> If you don't qualify for the family-based or refugee route, employment-based immigration is the only viable pathway.
This is, I think, the fundamental problem of our immigration system and ultimately tied to the source of the illegal immigration.problem that arises whenever the economic and social climate is relatively good (right now, we've got negative net rate of illegal immigration, because the economic and social climate sucks), and also much of our border security problem.
Our immigration policy seeks to do three main things:
(1) prevent people we absolutely don't want in this country (usually, for safety/security reasons) from coming in for any reason at any time.
(2) Allow people we specifically do want in the country to come in, and
(3) Manage the costs incurred as a result of the total level of immigration.
#1 is pretty straightforward: we prohibit certain people from entry, period, based on certain rules.
#2 and #3 together are served by a complex set of visa categories, with quotas in each category (both global and per country, in each category.) And we treat anyone that doesn't get a slot in the quota.or doesn't fit a preference category exactly like the prohibited individuals in #1.
A better way to address #3 (and to replace some existing categories, like the H-1B) would be to allow either entry- or annual- (possibly both as options) fee-based immigration or annual residency with work status for immigrants above the caps. The fee structure might be different for people eligible for dofferent existing preference categories but "skipping the line", and higher than any of those for non-prohibited immigrants in no preference category. Third parties could sponsor such supernumerary visas, but would have no special status for doing so (other than contract rights, but even then law could limit contract enforcement to recovery of the cost of sponsorship according to the rules applicable to general debts.)