Whom Shall We Welcome? Elite Judgments of the Criteria for the Selection of Immigrants

This paper investigates the direction and magnitude of the effects of personal kinship market and contextual attributes of visa applicants on their desirability as immigrants to the US as judged by members of the professional staff of the US Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. 2 classic sociological questions this politically relevant topic: how do societies choose their members and how do societies allocate scarce benefits? Using the factorial survey pioneered by P. H. Rossi the author obtained from the Commission staff numerical ratings of the desirability as immigrants of fictitious visa applicants embodying the full range of potentially relevant characteristics discussed in the political arena. Although the ratings were obtained by a number-assignment techniques believed to generate a continuous variable the author accommodates the variables possible ordinality by performing all analyses twice--using both ordinary-least-squares techniques and maximum-likelihood ordered-response techniques. The results are unambiguous: although a lawful and coherent set of rules guides each respondents ratings leading to a personal point system for the selection of immigrants no 2 staff members point systems are alike not even qualitatively. In the complex weave of agreements and disagreements 3 conclusions emerge. 1st there is unanimous support for granting preference to visa applicants who have a job offer or a US citizen-sibling. 2nd there is severe disagreement by applicants region of origin. 3rd there is a range of disagreement on other attributes for example on whether the US should favor the immigration ceteris paribus of older versus younger applicants or male versus female applicants. (authors)