From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Oct 18 2001 - 08:59:36 MDT
Rafal wrote:
> I would imagine that the proper immigration law
> would, among other measures, do the following: eliminate
> family-based immigration, sell citizenship to anybody able to pay
> [snip]
Sorry Rafal, I have to disagree here. A few years ago the U.S.
added the 2nd part of your policy [wealth based tickets].
I think you have to demonstrate a net worth of around $1M.
The problem is that leaves the door wide open for people
who have accumulated that wealth through illegal means,
Russian mafia members or Columbian druglords for example.
In contrast, since members of my family did arrive in this
country where one sister worked as a servent to bring over
other sisters and brothers from Ireland I'm not so sure
that revoking that criteria is a good idea (unless one can
make the case that there is just cause for changing a policy
that has historically worked fairly successfully).
Mike has the right idea, "How do you determine who is going
to be a positive contributing member of the crew and who is
going to be a detriment?". Randy is trying to apply the
filter of education, Rafal is trying to apply the filter
of wealth (or more properly the demonstrated ability to
function productively in a capitalist economy).
I'd suggest the best filter may require some aspects of
those elements but *also*, quite seriously, needs to apply
the filter of "who can you *trust*". I don't really have
any good ideas as to how you would do that unfortunately.
We do have concrete evidence that immigrants from Arab
countries have a negative trust quotient while immigrants
from Canada or Mexico would seem to have a positive trust
quotient. While I hate to say it due to its political
uncorrectness should we not use that evidence to protect
ourselves?
Robert
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