Are (native) citizens a net positive? Do you ask each one of them how they contribute culturally? What does "spiritually" and "emotionally" even mean in this context?

People should be afforded basic rights because they are people. People who live long term in a place, do the same (or different for that matter but analogous) work etc should have the same basic rights. In this context I interpret "net positive" as basically fulfilling jobs/roles in the society. This alone should (in the long term) afford basic rights, not cultural and other tests.

edit: Regardless that, cultural contribution does not really require a specific language. You can paint, you can play music from your own culture/home country etc. You can even write things in english anyway that many will understand.

First of all, _basic_ rights should be afforded to _all_ humans. That's not what the discussion here is. The discussion here are non-basic rights, like the right to enter a geographic area without restriction or the right to state welfare.

You saying "job/role" is where the argument falls apart, because job and role are not the same. Yes, I absolutely agree that people who fulfill roles in society should be afforded protection of that society.

There are roles in society that have nothing to do with your job: neighbor, volunteer, person you ask for direction on the street, parent, parent of your child's friend... Those are also the roles that typically have some form of emotional, spiritual and cultural work associated with them.

Refusing to fill those roles and filling only the role of "high-income immigrant" isn't necessarily a net positive to the society and should not on that fact alone be provided permanent residence.

I will say however, I think parents of children that attend public school in a country should have almost automatic PR. Not fully automatic, but 99.99% of such cases are net positive, much more than high-income immigrants.