Immigration Preference for Supermodels

“[Supermodels] is the one exception [to U.S. immigration policy] that we all scratch our heads about,” said a Brookings Institution policy analyst, speaking to Bloomberg Businessweek in May. Foreign-born sports stars and entertainers are fast-tracked with American work permits under one system, but supermodels were excluded from that and so must compete (successfully, it turns out) with physicists and nuclear engineers to earn visas among the 65,000 slots available only to “skilled workers with college degrees.” As such, around 250 beauties are admitted every year. The most recent attempt to get supermodels their own visa category was championed in 2005 and 2007 by, appropriately, then-U.S.-Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York.