Success in immigration

By Mike Niederberger, Las Vegas

Sunday, Nov. 30, 2014 | 2:01 a.m.

Perhaps a better idea is to start all over again rather than patching immigration acts that are now 90, 49 and 28 years old.

The United States should follow the successful examples of our anglosphere cousins, Canada and Australia. They reserve most immigration slots for highly skilled applicants who qualify under their point system. The result: They have more legal immigration than we do as a share of their populations, and they also have higher test scores and more economic growth.

Both countries have conservative governments.

America always needs highly skilled immigrants, and we don’t need to tie them to specific employers. We still have a waiting list for lower-skilled immigrants wanting a better life, but don’t we already have enough car washers, landscapers, cleaning ladies, ditch diggers, migrant workers and waiters? Let them make their way in what is still, despite over-taxation and over-regulation, our free-enterprise system. The country will be richer for it.

There is something in a highly skilled immigration system for both political parties. Republicans could talk about whom they’d let in, not whom they’d keep out. Democrats could finally endorse a policy that would produce economic growth rather than just pad their constituency rolls.

All a highly skilled immigration policy lacks is a lobby. Maybe some enterprising members of Congress will step forward and fill the gap.