Update on high-skill immigration work

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In September I wrote that I was trying to work on high-skill immigration into the US as my political cause of choice.

I’ve decided to stop focusing on this, after spending a few weekends digging into the topic and concluding that realistically there’s not much a person can do to make progress on this by spending a few hours a weekend - especially if that person lives in Kenya as I do.

I had hypothesized 3 ways to have an impact on high-skill immigration, and have concluded that none of them are too effective right now.

1. Convincing / bothering my representatives or people in the state department to change things

  • I’ve written a few emails to my senators and representatives (congress is the most likely place to make big progress on this issue). I got stock responses. Always hard to say with things like this, but likely these emails had no impact.

  • One of my senators, Chuck Grassley, has been one of the biggest opponents to actual immigration reform in the Senate. I tried to get a meeting with him (he makes it relatively easy for Iowans to meet him) but wasn’t able to. If I moved back to Iowa, I would spend some time at political events to see if I could get a meeting with him, but it’s not a feasible option while I live in Kenya.

2. Growing my blog to hundreds of thousands of readers and then using it as a soap box

  • Getting tons and tons of readers was a joke, but the general idea of trying to mobilize activism myself was something I thought a little bit about. But 1) it’s hard to do, and 2) if I mobilized a bunch of people to act on high-skill immigration there is a chance this would actually backfire. Raising the profile in public discourse of “high-skill immigration” specifically (which has less public attention on it than low-skill immigration) could attract anti-immigration people to the issue

3. Getting involved with activist organizations that know how to be effective much more than I do:

  • There aren’t any good volunteer activities I could find on high-skill immigration. If I was German I could volunteer with Malengo. If I was looking for a full-time job, I could try Formally or the Institute for Progress. But other than those, options are limited.

If I move back to the US in the next few years, I may try to get involved in political activism on this issue with my senators and representatives. But for now, I’m going to put this time and mental energy elsewhere.