Amen to that, Larry. Our immigration policy of keeping out the educated and entrepreneurial while allowing in any unskilled future welfare recipient able to break the law and enter illegally has become an economic millstone around our necks when it should be a growth engine.

Jim Manzi has written eloquently about "immigration as recruiting." Canada and Australia do it, and we need to as well -- as the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (External Link ) and Oracle President Safra Catz (External Link ) have both said.

We can talk all we want about the things that make an economy in today's world successful: innovation, educated workers, a transparent and well-oiled legal system strictly adherent to the rule of law and property rights, but we won't actually be able to deliver on any of this without ensuring that we create the conditions to attract the world's best, rather than a large class of individuals unfit for the global economy.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand have increased their global competitiveness through skills-and-merit-based immigration points systems. They have open, fair and objective standards that let people from *everywhere on earth* (not just relying on a country adjacent to them) in on their skills and merits.

As a result, these countries have large, diverse immigrant populations that are socially mobile, fully assimilated, not a drain on government resources, and more likely to be sitting at the table next to you in the restaurant than washing your dishes.

Today in America, our immigration framework is built around unskilled laborers who can illegally enter (and are seldom subsequently prosecuted or deported) and family unification, while we kick out the foreign engineering PhDs once they've graduated. In large part because we have a high level of immigration based on individuals who are unlikely in their lifetime ever to rise to the education or income standards of native-born Americans or legal Asian immigrants to the US, we have growing income inequality, declining test scores, stagnating or declining incomes -- and atrophying economic competitiveness. Let's face it: If we allow in millions of uneducated laborers who aren't ready for the global economy, our country at large becomes that much less competitive in the global economy.

A fair, geography- and race-agnostic, meritocratic system like Canada's is what the United States must move toward. To continue being economically competitive -- not to mention a global melting pot with a culture and economy appealing to people everywhere -- we need to start a "smart immigration" policy as Canada and Australia have done. Americans are open to immigration and letting others join our culture. But we'll never be able to ensure innovation, an ability to produce high-value exports, or any other pillars of a strong player in the global economy if we continue to have an immigration policy aimed at negatively impacting the most important factor in economic competitiveness -- human capital.

Bravo to Cantor, and let's hope that a smart guy like Ryan picks up on those remarks and that the presidential contenders run with them (though I'm not holding my breath with the presidential candidates). Let's also hope that people in the media like you start the conversation about how immigration policy should be -- all you hear about is the illegals, but what about the plight of skilled workers (like many of my colleagues) from all over the world who have to jump through untold hoops and (in the case of Indian skilled workers) wait 10 or more years? This is the most important issue facing us, and the GOP needs to back off the lame identity politics and push immigration as a tool for growth -- a message that the 80% of the population that wants to finally end illegal immigration, and the 100% that wants the economy to improve, will be pleased to hear.