
Originally Posted by
mar2010er
Merit based immigration is a no-brainer both parties agree in principle. This is like a desert everyone would enjoy. However, historically, both parties have their partisan unpalatable goodies they want to bundle up with this desert, which makes the whole package unsavory to the other side. Because it is such an easy target, it's always been used as a carrot. This will continue to be a carrot for a long long time, as there is no harm to citizens, only timid immigrants (with no voice) are being played.
They need a huge backlog of EB immigrants to project shift to merit based immigration. Therefore, backlog has been necessary.