U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#781

Post by aprilthird2021 » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:20 AM UTC

conductr wrote: post #576

hvb2 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leaving part is not the issue, as you try to immigrate into a country you're subject to the rules that country sets. You're always free to not immigrate into that country (this is not about asylum). The issue here is that, if you just left the country to do everything the country asked you, you are now in limbo. For how long? No one can tell. Does this mean you lose your job? Maybe. And when you decide it's no lo…

> The issue here is that, if you just left the country to do everything the country asked you, you are now in limbo. I feel like I’ve said it a few times but - Yes, exactly. The country wants you to leave and then get’s to decide if you can come back. That’s how it’s designed. On purpose. You’re approaching it from a perspective where you’re being asked to leave and your reentry is a right. It’s not. They never said,…

Rather than rights and privileges, think about the economic consequences of this. People will stop coming here for advanced study for advanced research and for advanced industry jobs. And most institutions and companies will accommodate this and try to have such people work from where they are vs fight an onerous government to bring them here. The net result will be damage to the US economy

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#782

Post by aprilthird2021 » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:21 AM UTC

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #344

My company has a H-1B guy that travelled home to India a few months ago and since then can't come back because the next date he can get with the US embassy is next year. Seems he may get stuck even longer... I am to some degree on board with keeping a closer eye on immigration, but the way the current administration does it feels intentionally cruel. The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US; his vi…

Trump supporters will be shocked when such people just start working from abroad for the company vs the company hiring unqualified American citizens

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#783

Post by jeeeb » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

coderenegade wrote: post #450

tptacek wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of countries have temporary worker status. The requirement to leave the country to re-up it appears to be a distinctively American thing.

It's definitely not. I know Japan and Korea had a similar process when I was living there, and I was under the impression that most places operate this way. Your visa grants you right to temporarily stay in the country, and if you don't have a visa you have no right to be there. Sometimes there's a bridging visa to cover the gap, but a country isn't under any obligation to provide one.

No. Japan certainly doesn’t. If you want to renew your visa you go apply at the local immigration department and they mail you your renewal notice a month or two later. No need to leave the country at all.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#784

Post by aprilthird2021 » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:23 AM UTC

tyre wrote: post #725

raz32dust wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the fundamental problem with h1b is that it is labeled as "non-immigrant" whereas for all practical purposes it is really an immigrant visa. Why would a person who is supposedly having rare skills come to a country and spend their best years here without reasonable guarantee of permanency? People buy homes because it is a reasonable belief that they are going to be living here permanently and it has hi…

> Why would a person who is supposedly having rare skills come to a country and spend their best years here without reasonable guarantee of permanency? I agree with your overall point but the answer here is money. The earning potential in the US vs. e.g. India is drastic.

Yes but if you are worth that money to any company why would you assume one day it will all just end? That's not typical or normal for most careers

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#785

Post by ifwinterco » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:24 AM UTC

room271 wrote: post #774

ifwinterco wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at the moment, but the result of the current UK system has been huge uncontrolled levels of immigration leading to deep public resentment, so that may change in the future

The system has already been changed and numbers are falling (and have already fallen) quite dramatically. See Fig 2 here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...

Yes that's kind of what I mean - the powers that be are already quietly moving in the direction of cracking down on immigration, because they can see it's now causing them real political problems.

Not because they care about doing the right thing, but purely for self preservation reasons

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#786

Post by nujabe » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:24 AM UTC

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #344

My company has a H-1B guy that travelled home to India a few months ago and since then can't come back because the next date he can get with the US embassy is next year. Seems he may get stuck even longer... I am to some degree on board with keeping a closer eye on immigration, but the way the current administration does it feels intentionally cruel. The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US; his vi…

But nobody asked him to buy a house, have a kid etc. He came here supposedly with the intention of not staying permanently.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#787

Post by aprilthird2021 » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:24 AM UTC

itake wrote: post #584

Solstafir wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are arguments from the other side too. Many H1B folks do keep one foot back in the country they are from. But then a lot of backlash on specifically Indian folks for sending most of their salary back home. They know that this is transient state, many of them have rented housing, but still these visas are not like weekly visas, they are for 3 years, people would build somewhat of a life in that time and uprootin…

I don't have opinions about them sending their salary back home. Obviously its better for the USA if the money stayed in the USA, but "earning money in one locality and spending it another" is really really really situation, even in the USA. American Police officers are famous for not actually living in the cities they work in. In each country I have lived in, I was a guest. With that knowledge, I carefully designed…

These people are productive members of our society who enrich our country and our economy. The idea that they are guests we are hosting is absurd

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#788

Post by bubblethink » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:24 AM UTC

dcow wrote: post #765

999900000999 wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the point. The current people in power don’t want immigrants because the vast majority of immigrants are non white. The tall blond nordics they really want have no real motivation to deal with this bizarre BS as they usually already have a great standard of living in say Norway. So you end up with a ton of folks from places where running water is still a luxury. A lot of these people are even excellent church…

I find the idea the only immigrants can do low skill labor kinda… obtuse. Maybe Americans should pick their own crops instead of living in a delusion that certain labor is beneath them. Boomer era “all my kids are going to get white collar jobs” type thinking isn’t sustainable.

It's not beneath them per se. It's just that this trade only makes sense for a certain slice of the population at a certain time in their life. The immigrant is willing to work in that job because what is offered is not just the salary but something more (chance to immigrate, stability, arbitrage, etc.). It's similar to research assistants or grad students in universities. They are doing cutting edge research for peanuts because what they are getting is something more (degree, skills, future earning potential). It's hard to replace this dynamic. Or in other words, the dollar value of the intangibles is so high that if you were to put a price on it, it would make your business unviable.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#789

Post by flanked-evergl » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:25 AM UTC

DiscourseFan wrote: post #756

flanked-evergl wrote: post #680

[flagged]

This seems intentionally inflammatory

I mean this in the best possible spirit, but if it does seem intentionally inflammatory, then I think it's mostly a result of your political priors.

The 4th top reply on this submission is: "the current admin are working hard to destroy the U.S as if they're foreign agents."

If I were a less patient man I would also find this inflammatory, but I know the person saying it just says it because they genuinely believe it, they aren't saying it to make me angry. Furthermore, because of the political bias prevalent here, most people here would agree with it, instead of disagree with it, so they would not find it inflammatory at all and do not consider what people with other political views than their own think of it.

I get more people will disagree with my comment than with the comment I quoted, and downvote my comment, but that is their choice. I posted it because that is my sentiment on this matter, this is what I genuinely believe. This to me is good news. As good as news can be. This is just the reality, and there is nothing intentionally inflammatory about reality. It just exists.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#790

Post by dcow » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 9:26 AM UTC

This is political warfare. War is cruel and inhumane. If you want to stop the cruelty, stop the war.

There’s a lot of discussion about whether this is cruel or justified or legal—whatever. This sucks for people who get caught up in our immigration fight and ultimately it’s bad for all of us because it makes the US a less attractive place for immigrants.

However, we are here (1) because US citizens voted for more scrutiny of the immigration process to make sure people immigrating are successfully landing in the US and not taking advantage of the systems we have in place. And (2) because a vocal minority is unwilling to enforce any of our existing immigration laws and is actively sabotaging the administration’s attempts to do so. Nobody has clean hands.

In the US we do not approve visas for immigrants who we suspect will become dependent on our welfare system. This isn’t some new rule Trump made up to get rid of immigrants because he’s cruel, it’s existed for over a century. Fun fact: the current statutory language Rubio used in January to limit immigration from 75 countries comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a Democrat sponsored bill.

The legal challenge honestly feels like a technicality which is probably why the state department responded as they did. A judge said we can’t limit the ban by country based on public-charge language, arguing that the public-charge consideration must be evaluated independent of nationality or in other words, it can’t be used to institute a country specific ban. So the state department removed the country specific ban and said fine all immigration is paused until we can properly train people to evaluate public-charge since the current training is ineffective.

The state department tried the surgical path, judicial activism, whether technically correct or not, vacated the surgical path. So the state department escalated with a tactic that more literally adheres to the judges interpretation but also has more collateral damage.

This bickering is dumb and shouldn’t be happening in the first place.