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U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

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

#921
post #870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very common pattern of people who go to work to some other, richer country for a set period of time with the sole purpose of making enough money to achieve an objective back home (provide for family, buy a house, retire, etc). I don't know how common this is between H-1B applicants, but it's extremely common in the EU for example.

in the EU there is no need for any visa (within member states) and essentially it's a desired feature of the EU. Another point is that speaking the local language in a richer country of the EU is less likely than speaking English (with English being official only in Ireland and Malta), so it's harder to settle - esp. with kids and school.

[deleted]

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

#922
post #724

Probably a good thing for many migrants. I mean who would want to migrate to a country that's so hostile towards anyone that looks and prays different.

> a country that's so hostile towards anyone that looks and prays different. You are making a bold claim that US is being racist here. US is THE melting pot, and no other country in the world has accepted all races living together like this.

Your statement is patently false based on the historical record and current statistics.

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

#924

26 years ago I was a post-graduate student in the US, I arrived a couple months before the 9/11 attacks. The current US government, beyond its idiocy and incompetence, is just so hostile, not only to immigrants but also to its own citizens, so it seems. If I were to go study in another country today, the US would simply not be an option.

Podcaster Scott Galloway puts it best. The US is like a sports team that gets to draft the best players in the world and yet they are doing their best to stop that. Top talent from almost every country wants to come live and work in the US, producing incredible companies and advancing tech. But because most of them are not-white, the US wants to stop that.

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

#925
Educated, young Americans are pissed off because the life they were promised when they went to college is not attainable for a majority of them. Inflation caused by the government's pandemic response has devastated US consumer buying power and increased the cost of everything in life, while simultaneously Americans are being forced to compete with the entire world of professionals for US jobs, driving down wages. Everything is more expensive, jobs are harder to find and wages haven't kept up with inflation. On top of that, if you're a young white guy, it was the specific policy for the last decade of massive American companies to minimize the hiring of your ethnic group.

So you have a lot of really pissed off young people, on both the left and the right, looking to politicians for a solution. On the left it's essentially socialism and in the worst cases communism and on the right it's American job protectionism and the removal of racist anti-white policies from American institutions... and a whole lot of deportations.

Young Americans do not want to compete with the entire world for jobs and houses and SBA loans, so you're going to see the right push very hard to look like they are appeasing them, when in reality they will not do anything because the corporate oligarchy that finance our politicians and the stock market that feed their primary boomer constituents. On both the left and right, all the boomers want is for the stock market to rise and their home value to rise and they don't care if it disenfranchises a generation of Americans... but it will definitely create a millennial political machine that will be pushed to the extremes of Communism and Nationalism when that generation rises to power... so we will see how it all plays out.

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

#927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one asks for that obligation. Only that the rules are stable and you give a heads up.

You have the heads up: Why acquire real-estate if your status is by law temporary?

It was not by law temporary, it was by law indefinitely renewable. You just had to hold a job that'll sponsor you. How is that materially different from any "normal" person who takes a 30 year mortgage with no guarantee that they will stay employed that long? Hell, the vast majority of H1Bs have much greater job security than the average home buyer anyway.

Again change the law if you want. Give a heads up. Or dont. Nothing the current government does to home owning H1Bs should be rank ordered anywhere but to the bottom quartile of the greatest injustices being doled out.

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

#928

As a relatively centrist American, I find this reasonable. I live in a very blue state (NY) and still 43% of my neighbors voted for Trump, with immigration cited as a key reason. So changes to immigration policy are to be expected. With regard to temporary visas, the article cited a few types of issues. For example the scenario where someone obtain a temporary visa (promissing to return is a part of the application)…

You're suspiciously credulous. There is no practical reason to do this and the idea you have to shut down immigration for training staff suggests that the relevant US agency is merely incompetent.

Moreover, this administration has a track record which makes it clear its not being reasonable on purpose.

I don't think centrism is about leaving logic behind and splitting the difference.

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

#929

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are a lot of inhumane things happening around the world right now to label this inconvenient, at best. We need better leadership through higher voter participation and an informed electorate to stop these inhumane and inconvenient policies.

Speak for yourself, I voted for exactly these policies.

This feels like one of those times where it is easy to vote for a policy when the effects are on a vaguer or populational level, but when you actually meet or make friends with someone affected it takes on an entirely new light.

I mean this is how gay marriage flipped, enough people got to know their homosexual friends, neighbors, or even family members and realized that the policy was hateful against someone they cared about and the stated harms were clearly rediculous when put in the context of that real person you know.

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

#930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you treat immigrants like they were not people with lifes Thus the rebranding of humans as “illegals”.

That term has been in use for at least the half century I’ve been alive. It’s a common word almost every where in the US, shows up in daily conversations, but it’s been deemed not politically correct. That’s why you maybe never heard it in media or from a politician in the past. This presidency is all about breaking political correctness though and it’s on brand. This is why his devotees love him. Simple things like…

Trump is not about “racism.” He won more racial minorities in 2024 than any republican president in modern history. Trump is about Americanism versus third-worldism. Among immigrants themselves—half of whom voted for Trump in 2024–it’s about whether immigrants should Anglicize and dissolve into the American polity, or whether they should bring their home cultures with them and retain their separate ethnocultural identity.

Fundamentally, it’s a disagreement over what makes countries the way they are. Does a Bangladeshi start thinking and acting like an American the minute they set foot within borders where the 1st, 2nd, etc., amendments apply? Or is culture deeper than the words on paper.

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