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Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

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Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#201

Post by btian »

nostromo wrote: post #113
robomartin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans don't want people visiting, working, or studying on their shores. This is utterly false and unfair. Please don't lump the entire US population with a few ignorant morons who have not seen the world five miles outside their home town. A quick look at our universities is proof enough that what you are saying is incorrect. The last time I visited MIT it almost felt like I was outside the US.

Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-bo...

Not to dispute your point, but the number should really be normalized by population.

EDIT: If you click on "Immigrants as percentage of national population", you'll realize that the US is one of the lowest in developed countries. So I guess I am disputing your point.

Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#202

Post by genwin »

acuozzo wrote: post #200
genwin wrote: post #75

My taxes pay for the expensive university education of foreigners, without guarantee they can stay? Great.

Stop carving the world into football teams, genwin. There's value in having a highly-educated __world__ population.

Yes there's value in that, but it's surely a net loss to pay more for a single foreigner's education than 5 average Americans have in assets put together.

Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#203

Post by nashequilibrium »

Spearchucker wrote: post #77
nashequilibrium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Nelson Mandela and the whole ANC party who fought apartheid were on the no fly list is because they were labelled as a terrorist group. Nobody bothered to adjust this until a couple of embarrassing moments like this. It is kind of funny that the apartheid government were never denied entry to any country, yet the people fighting an oppressive government were labelled as terrorist. It is also surprising tha…

...the people fighting an oppressive government were labelled as terrorist... Not surprising at all. Dig into the history of the ANC a little. Specifically, look for Umkhonto we Sizwe after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. While in no way [edit] trivialising the abhorrent and often vicious apartheid regime of the time, the ANC (and Mandela) haven't exactly been angles, either.

"Umkhonto we Sizwe" Do you understand how this group came about, what principles it was created on? You should read Nelson Mandela's biography. Also read the essays on pbs from people in the struggle which is very truthful and raw interview scripts. To be honest when Mandela's talks about how he planned stuff and the books he read, kind of reminded me in a way of a startup. He was taking a dying organisation revamping it and positioning it for a win. His elder found him reckless and too arrogant.... honestly you should just read the interviews on the pbs link below, very entertaining, especially for history buffs like me. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/

Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#204

Post by genwin »

tjgq wrote: post #126
genwin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then let MIT pay for that, not me, when there's no likelihood the student will be paying me back in the form of US taxes. The research leads to patents that MIT gets compensated for, not me. My taxes are likely being wasted here, working against the society I support. It doesn't matter if it's only a dime of mine since all waste is bad and adds up to a lot. No I'm not going to take it up with my representative, falli…

You are aware that not all research leads to concrete, patentable ideas, right?

Yes, just like not all startups are successful for VCs. The revenue generated by some of the research can pay for all the research, and patents are just one of many revenue sources for them. Johns Hopkins has an endowment of $2.5 billion. MIT has $10 billion. They can afford to pay for foreigners' educations without getting taxpayers involved. Taxpayers are involved so they can have even more money in the bank.

Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#205

Post by kaoD »

robomartin wrote: post #141
kaoD wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has over three times more immigrants than any other country. Which is completely irrelevant because the US is hundreds of times larger than many countries. That's why we use percentages.

The claim is that Americans don't want anyone to come here. That is utterly false and it is fully supported by this data. Your point might have been valid if the topic at hand were different.

So...

    10000 Americans love pizza
    15000 Americans hate pizza
    10 Chileans love pizza
    15 Chileans hae pizza
    
    America loves (and hates) pizza 1000 times more than Chile?

Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#206

Post by cowsandmilk »

btian wrote: post #201
nostromo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-bo...

Not to dispute your point, but the number should really be normalized by population. EDIT: If you click on "Immigrants as percentage of national population", you'll realize that the US is one of the lowest in developed countries. So I guess I am disputing your point.

What?

The US is ahead of Germany, France, Spain, United Kingdom, Russia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Finland, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, and so on, but you claim it is one of the lowest in developed countries?? Twisting the facts much?

Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#207

Post by harryh »

rayiner wrote: post #177
ritchiea wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously. The thing about America right now is that there's no one city or even state that is representative of the country. The country is experiencing a cultural and political deadlock which can sort of be generalized to a divide between the coasts and the south. If you live in Cambridge or SV or NYC you get angered by issues presented in the OP, why shouldn't this brilliant student be allowed into the country? Th…

You don't have to leave the coasts. Just head over to Herndon in the suburbs of D.C. ( http://www.voanews.com/content/illegal-immigration-reform-he... ). You don't get to say that "your America" does not include the rest of the country, not unless you're willing to take up arms and defend Boston as a sovereign entity against foreign invasion.

I don't think you even have to leave the coasts. Just go sit in the bleachers at a Red Sox game.

Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#208

Post by escaped_hn »

Thrymr wrote: post #119
johnnyg wrote: post #16

Unless you walked through Alaska on a land bridge, you too are an immigrant. We can either embrace the strength of a democracy to turn the huddled masses into a productive force for good or we can choose to turn inward. Guided by fear, we are making the wrong choice.

"Immigrant" does not mean "descended from someone who came here". Some people were actually born here. Yes, we are all descended from immigrants (some of us from those who walked from Asia), but that doesn't make us and our children's children "immigrants" as well.

"but that doesn't make us and our children's children "immigrants" as well."

In other words: Fuck You, Got Mine.

Re: Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

#210

Post by robomartin »

kaoD wrote: post #205
robomartin wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim is that Americans don't want anyone to come here. That is utterly false and it is fully supported by this data. Your point might have been valid if the topic at hand were different.

So... 10000 Americans love pizza 15000 Americans hate pizza 10 Chileans love pizza 15 Chileans hae pizza America loves (and hates) pizza 1000 times more than Chile?

Still absolutely irrelevant as it pertains to the issue being discussed.

And, if I chose to play your game, according to the same page approximately 12% of our population are immigrants. And this is very much on par and well above most European countries. And, after eliminating the top layer on that list, all of which are corner cases (i.e. Vatican City) the US and a number of European countries are in the top ten countries in terms of the percentage of immigrants as related to total country population.

So, at this point, I have no clue what your problem might be with this other than to imagine that you are just looking for a way to claim that Americans hate immigrants, which is simply not true any way you care to look at it.

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