[non_aligned]

> A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so.

That's largely a myth, though. The vast majority of smart, driven people have no path to lawfully immigrate to the US.

By a wide margin, the main immigration pathway are family visas (i.e., marriages and citizens bringing in relatives). H-1B visas are a comparatively small slice that's available via a lottery only to some professions and some backgrounds - and the process is basically gamed by low-wage consultancies, with a large proportion of the rest gobbled up by a handful of Big Tech employers. And that's before we even get to the fact that H-1B doesn't necessarily give you a path to permanent residency, depending on where you're from.

For most people who aren't techies, the options are really very limited, basically "be exceptionally wealthy", "be a celebrity", or "be one of the world's foremost experts on X".

[Illniyar]

I mean there's somewhere between 10-20k o1 visas issued a year. o1 is literally the visa for smart and talented people.

There is also EB with National Interest Waiver - including for profession like Doctors and such.

Not to mention a lot of employment based visa, if you work for a US employer - L1, EB1/2 directly etc...

There isn't a permanent resident visa for Driven people - but you can get entrepreneur visas if you run a profitable business.

[non_aligned]

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Yes, if you're truly exceptional, you can get in the US. You can also get into any other country in the world. And the Trump administration doesn't seem to be interested in changing that.

But only a tiny sliver of what you would consider successful, skilled people can qualify for O-1. To my original point: if you're "merely" hard-working and good at something, you - as a general rule - have no lawful pathway to immigrate to the US.

Here's another way to look at it: let's say that in any country, roughly 10% of people fall into the category of "talented and hard-working" - not superstars, but the kind of people who would conceptually enrich the economy. Worldwide, that's probably what, 400 million adults? Further, let's say that about 10% would be interested in living in the US. And before all the EU folks sneer at that: that's probably a big underestimate, because a good chunk of the world is living in places with a much lower standard of living. So that's 40 million who probably want to come. And the total number of employment visas is ~100k/year. We aim for the global top <0.1%.