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I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

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Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#141

Post by aineko »

As a New Zealander going through the US immigration process, this whole post rings extremely true to me. People who have not gone through immigration before have no idea what its like for your entire life to be dictated by the whims of an opaque bureaucratic system. The most frustrating thing about it is that you have essentially no opportunities to better your situation via your own initiative. Don't like your job, well you can't go and find a new one unless they are willing to sponsor you for a visa. Want to start a side business - nope, thats a grey area that I've had immigration laywers advise me against. Think you deserve a promotion - nope, your residency application was for a particular job description. The list goes on.

A few months ago, I came very close to being deported due to the business unit I worked in being divested to another company - this isn't a problem for H1B employees, but I had an L1 which is non-transferrable to a new company, and since my job at my existing company was no longer present I would be made redundant if I couldn't get employment at the aquiring company. Luckily for me, my residency application became current 2 weeks before the aquisition closed (I had been waiting on this application for almost 3 years), so I was able to move into another immigration status that allowed me to move over to the acquiring company.

If that hadn't happened I would have been left with no job, A pregnant wife (who would also lose her job - as her work auth is tied to my visa) and facing an expensive move back to NZ (relocating a family internationally is really expensive btw). Fortunately for me I'm now on the home stretch (I hope) and I check my mailbox religiously waiting for the day my greencard turns up, and I can start living life on my own terms.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#142

Post by facetube »

oberstein wrote: post #104
facetube wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they make enough money, do you un-sterilize them?

It's called RISUG. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm...

I suspect you'll find that scrotal swelling, albumin in your urine, and being coerced in to medical procedures tends to decrease people's acceptance of tax-funded public assistance.

"Poor" isn't an intrinsic human attribute, it's a bad thing that happens to people. Forcing someone who's paid taxes for 20 years to undergo a forced medical procedure in order to benefit from the programs they helped directly fund is insane.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#143

Post by kazinator »

darkmighty wrote: post #39
kazinator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening borders works for multicultural countries built on immigration. For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging.

He's referring to america... and I have to disagree. What's so important about an ethnicity that it has to be kept at all costs? Culture is probably worth preserving, but often culture is simply "the way it's always been" -- I'd argue the opposite, bringing different cultures together, if done right, will promote creating new culture that make more sense for today's reality, and not some 19th century status quo. Crea…

> What's so important about an ethnicity that it has to be kept at all costs?

If you're from a country that has a great history and traditions, and you are ethnically related to that, then your DNA constitutes a cultural artifact, just like some carving in a museum in your capital city or a traditional folk song. Through ancestry, you are related to the people who made those things.

It would be stupidly inconsistent to preserve those other artifacts, yet to deny that your living DNA has value in connection with them.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#144

Post by bruceb »

murbard2 wrote: post #123
bruceb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it hurts the "the very low end, among unskilled high-school dropouts." Maybe we should not be hurting these people. Not everyone with a bachalors degree is needed. There are plenty of Americans with bachalors that need work.

The effect measured was about -5%. On the other hand, for many, immigration is a matter of life and death.

For most immigration isn't life or death. For most it is about moving up economically. But whose interest do you value more citizens or non citizens?

There are about 200 countries/territories in the world. The isn't the only option and the US isn't obligate to take everyone.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#145

Post by kazinator »

cousin_it wrote: post #138
JoshTriplett wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging. Let's take those one at a time. Language: Sure, granted, there's a tendency to gravitate towards more common languages. Arguably that's a net benefit for people who would otherwise have grown up only speaking a less common language; learning a more common language grants access to a much larger set of speakers, information, an…

> propagate itself on its own merits You're right that not all traditions are worth preserving, but Darwinism isn't the best way to choose which traditions are worth preserving. The problem is that ability to propagate does not imply merit. If you put a bad guy and a good guy in a room together, sometimes the bad guy just beats up the good guy, and you realize that you shouldn't have put them together. This is the sa…

Some people in a small, homogeneous country might feel hat their traditions are worth preserving. Theirs is the voice that matters.

You can't hold a global referendum on that, because their votes would be vastly outnumbered by those who don't care or who want to trample on them and help themselves to their resources or whatever.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#146

Post by purpleparakeet »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #13

Considering U-6 unemployment is about 12% right now, perhaps this is a feature and not a bug. I still don't understand why Disney and others are allowed to do the things they do with abusing H1B's. Or why firms think they need someone with some fraudulent/substandard foreign degree instead of investing in domestic workers. There's a discussion about labor to be had here and it should be focused on domestic labor abus…

Why don't you let Jogesh decide for himself what he'd like to do?

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#147

Post by crusso »

zerr wrote: post #106
geebee wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance you'd be willing to write a bit more about your support for open borders? In particular, I'm interested in knowing whether you think this is a situation where it would be both moral and beneficial, or if you feel that it is simply wrong to limit where people can live and work based on where they were born (or even where their grandparents were born) even if the overall effect on current citizens of some re…

One would think, countries like USA, Australia or NZ might be afraid of immigration because they know what they did to native inhabitants... Generally, think about the situation where all (most) countries abolish borders, not just NZ or other small country. Moving is the basic human right, and the sooner we realize the better for mankind, assuming the culture of the host country is respected. Of course the culture ne…

assuming the culture of the host country is respected

That's a huge and unfounded assumption, though.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#148

Post by JoshTriplett »

kazinator wrote: post #145
cousin_it wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> propagate itself on its own merits You're right that not all traditions are worth preserving, but Darwinism isn't the best way to choose which traditions are worth preserving. The problem is that ability to propagate does not imply merit. If you put a bad guy and a good guy in a room together, sometimes the bad guy just beats up the good guy, and you realize that you shouldn't have put them together. This is the sa…

Some people in a small, homogeneous country might feel hat their traditions are worth preserving. Theirs is the voice that matters. You can't hold a global referendum on that, because their votes would be vastly outnumbered by those who don't care or who want to trample on them and help themselves to their resources or whatever.

> Some people in a small, homogeneous country might feel hat their traditions are worth preserving. Theirs is the voice that matters.

Some cultures have long and proud traditions of oppression, suppression, subjugation, racism, sexism, murder, genocide, and similar; those cultures don't get a vote in whether to continue those traditions.

But with the exception of that, then of course, any culture gets to choose whether it wants to (collectively, rather than just individually) participate and interact with the rest of the world.

And this has nothing to do with resources; we're talking about culture and traditions here, not about land and strip-mining.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#149

Post by kazinator »

sigzero wrote: post #65
zzalpha wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damaging in what sense?

A problem being, if you open the door, you don't control who comes through. I am totally against an open borders policy.

Before you open the national border, you have to start small!

First, get everyone not to lock their front door. Then, ban all fences and "no trespassing" signs.

If that pilot program is successful, then think about opening the borders.

It occurs to me that any country that opens its borders will be instantly flooded with every murderous scumbag that is fleeing from the law elsewhere. You will also be an instant transfer point for the trade of weapons, narcotics and so on. Not to mention human trafficking.

I guess how you deal with that is that you open your border to foreign law enforcement and give them a carte blanche about to conduct their investigation how they see fit, and make arrests.

Speaking of arrests, open borders means that someone can sneak into your country, kidnap someone, and sneak out.

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