The US only has two political parties and they are both, secretly, pro immigration.

The EU is actually clamping down on it because of populist/far right parties. I know someone who runs a Thai restaurant and he cannot fly in a cook from Asia. He has to find someone from Europe.

The EU is mostly clamping down on asylum seekers that are abusing the procedural rules, despite not having a solid claim on asylum.

Think of someone from a place that isn't nice enough, but well above the threshold of absolute shitshow with genocidal aftertaste that allows protection. Such people, by virtue of claiming to require asylum get temporary protection and right to residence and then clog the system by appealing everything ten times with the obviously foreseeable result of not being granted anything. The current idea that is supposed to solve everything is hosting the immigration ghettos offshore (surprise surprise) to not upset the local population until the positive decision is made.

Right populists are mostly riding the racist feeling and the idea that the actual legitimate asylum seekers are undesirable, because they are Muslim, because immigrants leech on the system and all that, plus the actually observable existence of ethnic (organized) crime.

All at the same time, the tech immigration is very easy as long as you get an offer. No quotas, no 100k shakedown, not even a degree requirement or a language test, just someone willing to fill the form and pay like 500 bucks in processing fees and pay you the above media salary. Family immigration isn't restricted either and partners of citizens and immigrants get right to work (because what else they would do here, lol).

But the actual non-fancy low-skilled low-paid immigrants are either EU citizens from less affluent side of the continent or the (former) asylum status holders (which is straight path to citizenship most of the time). Packages have to sorted, garbage trucks have to be driven and cheaply. But sure, anti-immigration attitudes we have.

So yeah, the only sure way to fly in a Thai cook is to marry her or give her husband a tech job.

To be fair the US is pro-immigration and that’s no secret. H1-B is a guest worker visa. Those jobs could equally go to immigrants.