In US immigration bill, skills trump family ties

Workers in jobs judged fast-growing by the Bureau of Labor Statistics would be particularly favored. But as critics point out, not all those jobs require high levels of education.

"What they are looking for are doctors and engineers, but the way this is drawn up they might be getting drywall hangers and landscape workers," says Robert Rector, a domestic policy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

The current kinship-based system is an economic drag on the US, says Mr. Rector, as it attracts low-skill workers who consume more public services than they pay back in taxes.

Thus Rector believes it is important to change the underpinnings of the immigration system. But he is critical of the way the current proposal is drawn up – particularly its eight-year lag time before full implementation.

"I've been in Washington a quarter century, and I think anybody who takes that bargain is a fool," he says. "The change [to a merit-based system] would never occur."

Immigration point systems have been in use in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for years. The United Kingdom adopted a similar approach in 2001, and other European nations are considering it.

"More and more countries are deciding that admitting immigrants selected for the education and qualifications the receiving economies need . . . is a good economic and labor market policy," concludes a report on the subject by Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute.

Under the current US proposal, immigrants from many Asian countries would likely fare well, according to the report. For instance, over half of recent immigrants from China, the Philippines, and India have a bachelor's or higher degree.

Immigrants from Latin American countries would likely face "more difficulties," in a point system, according to the study. Fifty-five percent of recent immigrants from Central America and the Caribbean do not even have a high school degree.

One thing that Canada and other nations with points systems have discovered is that their points systems need to be tuned to the needs of their actual economies, points out Ms. Meissner, who is now a Migration Policy Institute senior fellow.

Too often they find that they attract highly education people who end up taking employment that does not use their skills, such as driving a taxi.

"Other countries that have used point systems have modified them over time to be more closely connected to actual jobs," says Meissner.

That does not mean, however, that certain general categories are not highly sought after.

In the United Kingdom, for instance, any prospective immigrant who is a graduate from one of the 50 top-rated business schools in the world is automatically allocated all the points necessary for entry into the country.

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