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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

#871

Post by franktankbank »

jandrese wrote: post #852
NeutralWanted wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

Personally I found Indians to be cloistered, two-faced and loose with the truth in my work.

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

#872

Post by swat535 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #555
NeutralWanted wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself, I voted for exactly these policies.

[flagged]

I'm a Canadian but I don't understand this sentiment towards Americans.

I think that citizens of a country should have a say in their policies without it being called "xenophobia". Could some vote for these policies because of "xenophobia" ? possibly but not all.

From what I've gathered, the primary reason Republicans won the election was because a portion of Americans felt unheard and the party gave them a voice.

I'm not obliged to like it but I feel like pushing people like the parent away is precisely why United States is caught in a quagmire right now.

Obviously, Canadians have a very different view than Americans regarding immigration but nonetheless, the will of people should be respected.

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

#873

Post by dizhn »

Ra8 wrote: post #830
dizhn wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was universal. The Visa gets you into the country. Your entry stamp shows how long you can stay. It was an extra white card in USA but I forget what designation the form had. Been a while.

One example I'm familiar with which is different, are Schengen tourist visas. You need to leave before the visa expires. That's not the case for US tourist visas.

Apparently the Form I-94 (Arrival/Departure Record) card is phased out. But it used to be that it contained your allowed term of stay. I am sure the digital version has something like that. You do not automatically get the max allowed duration per your visa. It might be that they are one and the same especially short visa terms of course. But i haven't actually been since mid 2000s so I wouldn't actually know for sure.

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

#874

Post by limitedmage »

itake wrote: post #410
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #312

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…

H1-B is a dual intent visa, which means that, while technically a non-immigrant visa, one can apply for an immigrant visa (aka Green Card) while on it. Because there are per-country yearly limits for immigrant visas, some countries have insanely long wait times. If you’ve applied for a Green Card, you can renew an H1-B visa indefinitely until the Green Card is approved. Realistically for someone from India, that wait time can be decades long. Are you saying someone that has lived in the US for over a decade, may have kids born here, may have lived the majority of their adult life here, should not try to live a normal life and buy a house and settle down?

I went through the whole immigration process from H1-B to citizenship. In general I agree with your mentality, and I did not consider buying a house until I got my Green Card. But I am not Indian and it took me 6 years.

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

#875

Post by profdevloper »

thrance wrote: post #676
nujabe wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But nobody asked him to buy a house, have a kid etc. He came here supposedly with the intention of not staying permanently.

Sure, he should just have lived as a slave and not socialize with anyone until he left. H1Bs have been used as a path to citizenship for a long time. You can't just change the rules like that without destroying so many lives in a senseless act of cruelty. But the cruelty is the point.

Is it not cruel to Americans to replace them with said slave labor through legislation? The people who built this prosperous modern nation that so many people wish to flock to for a better life are just kicked to the curb -- talk about cruel.

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

#876

Post by tristor »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #312

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…

> The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US;

I agree that this is cruel, but I also think that many people coming to the US on an H1-B visa aren't taking to heart the very clear terms of that visa. An H1-B is a /nonimmigrant/ /temporary/ work visa. It does allow you to pursue a green card via the PERM process, however until your receive your PERM status you reside in the US at the mercy of the government only. Buying a house on an H1-B visa, for instance, seems like an exceptionally foolhardy idea.

As someone who once had temporary residency in another country, I did not buy real estate even though I was considering seeking permanent residency, because it was obvious that until I had permanent residency granted that I could be removed at any time and it was perfectly legal, within their rights, and aligned to the terms of my visa.

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

#877

Post by [deleted] »

sinecure wrote: post #849

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. Eve…

[deleted]

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

#878

Post by swat535 »

orsenthil wrote: post #700

I see a lot of comments in this thread in support this stance, as if that is something good for Americans, and say it is not a political statement. One thing that changed my viewpoint was this book. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case, and Angus Deaton. In it, they make a point that, almost all US economists agree that immigration, both legal and Illegal Immigration, is not the cause for Ameri…

> I see a lot of comments in this thread in support this stance

Do you think that they supporting it because they think Americans should have a say in their policies via a democratic process or that anyone in support of this has fallen for a "false narrative"?

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

#879

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#880

Post by ura_yukimitsu »

xyzelement wrote: post #733

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)…

I don't see how any of this is reasonable. I've heard people say stuff like "I'm not against immigration but they should come through legal means," so how does preventing people from accessing those legal means help anyone? For a country that was built on immigration that seems awfully anti-American.

Wouldn't it make more sense to make the legal process shorter and less unnecessarily bureaucratic so that people are less likely to come in the country undocumented?

Furthermore, the whole "immigrants are stealing our jobs" talking point seems to be built on a lot of false pretenses (and anectodtal evidence is not good evidence), not to mention this is about immigrant visas, which the H1-B is not.

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