My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant • Hacker News Board

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#241

Post by fastfinner » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 8:09 AM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #156

fastfinner wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is he cheating me? His family "cut the line" in building a life in the US, one of the best nations to be in, in the eyes of many on this planet. His chances of winning a Pulitzer would be severely diminished if his family had stayed in the Philippines. So he cheated me by not being subject to the same US immigration rules as I and the rest of the world. He cheated the many other aspiring college students, journal…

*His family* (...). His chances of (...) *if his family* (...) He didn't cheat you into one damn thing. The opportunities that were given to him would not be given to you or "the next in line" had he not been here. Part of what makes a wealthy nation, hum... wealthy , is the fact that it has enough resources to offer opportunities and services to the whole population. The US can give opportunities for you, him or any…

I guess I'm looking at this situation as if he were someone whose parents faked his admission to MIT, somehow the papers slipped to the right places and he began enrolling, midway through college he learned about the faking, and then he still kept going, graduated magna/summa cum laude ("Pulitzer" - and yes I know MIT doesn't have latin recognitions), and now the truth is out. Even though he did not began college in a criminal way, in my opinion he ended it as such and all his super achievements don't justify keeping the facade.

Of course all that fails if, like you say, there would be no "next in line" because there is no "line", but somehow I think there is. I tend to think there are a finite number of schools, colleges, internships, and jobs. But that seems to be the core of our argument and I may need to change the way I view opportunities in nations.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#242

Post by potatolicious » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 8:12 AM UTC

woodrow wrote: post #176

phillmv wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, it's not THAT easy. For skilled workers, you're in if belong to a narrow category of professions and have worked for a year in the field[0], or you have a job offer. Otherwise, you need to score enough points[1] on this semi asinine questionnaire. Things that work in your favour: Knowledge of French alongside English, a bachelor's degree, having studied in canada, being 21-49 years old, having lots of work experi…

It's not employers that prevent doctors and engineers from working -- it's provincial licensing organizations that base their certification at least in part on Canadian education. Some provinces have programs that allow foreign-trained professionals to quickly shore up their qualifications, but it takes time. Personally, I'd take this approach over letting anyone who claims to have an engineering or medical degree pr…

It goes beyond professional licensing - my father is an IT consultant (a damn good one at that) that started out in Canada after immigrating, building security cameras in an assembly line.

He had years of international consulting experience in Asia, flying all over the world. Nobody would acknowledge either his education (masters degree) nor his >10-year experience in the field.

His path was: factory line worker -> IT infrastructure wiring guy -> front-line customer service phone jockey -> senior customer service phone jockey -> DBA -> consultant. So at least he's back where he belongs. Honestly, I think it was years wasted.

The Canadian government's definition of "valuable international education/experience" is rarely ever acknowledged by private industry - licensed/regulated field or otherwise.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#243

Post by fastfinner » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 8:24 AM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #148

lupatus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has knowingly used fraud for years to get work, educational, and lifesytle opportunities that would have otherwise gone to people legally allowed to work, study, and reside here. Paying taxes or writing keen articles does not excuse this fact. Hence, he is cheating[1]. [1] Wikipedia defines cheating as, "... the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation." That seems to be a accurate summary of…

If the game is 'get a job' and the competition is merit based. Then no, he didn't cheat, he kicked ass. If the game is 'obtain the opportunity to get a job' then, yup he cheated. Barriers to entry are sometimes needed, but if the only thing you did to get over that barrier was be born on the correct side of an imaginary line, well, that just doesn't impress me. Really, american born citizens can't complain about this…

"foreign born citizens that worked hard through the system to get citizenship have a little to be annoyed about"

I'm from this group and I am annoyed. Yes, it sucks that being born on the right side of an imaginary line determines many of your future opportunities. Agreed. Let's change that. Agreed.

But meanwhile, there can't be anarchy. Just because you think it's unfair, you (or your parents) can't go ahead and break the rules, fake to be citizen of a place that you are not, and after enough water has passed under the bridge, come out and expect for everything to be the same, just because you lived your life in a commendable way after that.

I think it's unfair and insulting that he got the opportunity to attend schools in the US, get to do internships in the US, while thousands of children from the Philippines were not smuggled across the border and have to cope with life without such opportunities. Who knows all the great people they might have become if they had started a life in the US.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#244

Post by nkassis » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 8:29 AM UTC

mahyarm wrote: post #162

nick-dap wrote: post #51

I'm in the same boat. It's been difficult. I cannot express how grateful I am to Jose Vargas for writing this story. I was brought here as a kid 13 years ago. I'm 24 now. I also graduated from a "top" university -- like that matters. I guess my parents weren't smart enough to get a fake social security card for me back then, I wish they were. I've also been fighting for the Dream Act for what feels like an eternity.…

Go apply with canada, you have a clean slate there and you can get a green card on arrival with all of your qualifications: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2686136 After 4 years (3 years + 1 year of waiting for the citizenship test, passport generation, etc) you can come back and work in the US under TN at the border. You can also travel to the USA by applying for a 5-10 year B visa and visit as you wish once you…

Or just stay in Canada. It's a nice place to live. It's very similar to living in the US. As a programmer you could easily find a job.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#245

Post by ido » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 8:36 AM UTC

freshfunk wrote: post #194

nick-dap wrote: post #51

I'm in the same boat. It's been difficult. I cannot express how grateful I am to Jose Vargas for writing this story. I was brought here as a kid 13 years ago. I'm 24 now. I also graduated from a "top" university -- like that matters. I guess my parents weren't smart enough to get a fake social security card for me back then, I wish they were. I've also been fighting for the Dream Act for what feels like an eternity.…

The story was a moving one and I hope Vargas gets to stay. With that said, I think illegal immigration creates all kinds of societal problems and is unfair to legal immigrants. The problem it creates is that there's enormous stress on those that are illegal. They live in the shadows and can be taken advantage of. My own personal experience was driving in LA and being rear-ended by someone who then fled the scene (mos…

    There is a legal system and many people every year try 
    to go through that system like my parents did. I see
    illegal immigrants as "cutting in line" and I see 
    nothing fair about it.

The problem is that if you are not a student there is basically no way to legally immigrate except:

1. Marrying an american

2. Indentured servitude via H1-B (hard to get, and if you leave your job/get fired you have to find a new job in two weeks or leave)

It used to be a lot easier in the past.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#246

Post by fauigerzigerk » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 8:36 AM UTC

haberman wrote: post #28

I have no beef with this guy who was basically forced into breaking the law before he could have responsibility for his actions. But overall I just feel that the compassion about immigration is misplaced. I don't understand why all the pro-immigration people say "look at these poor undocumented immigrants -- we should make life better for them." I think the people we should have compassion for are the people who are…

You know, the basis of democracy is that the laws are ultimately made by the same people who have to uphold them. But that doesn't hold for immigration laws. Immigration laws are made by one group of people that is completely unaffected by them for an entirely different group of people to respect.

That's why, in my view, immigration laws have no legitimacy whatsoever. Where you are born is complete chance. Some of those who happen to be born in better places think that it serves them well to keep others out in order to keep that unfair competitive advantage. Sometimes it's the very same people who pride themselves of being in favor of free trade, a level playing field, antiprotectionist, etc. A ridiculously disingenuous position considering the most important thing everyone has to trade is their own time, effort and skills.

They find all kinds of spurious reasons to defend this unfair and blatently self-serving position. One of the worst is that all countries have immigration laws. This argument mixes up practical matters with ethical ones. Obviously, it's difficult for one country to unilaterally abolish all immigration laws. But that shouldn't convince anyone that these laws have any moral foundation or are based on democracy or that they personally have a right to tell others where to settle.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#247

Post by Natsu » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 8:54 AM UTC

anonymous246 wrote: post #230

anigbrowl wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is irrelevant to the question of his legal relationship with the US government, which is the matter at issue. Sure, he could go to the Philippines, but that's essentially wishing the problem away. There are a lot of people who are technically citizens of other places but who arrived in the US at such a young age that they have no memory of ever living abroad, and often don't even speak the language. Why should s…

Although I disagree with you, I applaud you for your eloquence. AFAIK, immigrants (whether legal or illegal) are in a gray area wrt constitutional protections. For example, on entry all aliens (including perm. residents) are fingerprinted whereas citizens are not. The lowly officer examining your papers can decide to not admit an alien into the country if you mouth off, and he's pretty much the final authority. I ser…

> It seems well-settled that aliens need not be treated the same as citizens.

The problem with that logic is that everyone is a foreigner to someone and it's a rather big world.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#248

Post by jacobolus » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 9:01 AM UTC

freshfunk wrote: post #194

nick-dap wrote: post #51

I'm in the same boat. It's been difficult. I cannot express how grateful I am to Jose Vargas for writing this story. I was brought here as a kid 13 years ago. I'm 24 now. I also graduated from a "top" university -- like that matters. I guess my parents weren't smart enough to get a fake social security card for me back then, I wish they were. I've also been fighting for the Dream Act for what feels like an eternity.…

The story was a moving one and I hope Vargas gets to stay. With that said, I think illegal immigration creates all kinds of societal problems and is unfair to legal immigrants. The problem it creates is that there's enormous stress on those that are illegal. They live in the shadows and can be taken advantage of. My own personal experience was driving in LA and being rear-ended by someone who then fled the scene (mos…

The problem with your “cutting in line is bad” line is that people’s choice to immigrate without papers has almost nothing to do with “lines” or policies or lawbreaking, and everything to do with the much more powerfully compelling economic organization of the world (and particularly North America).

1) United States agriculture absolutely depends on a certain amount of unskilled labor to function, for which the United States has been importing Mexican laborers in large numbers for at least 80 years. Ending this importation of labor would literally cause the agriculture system in this country to break down.

2) Many parts of Mexico have been economically depressed with high underemployment/unemployment for decades. There are physically too many people for the quantity of available jobs.

The undocumented immigrants I know (including my parents’ godson who is a migrant agricultural laborer, including several guys who stayed in my family’s house for a few months in the early 1990s, including 30-50% of young men from many indigenous communities in southern Mexico, etc.) DO NOT want to leave their parents, their wives, their children, their communities to go to a strange place where they do not speak the language to do hard labor, missing their children’s early years, DO NOT want to take on tremendous personal financial risk in the form of huge loans from loan sharks who will happily repossess their family’s home or start sending goons to beat people up if the money isn’t repaid.

Unfortunately, the choice is often hover-your-whole-life-just-above-or-below-subsistence-level (i.e. take on personally degrading and dangerous jobs to feed your family, risk starvation, etc.), or clear out and go somewhere else. If the outlet of leaving to the United States were unavailable as an escape valve, I’m quite convinced many would end up either starving or turning to other kinds of desperate action.

In other words, not really a choice at all.

You’re damn right that a system that has people staying in this country without papers isn’t fair and allows those people to be taken advantage of. You know what else isn’t fair and allows people to be taken advantage of? The whole global economic order.

[Note: this is not intended as a call to any particular action; just trying to state facts.]

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#249

Post by yardie » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 9:07 AM UTC

freshfunk wrote: post #198

trustfundbaby wrote: post #6

Properly formatted link http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-und... The guy came out as gay but wouldn't let people know he wasn't a citizen ... that's deep.

I'd keep in mind that this is the bay area which tends to be pretty gay friendly.

The Bay Area has gay friendly "adults". High school and below is a completely different can of worms. Being unPC is unfortunately a trait. And I don't mean to rag on all high school students but the most popular, and vocal, ones can be downright shits. And they are the ones that set the tone.

Re: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

#250

Post by coryl » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 9:09 AM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #239

coryl wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there might just be a difference in the way we see things. Its comments like these that bug me: I started this thread by arguing that people brought here as children deserve more leniency. Obviously, we don't hold children to the same standard as adults. However, the fact that its not an implicit belief (to give a child benefit of the doubt) and has to be explicitly stated by you shows (to me) a form of malice,…

Hey Coryl, I'm enjoying this discussion between you two and I think you both make excellent points and I'm learning from the discussion. But this out of bounds - > has to be explicitly stated by you shows (to me) a form of malice, spite, arrogance, and a complex of superiority. You really ought not personally insult the guy you're discussing with... it doesn't help the discussion at all. Really uncalled for, haberman…

Thanks. They weren't intended to be insults for insults sake, but reflect how I see, as what I believe to be, his perspective of immigrants as criminals.

To say something like "immigrant children broke the law, but since they're kids, we should be lenient when we consider punishing them", carries a pass of judgement that I perceive to be as a statement on whom is more righteous or more privileged. I don't feel like anyone has the right to pass that judgment nor harbor that mentality, just because they themselves are secure in their person and place by chance and fortune. It shows little thought or consideration for other human beings, especially when complex situations become simply labelled as " illegal immigrant", or "lawbreaker".

So while what I said may seem insulting, they are not intended to be direct insults. I feel what I feel, and I'm just doing my best to describe that.