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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

#931

Post by baublet »

lanstin wrote: post #547
rayiner wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American immigration laws are designed to have a small stream of permanent immigration, both to protect american jobs and to protect american culture from foreign influence. That’s what people voted for over decades. The New York Times did a good podcast on the issue. https://youtu.be/xgDdTV7A57w . If you want to define “xenophobic” to encompass that then that’s your choice. I don't think that's a sensible or useful…

I know a lot of people that support these cruel and chaotic changes to our immigration laws and they are mostly xenophobic - they don’t like people speaking languages other than English at the store, they don’t like religions different than their own, they don’t like family traditions different than their own.

Indeed; ask them why they want to pause immigration and see how difficult it is for them to choke back the 14 words they can’t say in public.

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

#932

Post by philipwhiuk »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #918
bossyTeacher wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The leaving part is not the issue, as you try to immigrate into a country you're subject to the rules that country sets. The ultimate uncertainty is that regardless of who you are and what you do, a country always has the right to kick you out when you are there on a visa regardless of what the rights and rules of that visa. Nothing is guaranteed ultimately.

Your claim could be shortened to: >The ultimate uncertainty is that regardless of who you are and what you do, a country always has the right to kick you out...Nothing is guaranteed ultimately. Which is what makes the actions of the government so disturbing. What made the USA so attractive (the rules, the decorum, the civility) is gone. While there were a great many injustices, in general, it trended toward getting b…

> Your claim could be shortened to:

> > The ultimate uncertainty is that regardless of who you are and what you do, a country always has the right to kick you out...Nothing is guaranteed ultimately.

Depends on whether you think international law still exists and is followed - statelessness isn't allowed under that.

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

#933

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #816
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #345

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…

Trump supporters will be shocked when such people just start working from abroad for the company vs the company hiring unqualified American citizens

That’s what my company is doing. Instead of hiring more people in the US they are hiring almost exclusively in other countries. The tariffs seem to be backfiring in a similar way. More production is moved outside the US to avoid the tariffs.

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

#934

Post by MrVandemar »

account42 wrote: post #899
MrVandemar wrote: post #895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's perfectly normal that the country where the most people want to immigrate to will also have higher barriers. In my country, I've not heard a lot of people expressing the wish to visit, let alone immigrate to the US for quite some time now. And as a reminder of what country we're all talking about here, that'd be the one with the highest number of school shootings in the world, and the least political actio…

What sheltered well off ideologues say in their bubbles is irrelevant when it comes to determining what country people from around the world want to immigrate to. Historically, the US has been THE country where people want to be and I have yet to see any evidence that that has changed. If people would no longer want to come to the US then these changes to the immigration policies would also not affect anyone.

Yeah, "historically". Hasn't been like that for a while now.

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

#935

Post by vachina »

krapp wrote: post #403
486sx33 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not until all Americans who can work have jobs

But America is a capitalist system. The market has determined that not all Americans deserve jobs. Are Americans willing to work a 996 schedule for 2.00/hr to compete with labor overseas?

If your business cannot survive paying more than slave labor rate, then a capitalist system dictates that your business should cease to exist or your resources allocated to more productive work.

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

#936

Post by philipwhiuk »

skinfaxi wrote: post #900
mlazos wrote: post #832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws should not be executed on the whim of the executive branch.

It's not always a bad thing though is it? Like when Obama stopped federal enforcement of weed laws.

Honestly it's still bad - it creates long term problems. Ignoring the democratic system (i.e not changing the law) just creates chaos.

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

#937

Post by eesmith »

dcow wrote: post #739
eesmith wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is an un-rigged and meritocratic system possible if there are border controls? If not, then using words like "rigged" and "meritocratic" as a complaint about the current system can only mean that you want no border controls. If so, how? Every system I can think of can be rigged, and exclude people who have merit, resulting in a system which favors the rich and powerful.

I disagree.

I simply do not know how you can use "meritocracy" to support your position, while also supporting an artificial barrier to free movement which prevents a more competent foreign worker from moving to the US to displace you from your job.

I guess I will remain unenlightened.

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

#938

Post by philipwhiuk »

raz32dust wrote: post #702
itake wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hi…

> I think one of the fundamental problem with h1b is that it is labeled as "non-immigrant"

I'm curious as a non-American - labelled by who? People who want to talk tough on immigration but benefit from H1Bs in their companies? Or the system itself in some way?

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

#939

Post by hvb2 »

conductr wrote: post #803
hvb2 wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can try again later. Can they? Because one of the questions on these questionnaires is almost always 'have you had a prior request being denied'. > But they’re not advising when that may be happening. To me, that tells you everything you need to know. These are life altering decisions for people that might have put decades into doing their best for the US. This is not about what to have for dinner. This causes…

So maybe you have stated a reason a pause is better than an explicit no. No history of a denial is maybe a better thing. I get the human component but I can separate that from policy. I have my own risk assessment on it and it’s that I couldn’t imagine ever making any material investment financial or community in a place like this. I’ve thought about doing the digital nomad thing in the past, and I don’t think anyone…

> I don’t think it would have hurt much to put some advanced warning out there. Let people plan for it.

As with a lot of things this administration does, this is where the cruel part comes in. That would be the sensible thing to do, it's just a choice not to.

> I don’t think anyone would be surprised if some random South East Asian country did this same thing and nobody would bat an eye. It to be expected that other countries can have wavering policies, it’s when the US does it that people cry about the humanity of it.

Because those countries would typically do it with a warning period of some sort, the fallout won't be as much.

In general these countries typically don't do this because the legal immigration system is how they pick and choose who to allow in, as the US does. So typically this would be to their advantage.

Also, the US is the country that used to call themselves "leader of the free world and all that". So maybe they should hold themselves to high standards?

> Also, I don’t think you can challenge a blanket policy.

There isn't a policy here that has been changed. It's the executive branch stopping some function it was tasked with. We've seen in the past that they've tried such things many times for the courts to then come in and say that the law says they should do XYZ and so they're forced to resume their work. DOGE stopped a bunch of things that the courts later reinstated, including rehiring the people they fired. Thankfully the executive branch isn't completely unchecked, yet.

> Exactly why this should be less of a surprise to those that know how things work and that they may actually get locked out

So you would suggest that people cancel their lease, pack up their stuff, don't sign their kids up for school and all? Just on the off chance that this hits right when they're abroad? I think that's just arguing around the issue created here.

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

#940

Post by motbus3 »

locknitpicker wrote: post #856
motbus3 wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when you treat immigrants like they were not people with lifes, you are just one step away from treating poor people as they were not people and then too treat all common people as they were not people. also it has been quite convenient explanation for adopting systems such as Flock and allowing all kinds of para-police actions which seems very similar to what happened in germany circla 1930-1934

> when you treat immigrants like they were not people with lifes, you are just one step away from treating poor people as they were not people and then too treat all common people as they were not people. "The way that a society treats its prisoners is one of the sharpest reflections of its character." - Nelson Mandela http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/1998/980625_dcshr...

I did not know this but true. I would point out that when you are talking about criminals there is still a layer of judgment from society given the crimes. When talking about legal immigrants and refugees there is even less space.
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