Misaligned Priorities

The U.S. immigration system sends the wrong signals.

Photo by Kerwin Elias on Unsplash

This piece was initially published in Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.

On December 17, 2022, a group of Indian tech workers staged a protest in Silicon Valley calling for reforms to the U.S. legal-immigration system. Some had already waited for decades to obtain permanent residency (a green card). Even more devastating is that some of them may have to wait 150 years before receiving their green cards. One said, “What we are fighting for is basic equality. . . . Treat us based on what skills we bring to this nation and not necessarily based on where we were born.”

But their protest has caught little media attention. Meantime, President Biden’s visit to a highly sanitized portion of the U.S.-Mexico border has received wall-to-wall coverage. The mismatch in attention suggests a misalignment of priorities.

I understand these Indian tech workers’ frustration because I was once in their shoes. I came to the United States on a student visa in 1996, and my qu…