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Neat idea, but I think the problem is going to be that it is difficult, if not counterproductive, to limit immigrants to living in one part of a country. This seems like an issue that needs national/Federal oversight and cannot be handled locally.

I have suggested simply selling entry visas (subject to background and health checks) with the price varying by age. Older immigrants would need to pay more. I outline my rationale for this here: https://www.lianeon.org/p/toward-an-optimal-immigration-system

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One thing I should clarify: though the community sponsored visa requires living and working in a particular place, there are no movement restrictions. For example, workers could spend their weekends in the next town over or travel anywhere in the states on their vacations.

It's really a solution for an n-th best world, I agree that limiting movement is counterproductive but it might suit the political realities better.

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In the early days of the American Republic there wasn't any federal level immigration restrictions. They were all imposed at the state level. Kind of like the modern EU. individual EU countries can issue their own visas but with free movement, it's very difficult to enforce region specific work permits. People just get a visa for Poland and then migrate into Germany for work.

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