The idea of a merit-based immigration policy originated on the political left. It was first proposed by a blue ribbon panel, chaired by a civil rights movement icon, Barbara Jordan, in the 1990s. The commission’s recommendations for an immigration overhaul were immediately endorsed by President Bill Clinton and other leading Democrats and Republicans of the day and then, just as quickly, mothballed due to objections from ethnic interest advocacy groups and powerful cheap labor business interests.
The United States, under President Joe Biden, is sailing into uncharted waters. Democrats, for much of the past half century, have leaned in the direction of moving the United States toward the Scandinavian model of the “nanny state,” in which citizens surrender some of their freedoms and significant chunks of their paychecks in exchange for cradle-to-grave security.
Earlier this century, conventional political wisdom posited that Republicans would never be able to win a national election unless the party out-pandered the Democrats on the issue of amnesty for illegal aliens. Republican political “experts,” who spent too much time listening to other “experts” instead of actual voters, insisted that supporting massive amnesties for illegal aliens was the key to unlocking the Hispanic vote for the party.