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My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

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Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#141

Post by patrickgzill »

The unmentioned flipside is that other countries love to export people to the USA in order to get foreign remittances back to the home country up.

The elite , about the top 2-10% in those countries own most of the businesses, and like things the way they are - no need for political change, as the remittances take some of the pressure for change off, while they eventually end up pocketing a large portion of the remittances due to those monies being spent for products and services (at the businesses they own).

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#142

Post by lupatus »

fastfinner wrote: post #118
lupatus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has knowingly used fraud for years to get work, educational, and lifesytle opportunities that would have otherwise gone to people legally allowed to work, study, and reside here. Paying taxes or writing keen articles does not excuse this fact. Hence, he is cheating[1]. [1] Wikipedia defines cheating as, "... the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation." That seems to be a accurate summary of…

Exactly. Paying taxes does not make the situation fair. All his life he has "filled a spot" of an opportunity that would have otherwise been available to someone else. His achievements ("the end") do not justify the means.

fastfinner, you may just want to stop trying to convince them or your karma might drop 20+ points in an hour like mine just did.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#143

Post by anigbrowl »

Aloisius wrote: post #88

How difficult is it really to have a green card wedding? The only knowledge I have of it is from TV, but surely in a country where a good chunk of the population doesn't take marriage seriously, finding someone to marry you for citizenship wouldn't be difficult. You could even build a startup out of it... USMailOrderSpouses.com.

I know you are joking, but it is not a good idea. I know some people who have done it successfully, but it is risky and can even lead to revocation of citizenship if it is discovered many years later. Operating a startup like this would result in a lengthy prison term if you were found inside the US, as in >20 years.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#144

Post by phillmv »

BadassFractal wrote: post #132
potatolicious wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To expand on the point: skilled immigrants in Canada gain permanent residency (aka the equivalent of the green card) immediately upon entry. You can work for anyone, in any field, without restriction. You have health care, education, and all of the benefits of anyone else except the vote. And that only takes three years of continuous residency. Compare with the US: must make the H-1B quota, wait years, apply for Gree…

Whoa, what's this thing about gaining permanent residency in Canada if you're skilled? You make it sound too easy. Define skilled?

Eh, it's not THAT easy.

For skilled workers, you're in if belong to a narrow category of professions and have worked for a year in the field[0], or you have a job offer. Otherwise, you need to score enough points[1] on this semi asinine questionnaire.

Things that work in your favour: Knowledge of French alongside English, a bachelor's degree, having studied in canada, being 21-49 years old, having lots of work experience, having a spouse with lots of work experience or who is studying or working in Canada, and having immediate family in Canada.

Frankly, I think we could do a lot to improve this scenario since there is this perverse catch 22 where a lot of employers (for good and bad reasons) will not heed attention to foreign qualifications claiming you lack "Canadian experience". This results in having engineers and doctors drive cabs for a living which feels... unethical.

On the other hand, my personal experience with immigration suggests that a majority of people skirt around the legal pipeline precisely because this system, while somewhat more humane than the US, is still somewhat too onerous.

[0] http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who.asp [1] http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/assess/index....

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#145

Post by haberman »

anigbrowl wrote: post #126
haberman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to be assuming that something is right because it is the law. No, I'm assuming that regulating immigration is right because not regulating it has demonstrably bad consequences, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift If regulating immigration is right, sidestepping that regulation is wrong, just like driving without a license, running a bank that doesn't keep enough reserves, or building…

I'm not seeing what the negative consequences are. Are you referring to the fact that some of the immigrants were criminals and mental patients, who were encouraged to emigrate from Cuba and take their problems with them? The article you cite says the scope of this problem is debatable and may well have been overstated. Even if we accept this premise, however, the same situation applies within the United States. Many…

> Are you suggesting that we should have interstate border controls, and require Americans traveling from one US state to another to obtain a visa first?

Are you suggesting that US borders with Canada and Mexico, as well as our maritime borders, should be as open as the borders between states?

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#146

Post by haberman »

jshen wrote: post #127
haberman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to be assuming that something is right because it is the law. No, I'm assuming that regulating immigration is right because not regulating it has demonstrably bad consequences, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift If regulating immigration is right, sidestepping that regulation is wrong, just like driving without a license, running a bank that doesn't keep enough reserves, or building…

Now you're assuming that our current regulation system is right. I think it's clear that our current system is broken. It's far too expensive to enforce our current system, so we're left with laws that are ineffectual. Reality trumps abstract ideas, and I think we need laws that deal effectively with the reality of our situation.

> Now you're assuming that our current regulation system is right.

No, I'm arguing that it's more right than no regulation. But I'm not that interested in debating with someone who puts words in my mouth.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#147

Post by fastfinner »

rglullis wrote: post #55
lupatus wrote: post #49

It's really courageous of him to come ahead with his story. I really hope he gets shipped back to the Philippines. Go ahead and call me a xenophobe now. Whatev. I think it is in poor form for the NYT to print this manipulative article that tries to make me feel bad for the gay, minority, do-gooder author and excuse his years of criminally fraudulent behavior. Sure, call me heartless. But, this guy is cheating you, an…

How is he cheating me or you? What is he taking away from you?

How is he cheating me? His family "cut the line" in building a life in the US, one of the best nations to be in, in the eyes of many on this planet. His chances of winning a Pulitzer would be severely diminished if his family had stayed in the Philippines. So he cheated me by not being subject to the same US immigration rules as I and the rest of the world. He cheated the many other aspiring college students, journalism interns, journalists by occupying a spot each time he was employed or given the opportunity to advance with fake documents.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#148

Post by iandanforth »

lupatus wrote: post #64
lupatus wrote: post #49

It's really courageous of him to come ahead with his story. I really hope he gets shipped back to the Philippines. Go ahead and call me a xenophobe now. Whatev. I think it is in poor form for the NYT to print this manipulative article that tries to make me feel bad for the gay, minority, do-gooder author and excuse his years of criminally fraudulent behavior. Sure, call me heartless. But, this guy is cheating you, an…

He has knowingly used fraud for years to get work, educational, and lifesytle opportunities that would have otherwise gone to people legally allowed to work, study, and reside here. Paying taxes or writing keen articles does not excuse this fact. Hence, he is cheating[1]. [1] Wikipedia defines cheating as, "... the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation." That seems to be a accurate summary of…

If the game is 'get a job' and the competition is merit based. Then no, he didn't cheat, he kicked ass.

If the game is 'obtain the opportunity to get a job' then, yup he cheated.

Barriers to entry are sometimes needed, but if the only thing you did to get over that barrier was be born on the correct side of an imaginary line, well, that just doesn't impress me.

Really, american born citizens can't complain about this without sounding like entitled brats. 'I want to win despite my lack of ability.' No sympathy there.

Foreign born citizens that worked hard through the system to get citizenship have a little to be annoyed about, but really the only class of people who can really even say 'boo' to Jose are people who faced his situation and chose to leave and then worked their way back in. If that class of people exists then I would have just one question for them:

"Would you support the DREAM act?"

I really and truly have a hard time believing that they would say, "No."

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#149

Post by haberman »

quanticle wrote: post #122
haberman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is living in limbo for a decade, with literally no single piece of paper identifying you as a human being is "cutting in line?" Because other kids who might have liked to live in the US and go to a top university didn't get to. You got what you wanted faster because your family broke the law. I still believe that children who are brought here illegally should get a lot more leniency because they weren't respons…

So, just because your mother put you on a plane with a complete stranger when you were 12, you should be thrown back to a third world country for a decade, even though your contributions to American society outweigh most native born citizens? Yeah, that's real fair.

Are you replying to the right comment? Nowhere in this thread have I advocated deporting people who were brought here as children. I have advocated the opposite.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#150

Post by dennisgorelik »

lutorm wrote: post #135
kelnos wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of things are disruptive. Doesn't make them bad or undesirable. We talk about "disruptive" new technologies here on HN all the time and how the best progress is made by disrupting the status quo. I won't claim that all disruption is good, but who's to say a little disruption in the immigration world wouldn't be?

All the unemployed people, that's who...

Immigrants are more likely to create businesses and therefore they tend to lower unemployment.
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