The "without chaining it to a specific company" is critical. When the employee is chained to a company, the company has every incentive to lie then treat the employee poorly. When the employee is not chained to the company, the company has incentives to tell the truth then treat the employee well.
Unfortunately the reality is that there is absolutely no one who is interested in pushing a visa scheme like this. Employers are not interested in going through effort and paperwork for an employee who can jump ship for a better offer down the street once they are in the country. Other employees are not interested in increasing the supply of similar labor that will drive down their market value.
The only ones who are interested in a visa like this would be foreign-born skilled workers looking to immigrate, and they are going to lose the fight over who gets the visas with people who have no specific skills but family in country since that family can vote.
There is no constituency for such a visa, so it is never going to happen.
I’d rather not give my employer the ability to abuse my H-1B coworkers.
Why should they hire someone who can walk to a competitor at the drop of a hat when they can hire someone that will probably be deported if they step out of line or demand market-rate compensation?
> Other employees are not interested in increasing the supply of similar labor that will drive down their market value.
I’m not sure it’s that simple: lots of workers know they’re competing at their current employer with H1-B’s who are underpaid and mistreated. If they’re paid more that dynamic softens a lot and there’s still a cap on the total number.
American immigrant to Canada here. Canada has skilled worker permanent residence visas that, in many cases (and ignoring temporary pandemic-related delays), take half a year or less from start to finish.
Mine was slower but still faster than a lot of immigrant experiences to the US, and I did it from outside Canada and without an employer involved at all.
The skilled worker visas don't need family in country, though it can be a minor help in the points systems they use. My CS degree and work experience mattered far more.
As to why it's hard in the US, I'd attribute that more to attitudes among the population and media than to the inherent nature of having to make policy that appeals to voters: Canada is (at least) as much of a democracy as the US, and even the Conservative Party of Canada isn't proposing to eliminate fast skilled worker processing - they're in fact the party that introduced the quick program I alluded to above. Certainly the other two major national parties are even more friendly to immigration. There are xenophobes in Canada, but firmly in the minority when examined at the national level.
Canada also has fast sponsorship programs for spouses and kids.
Canada does make it pretty easy to sponsor a spouse, common-law partner, or single children under age 22 for permanent residence. In fact it's far easier and faster than the US equivalent.
You're right about the relative percentages between the countries, but that's simply because the US makes even skilled economic immigration far more difficult than Canada. All common kinds of immigration are easier in Canada, though neither country makes it truly easy as was true more than a century ago.
You're right that there are only very narrow cases where Canada allows sponsoring siblings, unlike the US. But those kinds of differences go both ways: for example, Canada allows common-law partner sponsorship after 1 year of cohabitation without requiring marriage, whereas the US doesn't. (I am not referring to what the US calls "common-law marriage" but to a type of relationship that continues not to be treated the same as marriage under Canadian law, except where specifically indicated.)
Sure there is: anyone who wants to increase the availability of cheap skilled labour. Maybe it's true that companies want lock-in, but do you really need that if you can just increase the size of the pool instead? Also consider that increasing the amount of cheap skilled labour would increase the speed of economic growth, therefore giving better returns on the investments of America's wealthiest. Why wouldn't they want that?
It would have to be pitched as a shift to a points based immigration system in order to get buy-in, probably by a McCain-esque Republican. You'd create a fast track green card program that prioritizes immigrants who were educated in U.S. universities, people with advanced degrees, and people who have been working legally via H1Bs in the U.S. for a few years. Then, to get support from the right, you'd have to pair it with some cutbacks in other types of immigration, or maybe crackdowns on employers who hire illegal immigrants, or deportations for immigrants (legal or otherwise) who run afoul of the law, etc.
I usually lean hard left, and I know I'd personally support a proposal that cut back on granting 1 unskilled visa per year, in exchange for fast-tracking 3 skilled visa-holders to getting their green card, and I have conservative-leaning friends who would support such a deal as well.
What's the right ratio, though? They've been trying to strike a major immigration reform deal since the 90s, but neither side has been willing to make concessions, so we've just been just stuck with a broken system and its ill effects.
They would be if the employee was genuinely worth the hassle. Plus you can imagine most companies would put someone on a contractual basis if the “chaining” wasn’t implicitly part of the visa, which may, in itself, render such an idea moot.
