Living abroad as I do, with lots of Italian friends, I can't help but take the side of the guys who want a shot at living and working in the US. I am in favor of helping out US workers with things like more or less universal health care and unemployment insurance, but also in favor of letting in immigrants who are capable of taking care of themselves: if you're in the US working, more power to you. If you're mooching, maybe it's time to move along.

Just to get my wife (not some random person) and mother of my daughter into the country is a 3 or 4 month process. She has a doctorate in biochemistry and speaks English well. To add insult to injury, she'll apparently have to go through a doctor's examination before she can get a green card, should we decide to go to the US.

The US has some serious issues with regards to immigrants, which is especially ironic for a country where a very minimal percentage of the people are really people who have been there for hundreds of years, let alone before 1492.

Furthermore, the US has some weird import policies - we can't send prosciutto to my parents because of some BS health regulations (as if Italy didn't care deeply about the quality of its food products).

Yes, there are practical issues: Luxembourg couldn't open up its borders to India and China, for instance, without some serious issues, but on the whole, I have to come down in favor of openness and opportunities for foreigners. Part of that might means some practical measures like loosening the restrictions on H1B workers so they are better able to seek market rates once they've arrived. Another thing I strongly believe is that if you opened things up between "wealthy" nations: US, Canada, Europe, Australia, NZ, etc... there wouldn't be any huge population shifts.

... Wow... it's easy to write lots when the rant is strong within :-)

US import restrictions on food are notoriously brain-dead. They're even bad inside the company; for instance, it's difficult to ship raw milk cheese. But that's neither here nor there.

I'm married to someone who moved to Switzerland for work, and my understanding is, the US is not alone in the world for onerous immigration and work visa policies.

> US is not alone in the world for onerous immigration and work visa policies.

That's correct - basically everyone treats their immigrants like shit. I was in Italy more or less illegally until I got married, although it must be said that they do respect the institution of marriage more than in the US: once you're married, you can stay, no questions asked.

The US gives you citizenship if you marry a citizen as well. All we do is investigate a little to make sure the marriage is real.

No, the US does a lot more than just investigate, and does not give you citizenship just for marrying someone (few places do that - most give you the right to live in the same place as your spouse, though). Going through the whole process involves something like 2 or 3 trips to whatever town has the US consulate you need to go to (a 5 hour trip for me), and in the end, and involves a lot of fees, and requires things like doctor visits, which is kind of degrading.

Bureaucracy in the US isn't all that bad for many things, but from the point of view of a potential immigrant, it can be pretty ugly. Anyone remember when they were stringing along Linus Torvalds and people raised a fuss about it?