immigrants could easily participate in building more infrastructure. They did so in the past.

> Why bother with a fixed number at all?

This is obviously the sensible approach, but most people who comment on Hacker News immigration threads are nativist. They might pretend to be liberal or progressive [1], but at their core they're no different from the Jim Crow segregationists of the '50s. Changing your in-group from being based on the color of your skin to the patch of dirt you were born on doesn't change the basic immorality of your position.

[1] Though it must be said that progressivism and nativism have been very close friends historically, and continue to be so in the form of NIMBYs.