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> including our technological lead, is built by immigrants

That's my point to get the Constitution changed (Amendment #28) to allow an immigrant to run for POTUS. We love US more than natural-born citizens. Our interests are far more aligned with the betterment of the country than anyone else's.

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It's a simple matter of math. The USA has less than 5% of the world's population. It's statistically impossible for that 5% to be the smartest 5% in the world. Therefore, if we want the smartest people in the world, we have to allow immigrants.
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The smartest aren't uniformly distributed across the Earth.
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That's true. It is possible that the smartest 5% are all here in the USA. But it is statistically unlikely that's true.
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You put words in my mouth. I don't claim that the smartest are clustered in the USA.
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is your contention that this new process is too difficult for the smartest 5% in the world to figure out?
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No? Not sure how you reached that conclusion. I'm just stating that the USA needs immigrants if we want to increase our median intelligence because we can't possibly have the smartest people in the world born here.
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so in order to increase our median intelligence, we should make the process super easy?
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The smartest 5% are able to figure out where they're not welcome.

https://yaledailynews.com/articles/international-grad-school...

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The current American immigration process is not figure-out-able. As any immigration lawyer will tell you, there's strategies with higher or lower chances of success, but there's nothing at all like a roadmap which will definitely lead to permanent residency if you follow it well.
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come on, don't do this here.
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It's not an ego problem. It's a racial one.
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I’m not sure US academia is mediocre. It’s more like… normal?

But America being what it is, it attracts those with most potential creating and sustaining a network effect.

But there’s nothing intrinsically good or bad of the US, and it’s quite easy to mess up the equilibrium and go back to the mediocrity you mentioned

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It’s a numbers game. Taking the best from the world talent pool is going to provide better results than from the much smaller American talent pool. Unless your country has more than a billion people, you need to look at world talent.
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The US has to especially encourage immigration since we have gone out of our way to make the education system systemically broken. Our funnel is broken on purpose. Look at countries with strong showings in things like chess or running. Why is that? They encourage large populations of kids to participate, the larger the pool the more top performers.
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Our lead does not come from immigrants. The American people, who are a distinct people, have shown time and again a potential for great things.

Even if it were true, there are wider effects of immigration that you must consider. The purpose of life isn't to increase GDP. It reflects poorly on you that you must cast your opponents as being stupid and spiteful. Could it be that MAGA voters are humans with real motivations and rationales?

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By “American People” you mean native Americans?

Because Literally everyone else in the US is an immigrant. Or are you referring to the Spanish that settled the west? The French in the far south? The Italians and Jews that populated New York? The British and Africans?

I’m painting in broad strokes, but to say “the American People” as if it’s somehow distinct from immigrants is just ladder pulling.

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> Because Literally everyone else in the US is an immigrant

I'm not American, but this conversation happens a lot in Canada where I'm from too

I was born in Canada, in a Canadian hospital. I've never had any other home than this country.

I'm descended from immigrants, but I am not an immigrant. I'm not considered indigenous either, that's a whole other type of person.

What a strange thing, to be from a place but have many people say "it's not your place, it's stolen" as if I had a say in that. If I went anywhere else, I would be an immigrant there.

Very odd.

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Unless your people walked across the Bering Strait during the last ice age you're an immigrant.
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> Could it be that MAGA voters are humans with real motivations and rationales?

No, it couldn't. Trump tells then to vote a certain way, they do it. Look at Massie's primary as an example.

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