One of the problems with having large numbers of higher level skilled workers come in is that they actually do compete with Americans for well-paying jobs, more so than laborers.
We probably need unskilled workers, too, at any rate when our construction industry is functioning. But there should be a special short-term visa for them so that they can come for projects or for limited periods of time and then go home again. This would probably affect Latin Americans primarily, since they are the ones who live close enough to come and go easily and they have a large number of young male workers who are generally the type required for construction work, clean up work, etc. in places where there isn’t much domestic labor. And the great majority of them actually want to go back home after they have made enough money, but the way our law is now, it actually encourages them to hide out here and stay because they aren’t sure they’ll be able to return for a future job.
Something like that would also cut into the people smuggling business, which, while it smuggles in druggies and non-Latin foreigners from all over the world, smuggles in a lot of basic laborers from Latin America.
I agree about the family member stuff, and I have never understood why one person who arrives here has the right to bring all of his extended family with him (which he can apparently do whether he can support them or not). That’s a real abuse.
That said, I doubt that any of these ideas will even be discussed, because I don’t think Obama intends to deal with this through the legislature. I expect to see him have the agencies enact various regulatory things that will achieve his goals.
And the problem is that his goals are not the economic or political well-being of the United States, which is, as the author says, the thing that should be the foundation of our immigration policy.
I understand your reasoning an, on a flat surface, would agree with you. But realistically, we are not going to be able to shut down immigration entirely, and I think it would be better, in the long run, to allow in more skilled, educated people. Right now we are importing the ignorant, poverty stricken losers of the world, and paying, one way or the other, to subsidize their presence here. Skilled workers would at least be self-sufficient.
You've touched on the real time bomb of "immigration reform". Once the current illegals are given amnesty, they will do just as you state, and completely overwhelm our social services, let along Social Security (let's not forget gramma and grampa in the mix).
In the meantime, new illegals will be encouraged to come up here, wait in the shadows a few years, and then be given Amnesty III.