David Brooks gets this analogy right:
Harvard is tough to get into. To be admitted to a school like that, students spend years earning good grades, doing community service and working hard to demonstrate their skills. The system has its excesses, but over all it's good for Harvard and it's good for the students beginning their climb to opportunity.
The United States is the Harvard of the world. Millions long to get in. Yet has this country set up an admissions system that encourages hard work, responsibility and competition? No. Under our current immigration system, most people get into the U.S. through criminality, nepotism or luck. The current system does almost nothing to encourage good behavior or maximize the nation's supply of human capital.
Our immigration system is unaccountably weird, relying, as it does, on family ties and lotteries. Just about all the discussion over the immigration bill has focused on the guest worker and citizenship programs, but the conversion to a points-based immigration system wherein applicants are judged across metrics of talent and economic potential is huge. Expect that system to expand in the House bill, where Silicon Valley Democrat Zoe Lofgren runs the relevant committee, and will undoubtedly jack up the allowance for high-skills visas.
