Many of us I the US want to come there, and we’re willing to contribute, but the barriers of entry are too high. I likely won’t be able to until after retirement and that probably won’t be until I’m too old to move. And I have a lot to contribute if I could find a way to get on my feet. The US doesn’t allow for building enough wealth to start a business right out of the gate, unless you’re already born wealthy or get lucky and are willing to be exploitative, and in that case I could use a different visa to get in. Immigration isn’t all welfare cases and even with those who do need that help having a system in place to allow then to contribute while they get on their feet would benefit everyone. Dump the idea that you need to be extreme capitalists like the US and start embracing the people who need help to get started and most of them will contribute significantly as they will be so prideful of the place that took them in.
I wouldn’t want my ability to keep my home to depend on the fleeting whim of a service industry job. And I am a software architect/engineer with nearly 20 years of technical experience. No service industry is going to want me and no company wants to sponsor short term employees.
The other issue is that in order to get a lot of the visas you can’t be in the country, but you have to have a lease or purchased property. Without knowing anyone, that’s difficult. I can’t afford two homes even temporarily. And I can’t afford to break a lease if the visa is denied. If I could go, stay in a long-term hotel for a couple of months, get basic help finding a job just to understand the differences in employment culture, and then get permanent housing and move all my stuff, I know I could thrive. I just can’t afford the $4,000/month mortgage for the tiny house I have plus a lease on an apartment in another country.
Then there’s the language barrier. It’s not like the US teaches languages to kids, and although I could probably survive with Spanish because I have been studying it on my own for a long time and can communicate basically, it might take me some time to get better at communicating in Spain Spanish vs Latin American Spanish not to mention to pick up the tech jargon.
There are just a lot of barriers that governments could easily make fairly simple to overcome, but the policies are instead designed to make it difficult.