Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

software.rajivprab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 404 posts

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#291

Post by WalterBright »

throwaway1183 wrote: post #247
keyme wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a tourist visa that I got years back it isn't smooth going into the USA anymore (as a shithole-country passport holder). I went many times, but last time I got "the room", for absolutely no reason, and nothing was asked of me but the standard questions. It only took hours in an intimidating setting. USA, you're just another country. Next time I'll take my tourist money elsewhere.

As a citizen of another shithole-country passport holder (living in country other than US) I can't agree more. I don't get why people make it as if USA is the only beacon of hope. It's just another country. Now that the world is diversified, globalized and everything is connected with the internet, I don't understand why people have to cling so much to the American idea of success. Are people living outside really th…

To be fair, it's the Americans disowning the notions that made America such a success. For example, successful entrepreneurs are routinely excoriated and demonized. Politicians get elected on promises of confiscating their success.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#292

Post by Karrot_Kream »

tablespoon wrote: post #285
notch656a wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I never directed a felon to manufacture a FGC-9, although I would be pleased to find out they had. At various times I have praised the idea of felons and prohibited possessors carrying, which by the way can be done completely legally for example by carrying a black powder six shooter that will work as good as any other revolver. 2) Felons can in fact legally own and manufacture modern firearms after having their r…

> Ergo illegal detention and causeless strip searches (which even at border require PC) are justified? I take it Ms. Cervantes was also an HN poster? No. I'll repeat the situation: I don't trust your account of what happened. That is all.

Good thing case law in the US doesn't revolve around attitude right? I'm aghast at even having read this thread. What victim-blaming nonsense. Attitudes like this are exactly why the US incarcerates more per-capita than any other G20 country.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#293

Post by avs733 »

WalterBright wrote: post #291
throwaway1183 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a citizen of another shithole-country passport holder (living in country other than US) I can't agree more. I don't get why people make it as if USA is the only beacon of hope. It's just another country. Now that the world is diversified, globalized and everything is connected with the internet, I don't understand why people have to cling so much to the American idea of success. Are people living outside really th…

To be fair, it's the Americans disowning the notions that made America such a success. For example, successful entrepreneurs are routinely excoriated and demonized. Politicians get elected on promises of confiscating their success.

Uh…we are the literal home of the Horacio Alger myth.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#294

Post by maxFlow »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #238
ROTMetro wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was super upset after visiting China and returning to the USA. Our immigration people were so much more authoritarian scary than the Chinese had been. And the Chinese had this cool smiley computer interface where you rated the chinese immigration official for their interaction on the spot. So China was not only friendlier and more welcoming, but also more accountable. We really need to check ourselves in America. O…

Yeah I don't know most of the TSA was just doing their job the best they could. I've come to respect their mandate a lot, reading the history of aviation and how it's all a crazy game to not go splat. It's not the fact of traveling, it's the fact of traveling ON AN AIRPLANE. Everything about it. The basic nature of aviation is it's closely tied to suicide. It's like interwoven with suicide. They are the two threads o…

> Yeah I don't know most of the TSA was just doing their job the best they could. [...] The basic nature of aviation is it's closely tied to suicide. It's like interwoven with suicide.

I would swap "suicide" for "risk". And while I do concede that traveling on an airplane is inherently risky (and argueably one of our most remarkable achievements as a species), I think it's dangerous to deny that TSA - or any other security enforcement body for that matter - is not susceptible to power abuse by their representatives; we have years of evidence to prove it, especially nowadays with social media. Too much blank-cheque power is given them, with little accountability (again, on account of the risk). (Incidentally, airport security is a nice topic to play with error rates conceptually, e.g. precision, recall, etc.)

> It's really goddamn dangerous to fly, you're relying on so many parts to work right

Indeed, the latest systemic failure coming directly from the making and selling of planes. An activity where once safety was held as a sacrosant goal, it's now been placed second to profits and corporate interests (see Boeing).

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#295

Post by lakkal »

bckygldstn wrote: post #278
lakkal wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting that your card made it to you with the wrong photo on it. There was a visual inspection process that compared what the printed card looked like, to what it's supposed to look like, and cards were supposed to be ejected and reprinted if there was a mismatch. I worked on the machine/system that prints those cards in the late 90s. When was your card issued? I heard somewhere (and find it easy to belie…

Interesting! This was ~2018. My memory is a little hazy, but I remember having the photo taken at USCIS, walking over to a photo booth which asked to confirm some information like name or number and maybe a fingerprint too? Anyway, it wasn't a polaroid paperclipped to my forms: it seemed like a different system that would have to be linked to my application. The images are very different: same gender, but different r…

Oh, long after the system I worked on was replaced. Back in 1997-1999 the images were filenames in a database record, and we just read the image file and printed it on the card. Then at a later stage a camera looked at the printed card and compared it to what it should look like. We also used to 'etch' the same photograph into the 'laser' (CD-like) golden strip on the back of the card. When you wrote data to the laser strip, it changed the appearance by darkening it. There was an API library supplied by the manufacturer of the encoder drives that could write a visible image to the strip. Not sure if the modern cards still have that feature.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#296

Post by newsclues »

codegeek wrote: post #61
quantumwannabe wrote: post #38

Note that India requires prospective citizens to live in the country for 12 years before applying for naturalization, and China doesn't allow non-ethnic Chinese immigration at all (only ~1500 naturalized citizens/10,000 permanent residents in the whole country of over a billion people). Something to keep in mind when people from those countries complain about the American immigration system (doesn't apply to the Sing…

I never understand this argument. If someone leaves their country to migrate, aren't they looking for a better life ? Just because India requires you to live for 12 years, Indian citizens should just shut up/put up with 18+ years of waiting because their country of origin has it worse/same ? This sounds a lot like "We gave you US citizenship. So shut up and stop criticizing the Govt because you came from a 3rd world…

Maybe immigration should not be frictionless?

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#297

Post by notch656a »

tablespoon wrote: post #285
notch656a wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I never directed a felon to manufacture a FGC-9, although I would be pleased to find out they had. At various times I have praised the idea of felons and prohibited possessors carrying, which by the way can be done completely legally for example by carrying a black powder six shooter that will work as good as any other revolver. 2) Felons can in fact legally own and manufacture modern firearms after having their r…

> Ergo illegal detention and causeless strip searches (which even at border require PC) are justified? I take it Ms. Cervantes was also an HN poster? No. I'll repeat the situation: I don't trust your account of what happened. That is all.

That's your opinion. I invite you to read this excerpt [0] affidavit and decide for yourself whether that reads like anything other than made up garbage designed to fabricate probable cause. Then ponder why I would be released uncharged, and why if the allegations were true I would even be publicly discussing it online.

There are a few other paragraphs in the affidavit that are entirely uninteresting to read and offer no evidence whatsoever. I can tell you '10' and '11' here are the entirety of their argument 110%. Maybe I'll get around to redacting the other paragraphs but they offer nothing. If you want to know the 'other side' -- there it is.

I also have a pile of medical paperwork with doctors documenting there was zero evidence whatsoever other than being 'defensive' of being accused of this crime and being 'anxious' to be dragged up and down 60 miles from city to city in cuffs.

https://imgur.com/a/7kgVj5O

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#298

Post by [deleted] »

yardie wrote: post #62
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, anywhere you immigrate to, you have less rights than someone born there despite the fact that they didn’t do anything to get that citizenship. It’s pretty atrocious though that people born in India have to wait in line for decades or, like that person and many of my colleagues, have to marry someone who is not born there, while all the French people I know in the US got their green cards in 1-5 years.

One is a developing country of 1.2B people with limited opportunities. The other is 80M people with high living standards. There aren't even that many French greencard seekers so the quota goes unfulfilled almost every year. Meanwhile, Congress has instituted hard limits on greencards that India and China have the largest share of and manage to hit the limits every year, for decades.

[deleted]

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#299

Post by chupkarkhotay »

twofornone wrote: post #166
chupkarkhotay wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

>Written ‘in sorrow and anger,’ this is a brilliant and urgently necessary book, eloquently making the case against bigotry and for all of us migrants If you have to hide your arguments behind accusations of bigotry, you don't have a very good argument. Border enforcement is about far more than blind xenophobia. Such accusations are reductive appeals to ethos over logos.

No post body was provided.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#300

Post by jltsiren »

ROTMetro wrote: post #172
notch656a wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a border guard who is having a bad day. This is not to be understated. I was born a US citizen. Last time I entered the country, officers faked that a dog had alerted "on my anus", forcibly strip searched me, and fabricated a story that plastic baggies that they suspected 'could be drugs' were coming out of my ass. I was shackled and cuffed and dragged around the state of Arizona for 16 hours while publicly paraded…

I was super upset after visiting China and returning to the USA. Our immigration people were so much more authoritarian scary than the Chinese had been. And the Chinese had this cool smiley computer interface where you rated the chinese immigration official for their interaction on the spot. So China was not only friendlier and more welcoming, but also more accountable. We really need to check ourselves in America. O…

Authoritarian countries are often good at maintaining a friendly facade. They understand that the legitimacy of the regime depends on keeping the middle class happy, or at least under control. When they consider someone beneficial to the regime, they will try to treat them well. They are not cartoon villains that treat people badly just because they can. They usually need a reason for that.

I've seen the same differences in the attitudes of Chinese and American immigration authorities. And if my memories of childhood visits to the USSR are correct, the same differences existed between Soviet and American authorities. I believe the main reason is that America is fundamentally suspicious of anything foreign. Authorities are more likely to see threats than benefits in international dealings.

Post reply on HN