Live data from Hacker News

Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

theguardian.com

71–80 of 135 posts

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#71
post #69
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you see that they are using immigration questions as an excuse to consolidate power that exceeds immigration enforcement by a large margin? The ability to detain lawful workers or pull people off the street without a warrant from a judge & hold them illegally for a significant duration can become political retaliation or terror tool and a racial profiling vehicle very quickly. And more over, they basically have…

[flagged]

I think you missed my point. I do not deny the existence nor validity of the immigration questions, or whether certain implemented policy is questionable or not. What I tried to argue was that the Trump administration uses those issues, and people's discontent over them, to engineer a mass power consolidation that may do so much harm in the long run (or, probably, within merely a few years) that even if in the process it helps some Americans to gain jobs or whatever it still by no means worth the price yet to be paid.

Did border crossing drop? Yes. Is economy gotta improve? It is complicated like usual. Do these worth to give up a working democracy , i.e. the ability to replace a leader other than waiting for their natural death or committing a revolution? Absolutely not. Democracy's merit isn't that it's the most fair system to pick candidates, but the power to replace leadership without bloodshed and do so within people's lifetime.

What could be the better answer to immigration policy is out of the scope, therefore I would echo the other comment that says this is not about immigration. If this wasn't clear before, it should've been after the two Minneapolis murders and the arrest of Don Lemon, etc etc.

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emphasize that I'm not defending the Trump regime, but do you know this friend well enough to be confident that she would tell you if her visa situation didn't check out? It would be extremely hard to stay in the US for 20 uninterrupted years on valid visas without permanent residency. O-1s are theoretically indefinite but require yearly renewal, and all of the other common visas I know of have maximum durations be…

Yes, I am 100% certain of what I said. These individuals have had valid visas in the US and been here for 10-20 years and intentionally have never become green card holders. One was on a student visa for undergrad and then a student visa for masters for 6 years total (4 for undergrad and 2 for masters), then on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the World Bank for 5 years, then back to a student visa for 5 years p…

So basically you played "Well Ackwually" card when you knew that path is not available to 99.9% of immigrants.

You can presume when you read the article and realize he was working in blue collar trade so your experience does not apply.

EDIT: And they would likely transition to Green Cards the second that their work visas expired.

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#73
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with some co-mingling of facts, is 5 months detention still proportionate? That’s the crux of it.

My opinion is probably not but this is ultimately a political conversation. The article is extremely light on details but fact he doesn't have a Green Card/Lawful Permanent Resident yet would indicate that at some point of his time in United States, he was illegally present, probably for a while. Sure, he's on path, MAYBE (that's up to immigration courts), to legal status but he's not quite there yet and it's one of…

> it's one of those "Are we going to forgive past transgressions?"

For ICE enthusiasts, forgiveness is reserved for Presidential candidates.

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#74
post #58

We have seen many stories like this. Some doubt the authenticity, but what is evident is that these things are happening again and again with impunity. Perhaps you don't think the situation is bad enough, or the details are exaggerated. However, the fact that a man can be pulled of the street despite having legal status should be alarming. You don't need to care about the Irishman, but you should care about justice.

[flagged]

I'm afraid I don't since I was too young back then, and never really watched Sienfeld, but man oh man, that sounds terrible.

Perhaps we've been living a lie this whole thing.

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#75
post #58

We have seen many stories like this. Some doubt the authenticity, but what is evident is that these things are happening again and again with impunity. Perhaps you don't think the situation is bad enough, or the details are exaggerated. However, the fact that a man can be pulled of the street despite having legal status should be alarming. You don't need to care about the Irishman, but you should care about justice.

[flagged]

> ICE took a break during the Obama and Biden years for some reason.

This is simply not true.

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#76

Per article he owns a business. Usually a pre-Green-Card work permit doesn't allow that (you need a GC to own a business). This article is an example of sophisticated co-mingling of facts and omissions, designed to obfuscate the context.

Shoes not tied properly? => 5 months in jail, it's only right. You seem to be searching for the slightest absurdity to justify any of this happening.

Didn't say "God bless you" when I sneezed?

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#77
He overstayed the 90 day fiancé visa. Got married eventually. That should have triggered a 5-10 year bar from re-entering the US.

He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process.

Instead, 20 years later he applied for a green card to get a temporary work permit which is usually granted eligible while applying for permanent residency. So he had no work permit or valid status for 20 years.

5 months in detention seems like a long time. They offered to deport him but he refused and supposedly DHS forged his signatures.

It’s a messy case but he could have avoided the detention if he willingly asked to be deported immediately then fight for immigration status from where he has citizenship.

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#78

He overstayed the 90 day fiancé visa. Got married eventually. That should have triggered a 5-10 year bar from re-entering the US. He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process. Instead, 20 years later he applied for a green card to get a temporary work permit which is usually granted eligible while applying for permanent residency. So he had no work perm…

> He overstayed the 90 day fiancé visa. Got married eventually. That should have triggered a 5-10 year bar from re-entering the US. > He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process.

"Why do people come here illegally? Do it properly!"

I immigrated here from Australia. It would have been cheaper, and faster, to come here on the VWP, get married, and apply for forgiveness, than to do it legally.

Look at our current first lady. Comes here as a working model on a tourist visa. That should also have triggered a ban from re-entering the US.

It's all just such a mess. Revisiting this point:

> He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process.

I got divorced (we had a sincere intent, but we acknowledged we got married sooner than we would if it wasn't for logistics), and missed one of the dates for AOS. To be clear, at that point it's not just that they say "Oh, whatever", it's that the onus is on USCIS to show fraudulent intent. We'd already had some fairly detailed interviews, separately. "What day does the garbage go out? Who usually takes it out? Who is your auto insurance through? What cars do you own between you? What was the last major update done to your home?" and so on, to demonstrate that you'd been living together in a genuine relationship.

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#79
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think it would make a difference? POTUS and his entourage have been lying to us on TV while we watch the same clips of their ICEtapo shooting people in the face for brandishing a phone and calling them domestic terrorists. They've picked up people during their citizenship ceremony. Do you seriously think that a piece of paper would make the slightest bit of difference?

Yes. There's a number of people who have successfully defeated the Trump regime's attempts to oppress them by securing a piece of paper saying they're not allowed to. It doesn't work all the time, and you have every right to be furious about the times when it doesn't, but it's counterproductive to overgeneralize and conclude that legal rights don't matter at all.

it didn't work for those with a 1st, 2nd or 4th amendment rights.

Re: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

#80
post #43
post #23

It's never been about immigration.

But what it is about? What's the end game in detaining lawful workers?

You know the revanchist militias who would openly hate everything about our country, while claiming to be "patriots" ? You know how they've been awfully quiet lately ? It's about putting them in charge, at least as far as the bottom-up.

The top-down is something like destroying the United States and subjugating what remains, with many foreign interests aligned here - Russia, China, Big Tech eager to create their surveillance society, religious fundamentalists who just want the world to burn so their ideologies might regain relevance, etc.

Post reply on HN