Personally I think that idea is anti-American. The very premise of America as an immigrant society is that we don't judge your worth, we let you prove it. It's so important we even put it on the statue of liberty, it doesn't say "give me your wealthy, your well educated, your industrial tycoons".

And honestly I think that is one of America's greatest advantages. Reliance on credentialism ends up too often being just another class-based divide rather than meritocratic in any sense. Look at Andrew Carnegie, as an immigrant he had little to set him apart, but eventually he became one of the wealthiest men in the world. There are many, many more examples just like his. And yet so often we continue to say "yes, but, let's ignore that and pretend that we can filter people by merit". I don't agree that we can filter people by merit.