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U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#651

Post by autumnstwilight »

coderenegade wrote: post #446
tptacek wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of countries have temporary worker status. The requirement to leave the country to re-up it appears to be a distinctively American thing.

It's definitely not. I know Japan and Korea had a similar process when I was living there, and I was under the impression that most places operate this way. Your visa grants you right to temporarily stay in the country, and if you don't have a visa you have no right to be there. Sometimes there's a bridging visa to cover the gap, but a country isn't under any obligation to provide one.

I've renewed my visa in Japan a bunch of times, including changing work category or visa status, and never had to leave the country for it. It's not standard for working or student visas, though you would have to leave if you were switching from a tourist visa to a different category.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#652

Post by yibg »

khazhoux wrote: post #643
shostack wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cruelty is the point.

Like most internet meme phrases, this is both trite and inaccurate. The cruelty is not the point. This administration has decided foreigners are the scapegoat, and wants to get rid of as many as they can. It’s heartless, but cruelty is not the objective.

Normally I’d agree. For this admin the cruelty does actually look intentional as a deterrent. Making it intentionally turbulent to discourage people from trying in the first place.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#653

Post by raz32dust »

itake wrote: post #475
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #342

My company has a H-1B guy that travelled home to India a few months ago and since then can't come back because the next date he can get with the US embassy is next year. Seems he may get stuck even longer... I am to some degree on board with keeping a closer eye on immigration, but the way the current administration does it feels intentionally cruel. The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US; his vi…

I'm an American that lives abroad. I have first-hand experience how other countries treat 'immigrants'. H1B is a temporary non-immigrant visa. I could never imagine myself buying a home in a country where I don't have permanent access to that real estate. I am not opposed to voting to prevent non-PRs from owning real estate in order to keep housing prices lower for residents and prevent non-immigrants from shooting t…

I think one of the fundamental problem with h1b is that it is labeled as "non-immigrant" whereas for all practical purposes it is really an immigrant visa. Why would a person who is supposedly having rare skills come to a country and spend their best years here without reasonable guarantee of permanency? People buy homes because it is a reasonable belief that they are going to be living here permanently and it has historically been true.

In any case I don't see the point you are making. Should America be treating immigrants poorly because whichever country you're in makes you slightly uncomfortable to buy a home there? It's not an excuse for all this pain and cruelty. America should hold itself to higher standards.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#654

Post by unselect5917 »

tayo42 wrote: post #649
unselect5917 wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's no real Us culture to preserve. Fish Fails to Detect Water The easiest way to see it is look at Japanese portrayals (outsider perspective). Cowboys, horses, guns, pride in our military and our free speech, fireworks and BBQs. Just because you look down on the culture doesn't mean there isn't one.

That's one subset of Americans and not representative of all. NYC and Los Angeles are the biggest cultural exporting centers in the US and have none of that.

Big cities are indistinguishable from other big cities in other countries. All big cities mostly have the same culture. That's why I liked the Japanese perspective on us. They saw cool things that they liked and included in their fiction that contained us.

If you want to experience American culture I recommend https://www.youtube.com/@PeterSantenello

America doesn't have one culture. It has 500 cultures. But the ones that other cultures notice are the ones I listed. Cities literally stink.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#655

Post by f30e3dfed1c9 »

jmyeet wrote: post #555
hvb2 wrote: post #15

So for those that don't know, it's quite common for a visa renewal to be required to leave the country. Depending on the visa, you might have to do this every year. So just imagine, having a normal job in the US and you're asked to leave to renew your visa and this stuff happens. That's no more appointment, not even a new date and you're now very likely unable to work and possibly can't even enter the country to get…

This administration is clearly on a war against immigration of all sorts but... we need to be accurate here. This is specifically a pause on immigrant visas. That is, green cards. So this is for family-based green cards and investor green cards through consular processing (ie when out of the country). As yet, work visas and other nonimmigrant visas are unaffected.

Someone who appears to have actually read the article, or at least the first sentence! Wonders never cease.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#656

Post by Terr_ »

unselect5917 wrote: post #465
Terr_ wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donald Trump: Billionaire in one of the top government roles of one the most powerful countries in the world; puts enormous banners of his own face over buildings; runs a personal distribution network to announce what he hates every day to his followers; regularly "jokes" about being a dictator; triggers perpetual wars with other countries; etc. Emmanuel Goldstein: An exiled academic in hiding with a death-sentence o…

You sound like someone who started paying attention to politics in 2016. Trump isn't even an outlier. Foreign policy has been dictated by AIPAC (as well as a lot of domestic policy) for decades . Do you not remember the two-minutes-hate where they screamed at Emmanuel Goldstein? Apparently not. The point is people rabidly attack Trump when his policies - especially foreign - are indistinguishable from Biden, Obama, a…

> > [Trump has] a personal distribution network to announce what he hates every day to his followers

> Do you not remember the two-minutes-hate where they screamed at Emmanuel Goldstein? Apparently not.

Oh hey, what's that up there, it's that thingy from the book which I just specifically referenced! Except in my comparison, "the hate" is directed in the same way at the book (from the central authority towards ill-defined enemies) rather than your version which contradicts the book for no reason.

Do you know how to bother reading others' comments before making arrogantly incorrect replies to them? Apparently not!

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#657

Post by khriss »

itake wrote: post #570
Solstafir wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are arguments from the other side too. Many H1B folks do keep one foot back in the country they are from. But then a lot of backlash on specifically Indian folks for sending most of their salary back home. They know that this is transient state, many of them have rented housing, but still these visas are not like weekly visas, they are for 3 years, people would build somewhat of a life in that time and uprootin…

I don't have opinions about them sending their salary back home. Obviously its better for the USA if the money stayed in the USA, but "earning money in one locality and spending it another" is really really really situation, even in the USA. American Police officers are famous for not actually living in the cities they work in. In each country I have lived in, I was a guest. With that knowledge, I carefully designed…

> If you throw a party and a guest refuses to leave

Show me where the govt has actually revoked their visa? Instead, because they cannot cancel the visa legally they are trying to create as much pain as possible for these visa holders hoping that some will give up and leave.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#658

Post by clove »

An immigrant visa is a privilege a country grants and can withdraw. It's not like two parties signed a contract, and the contract was broken. Applicants bet on a slow, arbitrary system, and now the odds are moving.

I am one such "gambler" in this process, and it's happening to me too. I don't like the turn of events, but I also do not feel robbed.

Playing victim bestows no benefit.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#660

Post by earthdeity »

rayiner wrote: post #605
earthdeity wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rules are well and good, but norms are important too. An immigration system governs people making major life choices, and companies making large investments. Legally, there's very little the state can't do, there could be a bill passed tomorrow revoking all immigrant visas. But businesses, and by proxy the nation, benefit from work done by these workers. Sudden unilateral moves like this are stupid on a social level…

> Rules are well and good, but norms are important too Not when the norm is open defiance of the rules for decades. > An immigration system governs people making major life choices, and companies making large investments. And it also governs the right of people to decide who they want to invite into their country and, ultimately, with whom they want to share democratic governance of their home. Those are important st…

Defiance of the rules? What rules exactly? The law does make clear that H1-Bs are temporary workers. But it's also permitted to renew, and workers are allowed to pursue immigrant status. In fact, until 1990 there was specific language saying that H1-B's (like all visitor visas) are not supposed to want to stay, they must maintain a foreign residence "which he has no intention of abandoning". This language was struck and the visas became, and still are, the most common defacto "seeking green card" status for workers seeking to move the US.

To be clear, while a person who enters the US on an H1-B is a temporary worker, they are not prohibited from also seeking a permanent status. So it's fully within the rules, which is why it becomes a question of norms. In the present, the H1-B is (was?) the most popular route to permanent immigration to the US besides family sponsorship.

I specifically said that the government (and the citizenry by extension) can decide who it wants to enter and stay, how much immigration, whatever. But changing the rules suddenly, upending peoples lives who have not broken any rules, through a pathway the US state itself freely established, is immoral and short sighted.

It should go without saying that there are experts across many fields in industry that any country would benefit from attracting. The US is harming its capacity to attract and keep that talent with these ridiculous theatrics.

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