some good points on points-based immigration

Immigration policy as an easy solution for unaddressed home grown demographic failures is senseless. Creaming off professionals from developing countries instead of training our own at once impoverishes those countries, and deprives our own children of those opportunities. Bringing in lower skilled, more poorly educated people to do jobs "native borns won't do for such low pay" while paying welfare to the unemployed overly choosy native born is also sending the wrong message and does nothing to promote the idea that one starts at the bottom and works to better oneself, which is what most immigrants in fact do when they take those supposedly dead end jobs.

The idea that elderly relatives promote better integration into society is also false - they are the ones who try the hardest to keep up the "old country" ways, which often may not integrate well with the new country religiously, linguistically or socially for example.

The only commitment that one wants from immigrants is that they are motivated to integrate into the receiving culture, work hard, and are not criminals. As such, they need some skills, both occupational and linguistic. But choosing based on criteria that will adversely skew the economy (eg) temporary foreign child care workers, cheap IT workers, indeed cheap entry level workers of any kind (which lowers the wages and opportunities of native born children to get a start in life, all for the profit of multinationals) makes no sense. And giving away expensive health care and education to those who will have never contributed a tax dollar in their lives, makes even less.