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Pretty absurd that they're asking for all of this and: > [...] In addition to their social media histories, visa applicants will be asked for five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, international travel and deportation status, as well as whether any family members have been involved in terrorist activities. I know a number of people going through, or have been through, the US visa process an…
My point is: Both Democrats and Republics have been complicit in allowing these kind of activities to continue. And the American public would sooner blame the other "side" in this political dog and pony show, than take responsibility for this being what America's fear based society has brought.
As an aside: These questions are almost impossible for some of us to answer completely. I own entire domains of email addresses and make them up on the fly, I've also thrown away dozens of "social media" accounts in the last five years for trivial reasons.
But the incomplete answers will be very useful when they want to arbitrarily withdraw someone's visa, in the same way that medical insurance used to have intentionally complex registration forms which they could comb through to look for ways to kick people off after they got sick. So people that hold a visa better not protest, write to their representatives, or otherwise stick out or they'll just yank the visa and say bye bye.
I'll write in again during this public comment period. But frankly public comment periods just seem like a way to placate the masses, both you and they know this is coming, nothing a public comment could say will change that.
What if you don't have any social media accounts? Are they just going to assume anyone who says they don't is lying or trying to hide something? Seems like a dumb policy to require details on a purely voluntary activity.
>The department estimates it would affect 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the U.S. for business or education, according to the documents. this will hurt business. this will hurt american companies. this will hurt the country. this will not catch any terrorists. this will not catch any serious drug traffickers. this will not be sociall…
Unfortunately, the same strain of thought that is pushing these measures is quite happy with us being more isolated and worse regarded. They think being isolated is manly virtue; that acting in concert with the international community is feminine weakness. Being liked implies that we give something away; being hated implies that we get what we want.
Hence cries of "globalist cucks!" and so on. Isolation is Strength.
the effort to make the US even more unappealing to immigrants marches on...
the effort to make the US even more unappealing to immigrants marches on...
People I've spoken to seem more comfortable acting like this is part of the current administration's agenda, rather than an encroaching trend which has been gradually getting worse year upon year. For example this specific policy was added as an "optional" (not really) question on an entry form before the 2016 presidential elections (I know, I wrote a letter protesting it during public comment period). My point is: B…
Stop pushing this "both sides are the same" narrative. It's part of the damn problem.
While the Democratic administrations may have continued these kinds of policies (and I will challenge you on whether they as bad as the Republican ones), most of the opposition to these policies is coming from rank and file Democrats.
Democrats are a bit busy right now fighting a LOT of battles on a lot of fronts--some of them aimed at the core of our democratic institutions.
You will have to pardon us if things like visas aren't at the top of the agenda right now. If you want problems like this tackled, you're gonna have to help us bail water on the bigger ones first.
In addition, you are giving up just as the political pushback against social media is growing. Don't do that. Politics is a contact sport, but it's slow.
Furthermore, you can get significant evangelical (but not mainline Republican) support against this, as well. You simply need to run the narrative of this as "the mark of the beast".