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Another awesome US immigration experience

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Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#91

Post by tolmasky »

mscarborough wrote: post #72
Permit wrote: post #25

>They keep taking breaks to crack off-color jokes about each other’s sex lives, and moan about how hard they’re having to work tonight. The jokes might be uncalled for, but you just told us they were under-staffed and had hundreds of extra people to process. I can see why they'd be upset. Especially when absolutely zero of the hundreds of people they talk to in a day are happy to see them. I get the impression you've…

One of the first rules of service industry is that you don't complain about your job in front of the customers. I haven't worked retail but have done plenty of years in restaurants. I'm not sure how you can use "you've never worked in the service industry" as some kind of trump card, as this kind of behavior could easily get you fired from any half-decent service industry position.

That's in a private company. Here, for all practical purposes, there is no incentive for things to get better. There is no one to complain to since the "customers" here are completely antagonized and have no power, imagine on top of all this complaining! There really isn't anyone to be held accountable, period.

And no, "voting" is not the way these things get fixed. if it was, the DMV would have stopped being miserable ages ago:

1. As mentioned above, the people most affected can't vote.

2. Even if they could, it's not clear at all how to use your vote to affect change. Which candidate exactly represents better service at government agencies?

3. Even if you knew, you get effectively four federal representative choices that could affect this (president, 2 senators, and 1 house representative). In those 4 choices you must weigh all your grievances. How high on the list is immigration staffing going to be?

The reality is that our system is not set up to deal with this kind of particular issue well. There's no good gradual feedback loop. Things have to get really bad, beyond where it's clear exactly what caused the problems, to the point where huge sweeping changes get made, probably over zealous and too far in the opposite direction then.

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#92

Post by seldo »

smsm42 wrote: post #65

Let's look at the incentives. The picture here is not pretty. There's a big incentive to squeeze budgets, of course, anybody who watches US politics knows you can't just get any money you want, especially when there's 2 dozen another 3-letter agencies competing for the same. There's some incentive to serve citizens better - since once in the country, the citizen can call his congressmen or his local paper and raise h…

One of those incentives could be if US citizens decided to complain about the immigration system -- the point of the post is to attempt to marginally contribute towards that happening.

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#93

Post by jacquesm »

mdasen wrote: post #89
jacquesm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you feel like levelling the playing field a bit with respect to your accidents of birth then I'm quite sure that those countries would be happy to strike you from their registers if you asked nicely. On the other hand, since you were given this for free and it wasn't your fault you might as well enjoy the privilege. Personally I think all immigration controls should be abolished. The world will be hell for about a…

I'm somewhat of the feeling of the second paragraph. However, in some ways it is happening in the EU. As the EU enlarges, it generally creates a larger area of free travel/work/residence. Heck, if the US and Canada opened up immigration 100%, there wouldn't be hell because the countries are pretty similar. Some might prefer Canada or the US, but it would likely be generally equivalent. In those cases, I guess I don't…

I've yet to see a border that made sense to me. It looks like there are people on the one side, and people on the other. And then there are people that would like to be on the one side or the other that are being stopped from going where they want to by people in the middle.

By what right those people in the middle are obstructing the people that want to move is beyond my ability to comprehend.

Let's just say that borders have a special place in my heart and that immigration policies by extension do as well.

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#94

Post by cunac »

I am Canadian citizen and for two years I was traveling every second week to US on TN visa. In all that time I got 1 "bad" experience from US side and 2 from Canadian side. (it wasn't that bad just longer questioning with 'trick' questions) Question which confused me a most entering Canada was "How long you plan to stay ?" , WTF , I have Canadian passport ? It took me a moment not to say "Not your damn business." and just play nice.... But in general crossing border is 99% no issue

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#95

Post by monkeypizza »

jacquesm wrote: post #18

As long as you feel the benefits outweigh the downsides the only person you can complain to is yourself. You're still going there aren't you? I've had an episode quite comparable to this one and it was the last time I visited the US. I don't bitch about it, I don't begrudge the border guards their jobs or attitude (I assume they get a lot of shit heaped on them every day, not an excuse for a non-professional attitude…

I think it's really weird when people argue that the only acceptable response to problems is to quit.

Complaining is a valid response, too!

"Albert O. Hirschman makes a basic distinction between alternative ways of reacting to deterioration in business firms and, in general, to dissatisfaction with organizations: one, “exit,” is for the member to quit the organization or for the customer to switch to the competing product, and the other, “voice,” is for members or customers to agitate and exert influence for change “from within.”"

-Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#96

Post by lbarrow »

jimmaswell wrote: post #60
jacquesm wrote: post #18

As long as you feel the benefits outweigh the downsides the only person you can complain to is yourself. You're still going there aren't you? I've had an episode quite comparable to this one and it was the last time I visited the US. I don't bitch about it, I don't begrudge the border guards their jobs or attitude (I assume they get a lot of shit heaped on them every day, not an excuse for a non-professional attitude…

> Don't like US immigration? Good, don't emigrate to the US. Once enough people do this that it starts to affect the US GDP I'm sure there will be some change. Less immigrants would negatively affect the GDP? I've heard the opposite many times, but I'm not an economist. Why is that so?

There's no realistic situation in which having another person working in a country decreases its GDP. GDP is simply the sum of all goods and services after net exports and investments. Given that a working person is, by definition, producing a good or service, their contribution to GDP is always positive.

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#97

Post by malandrew »

jacquesm wrote: post #18

As long as you feel the benefits outweigh the downsides the only person you can complain to is yourself. You're still going there aren't you? I've had an episode quite comparable to this one and it was the last time I visited the US. I don't bitch about it, I don't begrudge the border guards their jobs or attitude (I assume they get a lot of shit heaped on them every day, not an excuse for a non-professional attitude…

This makes me like the US needs "a day with immigrants" day where every business founded or run by an immigrant suspends service to demonstrate to xenophobic Americans what they are losing when you remove the immigrant element from the country.

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#98

Post by mailshanx »

seldo wrote: post #83
jacquesm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this kind of stuff is what tips the balance the other way, not for me, but for other people like yourself. I made my decision independently long ago. You really should ask yourself: if this is not enough to tip the balance for you (who has experienced it firsthand) why would it tip the balance for someone who only gets it second hand? Nobody is going to fix anything because of this blog post, but you can make a…

Understand that my native country, Trinidad, has laws still on the books that make my sexuality illegal. You have to be pretty shitty to be worse at respecting my dignity and principles than that, so the US has a low bar. But yes, I could pick some other first-world country to move to. In fact, I lived in the UK for seven years: in that time, I made as much progress in my tech career as I did in my first six months i…

>>In fact, I lived in the UK for seven years: in that time, I made as much progress in my tech career as I did in my first six months in the US.

Can you elaborate on that?

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#99

Post by pekk »

jacques_chester wrote: post #61
ryan wrote: post #19

If you have a green card you can avoid this by signing up for Global Entry[1]. Then you can avoid customs lines and just swipe your card at the kiosk - enter the country without ever talking to anyone. As an extra benefit the kiosk is always empty so you are through in minutes... hmm maybe I shouldn't be spreading the word about this :) [1] http://www.globalentry.gov/

Global Entry is open to U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, Dutch citizens, South Korean citizens and Mexican nationals. Canadian citizens and residents may enjoy Global Entry benefits through membership in the NEXUS program. OK, I like Dutch people, but how'd they get into this sweet deal ahead of classic US friends-and-allies like the UK or Australia?

High-level cooperation/reciprocity of some kind

Re: Another awesome US immigration experience

#100

Post by mailshanx »

rdl wrote: post #8

I hate how hostile and incompetent the US immigration process seems to be for foreigners. It's sad to go by an embassy basically anywhere in the world, see the fortress that is the US embassy, and the huge lines and amount of documentation needed for people to get US visas. Even worse is the non-deterministic hell on actual arrival. I'm glad I've never had immigration or customs problems anywhere, despite going to so…

Whats the backstory?
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