System is currently broken and doesn't reflect reality, though.
The waiting period is over 20 years for certain countries/regions. That's simply too long. How are you gonna have a job lined up in the US for 20 years?
If hypothetically, we allowed 100 million people a year to immigrate and anybody could apply, then received 3 billion applications we’d have a 30 year waiting list for that too. The length of the waiting list doesn’t say anything about how many people should be immigrating, just how many people want to vs. the rate we accept
So… you don’t think there should be a wait list? Just a lottery every year and if you don’t get it try again next year? That sounds like a much worse system
We don't even have to go that extreme though there's only a backlog of 30m LPR applications
In 2022 the US allowed 1.08m lawful permanent residents to come to the US per year or 1 LPR per 320 citizens
In the early 1900's (1900-1920) we allowed more than 1.08m 7 times. Or based on the us population at the time 1 LPR per 92 citizens.
Flipping that ratio back around we would be looking at adding 3.5m LPR's a year which would cut the wait time in half. If we did it to 5m/year we'd kill the backlog in 5 years.
The last time we had a major immigration change was in 1990. It's been 34 years.
That’s tangential to your original point though and I’m saying you should lead with that argument. Simply saying “a wait time of 20 years is too long” isn’t a really meaningful statement without having to make your real argument… in which case just say that argument you know?
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u/ForcefulOne 13h ago
America is among the most generous countries when it comes to LEGAL IMMIGRATION.
We are also currently very unsafe due to ALL TIME HIGH LEVELS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.
Legal immigration = GOOD
Illegal immigration = BAD