Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 615 posts

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

#601

Post by avz »

jahnu wrote: post #251
avz wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. There are many different types of Schengen visa [1] and it generally does not allow you to work. For this you need a national visa from a specific member state [2]. So, no, if you get a work permit in France, you are not free to live and work in Switzerland. In fact, EU citizens generally need a residency and work permit if they wish to live and work there. [1] http://www.schengenvisainfo.com/schengen-visa-type…

> In fact, EU citizens generally need a residency and work permit if they wish to live and work there. No, they generally don't. https://www.ch.ch/en/working-switzerland-eu-efta/

From the page: "For employment lasting longer than three months, a residence permit is required."

I named their permit incorrectly: should be "residence permit" instead of "residency and work permit". The point remains that EU citizens generally need an official permit to work in Switzerland.

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

#602

Post by lagadu »

speeder wrote: post #600
lagadu wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the easiest way for you would be to get a job in Portugal. Once that's done live/work there for 6 years for the naturalization. At that point you can just use your Portuguese ID card to live and work anywhere within the EEA; visas, immigration laws and work permits will never be a concern again.

My sister is trying to figure that out I believe. I have a portuguese grandpa (as in, actually from Portugal), my family even owned stuff in portugal, but somehow all the documents proving it disappeared. My sister and some cousins will try to figure it out, if that fails option B is travelling to portugal in person to ask for a copy of the documents there, if that fail, then getting a job in Portugal and hope they w…

Boa sorte!

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

#603

Post by jfoutz »

danielweber wrote: post #182
jfoutz wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

basic income, basic income, basic income. In the US there are a lot of cliffs in the support system. make over 10k? ok, you get nothing for support. This creates a terrible effect where people are unwilling to even try. I think the key is picking a bare minimum standard, and any work beyond that is better. People need the incentive. Maybe it's just to buy booze, who cares? Working 5 hours a week must be better than a…

I'll support my taxes being raised to pay for more wage subsidy for the working poor. I won't support my taxes going up in order to let people stay home and not work. I wouldn't even pay for that for my own kids, I'm surely not going to do it for some stranger's kids.

There will always be lazy fucks who try to game the system. It's important to structure the system to ensure they're worse off than anyone else. Really, i think those people are very rare. If mom lets you live in the basement so you can masterbate and play video games all day, ok. but that's on mom, not us.

There are three cases that are far far more common, i'd guess 2-3 orders of magnitude. First, the person having a bad time. We've all worked with the guy who got cancer, or is going through a bad divorce, who just becomes worthless at work. Not everyone gets that bad, but some people can't keep it together. Those folks just need some time. In a year or two they'll get back on their feet and be amazing productive members of society.

Two, the crazy homeless guy. Part of that is not really being capable of asking for the help they need. I'm not sure what fraction are (i hate to say it this way, but there it is) fixable. I do know that getting drunk, passing out when it's 10 below, and going to the hospital consumes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Third, it's not true of everyone, but there are certainly people that just can't work. Hellen Keller, perhaps some disabled veterans. Maybe someday, but there's no hope today.

A zero tolerance policy might be best. I'd say, we're better off as a civilization recovering as many people as we can, and just suck up the fraud caused by the handful of losers. I don't know how to avoid that, but i agree with you, fuck that guy.

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

#604

Post by 8note »

themartorana wrote: post #419
chx wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote https://bccla.org/2015/06/its-official-second-class-citizens... The new provisions allow officials to take away a person’s citizenship based on criminal convictions that occur outside of Canada, regardless whether the regime or judicial system under which the person was convicted is undemocratic or lacks the rule of law.

WTF Canada? The last place I would have guessed would tier class to provide unequal protection under and application of the law would be Canada. Are they really more worried about the abstract idea of Jihadist Muslims than America?

Nah, Harper's worried about environmentalists, and other possible threats to the dangerous pipelines his friends from the oil business want to put it.

C-51 allows them to brand people as terrorists, and C-24 lets them ship'em out to one of the USA's torture facilities.

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

#605

Post by outworlder »

smm2000 wrote: post #315
outworlder wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, you can overcome any legal hurdle with "tenacity". Lottery is out if he intended to stay. I am wondering if you are a troll for even having suggested it. It is meant for people outside the US - with no intent of ever visiting. It signals immigration intent, so even tourist visas can be denied on that alone. It is a lottery, not an application. Very low odds that would actually make it harder for him to sta…

Participating in lotter does not signal immigration intent. I participated in lottery for my parents for ten years and they had zero problem renewing their visitor visas every two year. It's pretty well documented that it's ok to do lottery without while on visitor or student visa. The fact that none of his employers wanted to sponsor him for visa tells you how valuable he was to those employers. Full in cost of empl…

> Participating in lotter does not signal immigration intent

Can you back this up? It is open to interpretation as far as I know.

US immigration assumes you intend to immigrate by default. It's up to you to prove that you have no interest in doing so. It gets harder to claim that you have no intention when you are, in fact, participating in the lottery, so you want to immigrate after all.

Perhaps your parents had enough ties to their home country that it didn't matter.

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

#606

Post by danieltillett »

rusabd wrote: post #557
danieltillett wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly waste collectors (garbos in Aussie slang) are well paid and it is quite a desirable job. They are also the hardest working government employees you see as they are given a route and when they have finished they can go home. Amazing how government can work when the structure is right.

and they are quite efficient - I compare garbage collection here in Seattle to Adelaide and in Australia it's only one person per truck doing most of the work without leaving a cabin.

Yes this is what happens when you have well paid labor - you focus of labor efficiency.

I wish we could figure out a way of "garboing" council road crews. With them you see 5 people standing around watching the one poor apprentice do the work.

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

#607

Post by nicolas_t »

hudibras wrote: post #325
nicolas_t wrote: post #52

I work for customers in the US as a software consultant (paid at New York rates) but because of the hassle and difficulties to get a visa there, I do not live there. This means that I get money from the US but I do not reinject it in the economy, I also do not pay taxes in the US. I'm a net loss for this country all because of the visa policies.

It's tough to say without knowing all the details, but even though you may be getting New York rates going into your pocket, the companies that are hiring you are not paying taxes into Social Security, unemployment, workers comp, etc. So you're actually still cheaper for those employers than having an employee in the United States; ergo, you're undercutting American workers.

Well, not really in my case, I charge as much ($150/hour) as a contractor in New York that would be paying Social Security tax and so on by himself (mostly because I also have to pay all of those things and it's not cheap in France: 42% of my income about)... But yes it's true that this also happens in some situation

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

#608

Post by nicolas_t »

adventured wrote: post #76
nicolas_t wrote: post #52

I work for customers in the US as a software consultant (paid at New York rates) but because of the hassle and difficulties to get a visa there, I do not live there. This means that I get money from the US but I do not reinject it in the economy, I also do not pay taxes in the US. I'm a net loss for this country all because of the visa policies.

I agree with the gist of what you're saying, that the US is losing out on that valuable tax money. However, I'd argue you're still a net gain for the US, because your work - the value derived from it - is very likely quite a lot more valuable than what you're charging for it. In tech, often worker input is worth several times what they're paid for it. You're making a valuable net contribution to the US economy. Not a…

That is true. Otherwise I wouldn't be working for very long :)

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

#609

Post by sumedh »

nojvek wrote: post #511
sumedh wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> move over, find another love, I agree, I wanted to go to US from India but realized that its not going to happen so I went to Australia. Aus immigration is fairly simple process if you have tech background.

went to Australia. PR took more than 4 years. I gave up hope and started applying for a tech job in US. Now I want to move back to Aus with wife but the partner visa is so broken. I have to move to Australia, my wife has to move back to her home country. She applies, the govt decides whether we will reunite again or not after 6-12 months. They charge $4500 application fee that is non-refundable. Aus immigration is eq…

Ahh yes, I forgot about the partner visa, yes I agree its broken.

Why did your PR take 4 years?

Post reply on HN