The biggest factor in one's chances of success in life depends upon one's country of citizenship. That's a fact. It should be obvious so I am not stating any sources or research data.
I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
501–510 of 615 posts
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#502Earlier 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…
I'm not the OP, but I mostly support the idea of open borders and I'm from Canada. Canada has many of the same issues that New Zealand has. We are the second largest country (by landmass) in the world, yet our population is slightly smaller than California. Much of our land is quite rugged, or very cold but our country is still capable of supporting more than the 35 million we currently have. The best argument that I…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
"unhappy immigrants" - surely they're no where near as unhappy as the extreme poor. The moral case for opening the borders is an absolute slam dunk.
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#503I'm also from New Zealand, also went to Yale (albeit as a graduate not undergrad), and also had my mother tell me I was "very American". And I also ran out of options for US visas after 5 years (10 years away from NZ in total), despite a Yale MBA and McKinsey on my resume. More to the point I stopped trying, seeing that the system was structured against me, and that my ambition of starting my own company(s) was not g…
I graduated in Auckland 2 years ago and had assumed I would have to leave the country to find interesting work. Stumbled into the startup community and now I'm completely addicted, yet don't see myself needing to leave the country any time soon. And I'm not even working out of a main center.
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#504This hits home in so many ways than one. I came to this country at 17 to attend college, 2 degrees and 8 years later I was recently let go. Thankfully I'm an Engineer in SF so it shouldn't be too bad to find another employer and get back, but still I'm looking at a good 6-7 weeks out of the country in order to get a new visa for a new employer before I can transfer my status.
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#505Disclaimer: I am a Canadian permanent resident. > I like it here. This is the real problem, you have a severe case of non-reciprocal love. In that case the answer is obvious: move over, find another love, come to Canada or go to Northern Europe. U.S. immigration is an American problem,since they are the ones loosing talent and entrepreneurial people. It is not an immigrant's problem, since they don't have the powers…
Just to clarify in case people still have the impression that Canada is good for immigration: Maybe Canada is better than America for immigration, the experience is getting worse. After the new immigration minister came up in July 2013, the government has changed policies to make immigration slow and the path to citizenship much harder. 1) A Labour Market Opinion (LMO), which is required before a work visa, itself us…
Strangely with Canada, I think it depends on where within the country you immigrate to. As a native Canadian from the prairies who moved to Montreal 10 years ago, I have met and worked with so many immigrants here that I now believe I know more of them in Montreal than I do native Canadians. It makes for an extremely interesting cultural mix.
Apparently Quebec makes it much easier for citizens from a select list of countries to obtain permanent residency, as opposed to what you'll find elsewhere in the country. It still takes a long time dealing with loads of bureaucracy (especially the requirement for basic French language skills which can be handled via courses while here), but I haven't yet met anyone who has had to leave before they manage to obtain their permanent residency.
Random aside: Moldova has proven to be the source of my favourite people. There are so many Moldovans here due to a simplified immigration process for their country. There's just something so refreshing about how they carry themselves: friendly, humble, utterly proud and self-confident, and without ego. It's nice to meet people who are pleasant without plastering a fake-ass smile on their face all day long. When you see them smile or hear a laugh, you know it's genuine!
tldr; I believe Quebec is conditionally easier (based on country of origin) to immigrate to than other Canadian provinces. And, um, Moldovans are genuine people - more of you need to move here so I can eventually find a lifelong mate. :p
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#506Earlier 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.
Uh, you can get smuggled into the US via the Mexican borders for like a couple thousand bucks. There's a whole industry around this. The people who do the smuggling are called 'coyotes". Any serious terrorist is already here, via that border.
Also, so what if anyone can come and go. You live in a town or city, right? So the adjacent towns, they let you just waltz in and out of them right? They "don't control who comes through." Is that so terrible? Do you think your town should have a big wall around it and strict security cause you're worried about a potential fugitive slipping in? No, that's stupid. It's just a really inefficient/cumbersome way to deal with the problem of criminals. Instead, you leave society open and free, and when a criminal pops up, you track him down, arrest him, stick him in jail or whatever. You don't wrap everything up with giant walls and security just cause sometimes there are criminals.
"I'm totally against an open borders policy." That's cause you're severely underinformed. Please see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 trans…
Fallacy, fallacy, fallacy, fallacy. Oh, I lost count.
Private property != public property. There are things called roads, parks, forests that are public - these spaces are designed for common use. Separately, there is private property. Like your house or your real estate. That's yours. Just for you.
Open borders is about removing borders between our public spaces. Allowing one to drive from e.g. a US road to a Mexican road without a passport. Open borders isn't about letting someone stay in your house. It's about letting someone rent or buy a house in America and inhabit what would then be their private property. It's about letting them take a job in a foreign country or hire a foreigner to work in their business.
See my other two comments for more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is it much easier in the EU? You still need a job offer to first enter the country, but changing jobs will involve less bureaucracy than in the USA, and after having been employed in the country for 5-10 years, and speaking a local language, you can apply for permanent residency or citizenship yourself, so the hassle of needing you employer to do it for you, does not exist.
In the US, most H1B hires I personally know have had their green card sponsorship started within an year of hire. Then it takes about 2-3 years to get it finalized. I knew of one who even got the process started in 2 months. So there are some differences from other countries but no 5-10 years wait.
Wrong. The green card on EB2 takes 6-8 years for Indian and Chinese born immigrants. On EB3, it can take over 10 years. The green card process involves a per-country quota. Folks from countries other than India, China, and a couple of others get it "finalized" in 2-3 years.
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#509Considering 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…
"If we started being serious about cutting immigration, there would be more political pressure for these foreign countries to get their shit straight." Spoken like someone who never had the idea of moving to another country. Here is the problem - those 12% unemployed will still walk around pretending that USA is the bestest country in the world where people have 'gotten their shit together', than to move to a differe…
Well said. Those 12% can move abroad, with the manufacturing jobs, for example. But no, that would be out of the question.
Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it sounds good on paper but in practice… the question is more along the lines of: is it worth depressing the wages of 1M employees in order to try to capture the next Zuckerberg, who creates a company that only employs a few thousand people?
Why does your cost-benefit calculation not include the benefits to those foreign workers who are allowed to compete for jobs in the U.S.? The academic literature* shows much, much larger productivity and income gains to those who migrate to richer countries than any negative effect to native workers. Even if an influx of immigrants depressed some existing Americans' wages by a small amount, that delta would only pale…
Would you willingly train/mentor somebody if you knew the outcome would be that she would compete for your job personally, or that your wage would go down 20%?
Frequently calls for equality are made by those who imagine their own situation could not possibly worsen; it's always some anonymous others who will pay.