I understand that pre-1965 it was used in a racist way, but isn't a per country cap a good way maintain a diverse group of immigrants today? I'd keep that, and add a gender cap, forcing a relatively equal distribution. I'd also greatly increase skilled immigration overall.
The per-country caps only have the effect that some people need to wait longer than others for their rights, while still living here and paying the same taxes as you do, but not being easily able to switch jobs, not being eligible for certain jobs (eg. SpaceX), or certain research grants (eg. NIH), and being one layoff away from having to sell their house, sell their car, take their kids out of school, and leave on short notice.
If diversity is the goal, then the entire pipeline (H1/L1, potentially F1) should have per-country caps - that way, nobody living here is denied their rights based on where they were born. Raising the per-country caps on green cards to 100% to match the H-1B caps (aka eliminating them) is one way of achieving this, and arguably the most egalitarian - but it isn't the only way.
At this point now, I suspect some companies prefer hiring people from India/China because they know they'd be indentured. That aspect should be removed.
I for one prefer the diversity of immigrants we get with the cap.
Making Indians wait for up to 70 years (a de facto Indian exclusion act) is extremely racist.
Plenty of Indians can come to the US, we just want to leave room for others as well.
(2) India itself is very diverse: ~30% speak the same language (Hindi) with different dialects. Rest speak over 16+ regional languages with distinct scripts and a 1000+ dialects. Someone speaking Tamil won't understand a Punjabi speaker and vice versa.
(3) If someone was born just 5 kms from say Gorakhpur in India , across the border in Nepal, they suddenly meet the diversity bar.
(4) Not sure why two immigrants from Austria and Germany are 'diverse' but two immigrants from India's Nagaland and Gujarat, who have different religions, cultures, languages (even facial features, if those count) are clubbed together.
(5) Logically extending your argument, you'd also agree with a quota system in all jobs classifications. For example, we should have a 12% quota for African Americans in Google's engineering team.
This is an asinine argument.
Merit, fit and an ability to contribute to the society should determine America's immigration policy not some racist concept determined by the accident of birth.
That's an interesting point. When asked by others where I am from I normally respond with "I am from India" - but it would be more appropriate to say "I am from Tamil Nadu" (an Indian State north of Sri Lanka).
And if they were born 9000 miles away in the US, they'd already be a citizen, so what's your point.
Listen, no system is ever going to be "fair" for every person.
And considering how often people talk shit about the US on HN, I'm surprised people don't just go to Canada or Australia instead.
Arbitrary country lines don't count for diversity, as somebody else pointed out. China and India have huge populations, and China at least has a huge land mass.
Why wouldn't we not "leave room" for others, especially if they weren't as skilled?
I couldn't agree more. The solution here should be to lift the per country cap on each visa category, which is a remnant of the pre-1965 overtly racist national origin system, and increase the overall number of employment based permanent visas. EB-2 and EB-3 (not including other workers), which are the main categories for high skilled workers, are only allocated around 70,000 visas per year. Compare that to the lottery system at 50,000 or siblings of US citizens at 65,000 per year.
While I am totally in favor of permanent resident visa programs being fixed, and am in general in favor of increased immigration including of high tech workers, the H1B is being abused. Not just by the Indian BPO companies like Infosys and Tata but also by multinational consulting companies like IBM and Accenture. If and when the EB2 and EB3 backlogs were cleared, I'd support: 1) eliminating the exemption rules for determining H1B dependent employers, 2) barring H1B dependent employers from filing any further H1B petitions until they were no longer dependent, and 3) apply the attestation requirements to any employer regardless of size that files at least 1000 petitions in a visa year.