One of the incongruous things about the proposals to focus on high-skilled immigrants is that the forbears of most of the people making these arguments, in most cases, were probably anything but high-skilled. They were, to use a Yiddish phrase, Chaim Yankels (country bumpkins). In other words, their ancestors, by their own criteria, would have never been allowed into the U.S.

Let’s leave aside the issue that we really don’t have a high-skilled labor shortage–unless by shortage, you mean ‘willing to work ridiculous hours for shit wages and job security.’ Then I suppose we might.

Instead, let’s put on our happy face and look at the BLS’ estimates of where most job growth will happen over the next decade:

While some of the jobs on the list require technical, skilled training or a college education, most don’t. They are relatively low-paying (though we should significantly raise the minimum wage) and semi-skilled, largely requiring hard work and grit.

In other words, the kind of jobs Chaim Yankel (or whatever your ethnic equivalent is) had when he immigrated to the U.S.

Same as it ever was.