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I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

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Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#191

Post by USMCAThrowAway »

kdazzle wrote: post #186
lackstein wrote: post #128

Hi Peter, thanks for the AMA! I'm currently living in the US on TN status and am married to an American. Have you heard of anyone on TN status having difficulty applying for a green card? And do you have any sense of what the wait times currently are, particularly how long until you can get a travel authorization?

There was just an article in the NYT where ICE is arresting people at the end of their green card interviews for essentially no reason. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/us/trump-green-card-inter...

Those targeted in this article are spouses of US citizens that had entered the US on ESTA and allowed that status to lapse whilst awaiting their AOS.

That was tolerated previously.

It does appear that these arrests have stopped since the NYT article was written.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#192

Post by rayiner »

kdazzle wrote: post #186
lackstein wrote: post #128

Hi Peter, thanks for the AMA! I'm currently living in the US on TN status and am married to an American. Have you heard of anyone on TN status having difficulty applying for a green card? And do you have any sense of what the wait times currently are, particularly how long until you can get a travel authorization?

There was just an article in the NYT where ICE is arresting people at the end of their green card interviews for essentially no reason. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/us/trump-green-card-inter...

That’s misinformation. They’re being arrested because they were in the country illegally, usually overstaying a visa: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/green-card...

They have a green card interview because they married an American. But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#193

Post by rayiner »

jml78 wrote: post #46

Just a high level question. My youngest son was adopted. He isn't white. He is naturalized. Should we go ahead and renew his passport so he can carry around a passport card at this point(we never got one in the past because they seemed like a waste). It seems crazy but with people being grabbed off the street for being brown, it seems prudent have a quick way to prove citizenship.

[flagged]

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#194

Post by raddan »

trollbridge wrote: post #172
ripplebob wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just carry a burner phone or buy a blank one and restore it after customs from backup?

One of the latest tricks is that if you have social media accounts yet no social media apps or accounts are loaded on your phone, or your phone appears to be a burner phone, they'll ask you why you didn't bring your main, primary phone. So your "burner phone" needs to be your primary phone, which is something that is hard to go back in time to fix.

This sounds like a rumor to me. Plenty of people (including me) have no social media presence (unless you count HN as social media). How do you know that the person on whatevergram with the same name is me?

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#195

Post by brendoelfrendo »

proberts wrote: post #59
kethinov wrote: post #27

Suppose you could wave a magic wand and change US immigration law in any way you like. What changes would you make?

Good question. There's so much I would change. I'll give this some thought and respond later today.

Thanks for offering to answer this question. Immigration law is so often an inflammatory topic, but I think your perspective as someone who has to work with the law, the US agencies that enforce it, and the people trying to navigate it could be really valuable.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#196

Post by zahlman »

tempfile wrote: post #147
zahlman wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As explained upthread, > You are within your rights to say no Given that you don't have a right to enter, if you say no (which you are within your rights to do), and you are denied entry, then nothing wrong has happened. If you believe that they shouldn't make entry conditional on something, then you are asserting a right to enter. That's what "right" means.

This argument is absurd. If someone comes up to me and asks for food, I am not obliged to give it to them. If I say to them, "I will give you food, on the condition that I can punch you in the face", and they decline to be punched in the face, do you really believe "nothing wrong has happened"? That I, applying an unethical condition, did nothing wrong? If someone else says "You must not make punching someone in the…

> If I say to them, "I will give you food, on the condition that I can punch you in the face", and they decline to be punched in the face, do you really believe "nothing wrong has happened"? That I, applying an unethical condition, did nothing wrong?

Yes, of course nothing wrong has happened. The other party decided that the food was not worth a punch in the face. The other party is no worse off than if you had made no offer. The other party is no worse off than if you had responded to "may I have some food please" with "no".

Downthread:

> It is routine and unproblematic for laws to exist that prohibit "you can't enter this bar if you're black" or "I won't hire you because you're a woman".

This is completely irrelevant. "I will give you food, on the condition that you change your immutable characteristics" is incoherent. "You can't enter the country because you didn't submit to this violation of your privacy" is a) targeted at someone who definitionally doesn't have those constitutional protections in the US and b) not an expression of any kind of identity-group prejudice.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#197

Post by zahlman »

tempfile wrote: post #168
Detrytus wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, by offering food for punch in the face you changed it from charity to free market transaction. Basically you gave them a chance to earn their food instead of just giving it to them. If they deem the price too high and refuse your offer then again, nothing bad happened.

Not all free market transactions are reasonable. Selling yourself into slavery is a "free market transaction" I hope you would not consider legitimate.

Being offered something unreasonable, given free reign to decline that offer, does not cause harm.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#198

Post by temptemptemp111 »

RedRaven7 wrote: post #98
ponector wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $22/h you are actually competing with offshore workers in remote low COL locations. How would you justify it's you should get the work/money, not imigrant worker? The fact your parents immigrated earlier than they should justify it in your opinion?

22/hr for offshore work? Where, India? The fact that I'm American justifies it. If Americans flooded into say, Somalia, bought up all the houses, took up all the jobs etc, you'd be horrifically offended. Americans have no where else to go. This is my home and I will not abandon it. You can't just drop 50 million extra workers into a country and expect people to just take it.

[dead]

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#199

Post by zahlman »

xp84 wrote: post #188
tempfile wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sorry, I don't know any LLMs that would argue politics without using their own heavy bias and getting caught up in trying to not harm people, I'm afraid you just hate my writing style. Maybe you don't like the inline quotes? idk. Also I can't imagine wasting the effort to have a bot debate people online if I don't care enough to do it myself. The whole reason we have those types of employment and public accommodation…

> But why don't we also have laws criminalizing things like refusing to be friends with $SKIN_COLOR people? I think it's because it's only in those specific realms like employment and public accommodation where we have created rights.

Not just that, at least in my understanding of American political theory. It's because of the existing right to freedom of association. If it is criminal to refuse association, that association becomes compulsory, and thus not free.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#200

Post by RedRaven7 »

ponector wrote: post #110
RedRaven7 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

22/hr for offshore work? Where, India? The fact that I'm American justifies it. If Americans flooded into say, Somalia, bought up all the houses, took up all the jobs etc, you'd be horrifically offended. Americans have no where else to go. This is my home and I will not abandon it. You can't just drop 50 million extra workers into a country and expect people to just take it.

You say people born in other countries do not deserve american pay in America? It's like saying you are white male and it justifies higher salary. Also if you struggle to compete with immigrants who usually have no network, English is not their native language, have many other disadvantages - you are doing something wrong or are not competitive in the first place. The fact is you should not fight against imigration,…

Do I as an American deserve a job in India or Somolia just because I ask?

We are incredibly atomized in the west, foreigners always have more closely knit networks. They always help each other out. People who make the arguments you're making are almost always foreigners. You have no say in the affairs of my nation. You should leave.

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