Thanks for writing this. As someone who has spent the last few years inside the US high-skill visa process (the O-1/EB-1 world of researchers and specialists), the open-borders debate always felt one step removed from what actually determines who gets to come here. A question for the thread: does anyone know of EA-side work that treats the skill-selected channel separately, rather than lumping it together with mass migration or refugee admissions? The trillion-dollar-GDP-on-the-table macro estimates seem to be almost entirely about low- and middle-income labor mobility, while the innovation case for keeping high-skill visas generous feels much thinner than either its advocates or its detractors admit. Is there solid empirical work on what the US gives up when those categories are oversubscribed and rationed through backlogs?
Thanks for writing this. As someone who has spent the last few years inside the US high-skill visa process (the O-1/EB-1 world of researchers and specialists), the open-borders debate always felt one step removed from what actually determines who gets to come here. A question for the thread: does anyone know of EA-side work that treats the skill-selected channel separately, rather than lumping it together with mass migration or refugee admissions? The trillion-dollar-GDP-on-the-table macro estimates seem to be almost entirely about low- and middle-income labor mobility, while the innovation case for keeping high-skill visas generous feels much thinner than either its advocates or its detractors admit. Is there solid empirical work on what the US gives up when those categories are oversubscribed and rationed through backlogs?