[icenine]

Merit based immigration is a slogan rather than a policy.

From the beginning of our nation nearly all immigration has been family-based in nature, so when Trump wants to get rid of so called chain immigration what he really means is that he wants to reduce immigration period. From what I remember from American history there has never been a time when just single people were allowed to immigrate. Many single people did immigrate however and bring family member over later on. This is how America was built.

Plus if you eliminated the ability for immigrants to sponsor relatives you would reduce the number of skilled immigrants in general since most people who are able to come to the US in the first place are at the top of their home nation's socio-economic ladder already. They might not be all engineers and doctors when they come to the US but they do end up being assets to the nation in other ways.

Yeah there is a lot of talk about Canada's "merit" based system but don't get fooled by the term merit. Both the United States and Canada are nations that have a long history of welcoming immigrants. Plus in Canada 28 percent of all immigration is still so called "chain migration." In Australia chain migration is 30%.

Don't let a moron use semantics fool you. Well I guess in many cases that is too late.