> Nope, the US does not have a skills based migration system. It's entirely family based.
This is false. The US has both economic and family-based components of the immigration system, and the former part includes subcomponents for which special skills are a key factor.
> Why should we import parents with no guarantee they will do anything but need expensive Medicare and Social Security in old age?
Social Security eligibility and benefit levels are based on payments made into the system during working years.
It's pretty easy to qualify for Medicare. You can just live here for a few years.
It's not false. There is no skilled permanent migration system like what Australia has. Over there, you can get permanent residence by being young, educated, skilled and proficient in English -- without a job offer. There is no such method here in the US. In addition, our temporary work visas are extremely limited and cumbersome and capped. The system clearly favors "family reunification" over skills.
The two sentence unit I responded to ("Nope, the US does not have a skills based migration system. It's entirely family based.") is false.
Its possible to define "skills-based migration system" in such a way that the first sentence alone is true, and it might even be reasonable to do so; you'd have to use an entirely unreasonable definition of "family based" for the second half to be true. There are family-based, employment-based, and diversity-of-origin (which is also skill-based, in that it requires either a specified level of education or a specified level of work-experience is selected employment areas) immigrant visa (which seems to be what you are referring to as "permanent migration") categories.
> Over there, you can get permanent residence by being young, educated, skilled and proficient in English -- without a job offer. There is no such method here in the US.
On a diversity visa, you can get permanent resident status by being educated or skilled in particular jobs without a job offer here -- you don't have to be young, but you do have to be from a country with a low level of immigration to the US.
> In addition, our temporary work visas are extremely limited and cumbersome and capped.
Most (temporary or permanent, including most family-based categories) visas are cumbersome and capped. But I'm not sure why you address only "temporary work visas" and continue to pretend that permanent immigrant visas are only family-based, when that is not accurate. There are immigrant (permanent) employment-based visa categories, as well as non-immigrant categories.
> The system clearly favors "family reunification" over skills.
OR, given the permanent employment-based visa categories -- and ignoring diversity visas for the moment -- perhaps it just prefers actual employment as the concrete evidence of useful skills.
Diversity visa is your example, really? Diversity visa is completely random, that's what it's called the lottery. It has nothing to do with your skills. It's all chance.
Employment based immigration requires an employer sponsor to file a petition. Does not refute my point that there is no independent skilled permanent immigration scheme.
"Entirely" is an exaggeration but the system strongly skews to family based migration. This is not a wild assertion, it's widely known to be true.
> Diversity visa is your example, really? Diversity visa is completely random, that's what it's called the lottery.
All the quota-limited immigration visa categories are distributed, among those qualified, by lottery. Diversity visa aren't called "the lottery", the process for assigning all quota-limited visas is called that. The diversity visa is expressly skill-qualified, permanent, and independent of employer sponsorship.
> Employment based immigration requires an employer sponsor to file a petition.
True. For most employment-based categories, though there are several exceptions.
> Does not refute my point that there is no independent skilled permanent immigration scheme.
"independent" was never stated previously. The original claims were that there was no skill-based permanent immigration system and that it was all family-based. Permanent immigration to the US is not all family-based, as there are family-based, employment-based (most categories of which are skill-qualified), and diversity (which is skill-qualified) immigrant (permanent) visas.
This is false. The US has both economic and family-based components of the immigration system, and the former part includes subcomponents for which special skills are a key factor.
> Why should we import parents with no guarantee they will do anything but need expensive Medicare and Social Security in old age?
Social Security eligibility and benefit levels are based on payments made into the system during working years.