Not anymore.
With some high tech exceptions we're only attracting bottom of the barrel.
Just since this came up, I’ll share an experience I had over the weekend.
Car shopping (long story I don’t. really want one) and I test drove an Audi. The sales guy had trouble with a couple of my questions and said he was new on the job. Only started two weeks ago. While we were on the drive, I asked him about where he was from, here is a summary of his story.
He's from Morocco and was in medical device sales. One day his wife came to him and said they won the green card lottery. Got picked against very long odds for a green card as a legal non asylum immigrant family. So, a little less than a year ago they picked up and moved to the US.
I asked him how he liked it and he said so far ok. But it was very different and very expensive. He said in Morrocco he worked in medical sales and his wife was able to stay home and take care of their two kids. Here she had to work 430 am – 1200 pm in the bakery at the Whole Foods. They also had to get a very expensive but not great apartment because they didn’t have any US credit history. His daughter has a medical condition and in Morocco the drugs were about $800 a year but here they are costing $25,000 a year--I didn’t ask about insurance etc. it was a short drive.
But he kept saying “but this is the land of opportunity, if I work hard, I can make it here.” After the third or fourth time I wasn’t sure if he was convincing me or himself.
It really brought home to me the fact that to a lot of the world we are still the beacon on the hill. For a guy to leave what he described as a career in medical sales to uproot his family and move here with very few prospects shows how attractive it must be here to someone living elsewhere.
It also made me think about our obligation as Americans. I believe we need to ensure that our policies still allow that dream to be realized. I also believe we need to be kind and warm to those who want to come here to realize that dream. To be frank it was very moving.
I wouldn’t call this guy the dregs of anything, if and when he gets his citizenship, I’ll be proud to call him a fellow citizen.