Just auctioning off green cards to people who meet basic requirements (background checks, English fluency) seems to be the fairest way to allocate a scarce resource.
I'm not sure if residency (or even citizenship) is naturally or artificially scarce; I don't think rich retirees, or smart entrepreneurs, lower the quality of life for existing citizens, but an argument could possibly be made that lower skill employees might increase supply and thus depress wages for certain categories of labor (especially positions with an inelastic demand).
I would certainly prefer 100k immigration slots going to 100k predominantly indian and chinese engineers than 10k indian engineers, 10k chinese engineers, and 80k family members of existing immigrants from around the world of varying education, skill, and wealth.
Except the American economy is aimed at, and thrives on people of a certain "education, skill, and wealth". Those 100k indian and chinese engineers are going to buy German/Japanese cars, watch european films and eat foreign food and possibly even french wine. The 80k poor relatives are going to shop at McDs and Walmart, watch FOX, support the local politician with the largest belt buckle - and generally integrate perfectly into American society.
I'm not sure if residency (or even citizenship) is naturally or artificially scarce; I don't think rich retirees, or smart entrepreneurs, lower the quality of life for existing citizens, but an argument could possibly be made that lower skill employees might increase supply and thus depress wages for certain categories of labor (especially positions with an inelastic demand).
I would certainly prefer 100k immigration slots going to 100k predominantly indian and chinese engineers than 10k indian engineers, 10k chinese engineers, and 80k family members of existing immigrants from around the world of varying education, skill, and wealth.