Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas • Hacker News Board

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#81

Post by knowtheory » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 1:58 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #58

compay wrote: post #32

I'm American. My wife is Argentine. We live in Argentina in large part because when we wanted to marry in 2006, we couldn't get her a permanent visa to live in the USA. Her fiancee visa was in fact quickly approved, pending an interview at the US consulate in Buenos Aires. We waited and waited, called, had our lawyers call, and the response was always "when the consulate is ready to make an appointment, they will cal…

Nobody is going to dispute that the immigration laws in the US are draconian. They're a patchwork sown together by various special interests and make very little sense. However, in the past, they were rarely enforced. Only in instances where someone committed a felony or something of that nature. Over the last decade and especially during the Obama administration, ICE stepped up enforcement. If I had to guess, I'd sa…

Take this with a grain of salt, since this is conjecture, but don't underestimate the weight and inertia of gigantic bureaucracies.

ICE was set up during the later years of the Bush administration, and now they've hit their stride after ramping up. The Obama Administration could expend political capital to do something about the issue, but that's probably not a winning political stance.

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#82

Post by ecopoesis » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:11 PM UTC

shiven wrote: post #57

ecopoesis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is there are rules. To come to the US you can either: 1) Apply to INS, wait in line, enter the lottery and follow the law. 2) Hop on a plane and hope they don't catch you. He chose route 2, and is now paying the consequences. Just because he's an entrepreneur doesn't give him any more right to be here then any other would be immigrant, and it certainly doesn't give him the right to jump the line

ecopoesis, there are laws and then there is the interpretation of those laws, right? you don't have to be lawyer to see that and i am not one. because there exists a law does not mean it is automatically just and 'right'. laws get changed all the time and examples as this are a good reason to re-evaluate their 'correctness' and discuss in a broader social context the changes that are required.

It really doesn't matter if the law is right, what matters is the fairness in enforcement. In this case, he could followed the law, waited his turn and come to the US. Instead, he came to the US on an exchange visa, then stayed illegally when it expired. He claimed asylum, but after investigation, the INS/ICE found that he wasn't being persecuted. The US has even told him what he needed to do to become legal, he chose not too.

He's tried for twenty years find loopholes in US law because he didn't want to wait his turn with other would be immigrants.

So while US immigration law may be messed up, he's messing up far more by trying to cheat his way in.

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#83

Post by noarchy » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:12 PM UTC

TomGullen wrote: post #69

USA's immigration laws are pretty hilarious when you remember the majority of the population are immigrants themselves who pushed the natives out the way all those years ago. It's a country founded on immigration.

You can say this about all of the Americas, in general. National borders, especially that of the US, are becoming harder and harder to deal with if you're a human being. It seems to be a lot easier if you're a trade good.

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#84

Post by noarchy » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:12 PM UTC

TomGullen wrote: post #69

USA's immigration laws are pretty hilarious when you remember the majority of the population are immigrants themselves who pushed the natives out the way all those years ago. It's a country founded on immigration.

You can say this about all of the Americas, in general. National borders, especially that of the US, are becoming harder and harder to deal with if you're a human being. It seems to be a lot easier if you're a trade good.

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#85

Post by huhtenberg » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:14 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #55

huhtenberg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a substantial amount, but it is a legal way to live in the US. So your factoid while interesting is not exactly accurate. Also, to put the $50K in perspective - Canadian permanent resident visa has a requirement of showing $10K in available funds, and there is a metric ton of such visas getting granted every year. $50K is not far off.

So is marrying a citizen or getting an H-1. They are legal. Read my comment, I mean someone from any part of the world, just getting enough money for a plane ticket, getting on a plane or boat, landing in NY and eventually becoming a citizen of US. No need to marry anyone, getting any company to sponsor you, no "gifted" abilities, no need for $50K, no need to have been raped and mutilated by militias and so on. That…

Ok, got it. In that case, and with a possible exception of EU zone, there are no countries that allow doing what you described. For example, being a citizen of Canada I can travel almost everywhere w/o visas, but I cannot just fly to Italy or Mongolia or Japan and get settled to live and work. Nor would I be able to get a work-enabling visa easily. In other words the USA is not an exception, there is nothing unique about their free settlement restrictions.

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#86

Post by fourmii » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:16 PM UTC

ireadzalot wrote: post #67

fourmii wrote: post #60

I'm an Australian, currently living in the US on a green card via being married to an American. While I sympathize with his plight and I also strongly believe that when you choose to enter a country, you should respect it's laws. He did willingly come to the US and overstay his visa, so therefore broke US immigration laws. Now I don't necessarily agree with the US immigration process, I believe it's rather tough and…

It should be acknowledged that Australians have a special and easy way for coming to US and getting permanent residency. For example, if an Australian wanted to start a business in US, you are automatically qualified to apply for residency right away. (My information is based on what an Australian couple told me 5 years ago in the US).

True, Aussies now have the E3 visa which is a work sponsored visa just for Aussies. But I came here years before that happened. I had to convince someone to give me one of the very rare H1B visas just to come over to be with my then girlfriend. We eventually got married and I applied for the greencard.

I'm not sure about auto qualification if you want to start a business. I think you need something like $1M in the bank to prove that you have the resources to start...

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#87

Post by parfe » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:17 PM UTC

llcoolv wrote: post #36

Shame is that this guy is most probably Bulgarian and he holds the burgundy passport, which enables him to do his trade almost all over Europe (except for Belarus, Moldova, etc) without having to deal with any bureaucracy or the 'you dirty outsider' attitude. I really don't get it what so many people see in the US.

>I really don't get it what so many people see in the US.

1) US and EU economies nearly equal each other in size. [1]

2) You only need one language in the US to reach the entire market.

3) I don't believe for a second there isn't prejudice against outsiders in each individual European country. Wikipedia hosts an article written just about tensions regarding Polish people entering the UK! [2]

1 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Polish_sentiment_in_the_Un...

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#88

Post by dts » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:18 PM UTC

blahedo wrote: post #70

rdtsc wrote: post #19

An interesting factoid. There is no legal way for anyone to just come to US and make it their home country. Say someone from Africa or South America. They can't simply save enough money, get on a plane, land at JFK and then after 10 years or whatever time become citizens. They would have to be persecuted in a terrible way before being granted asylum, have to marry a US citizen, find a company that would hire them. I…

> There is no legal way for anyone to just come to US and make it their home country. Are there countries where this is possible? This is a real question, I'm not snarking---is there some country X where I could just up and say, "I want to move to X" and just go there and make it my permanent residence? (I know that there are some countries that in practice don't enforce their requirements, but I thought all countrie…

The problem with this statement is what is meant by "just come" to the country. I personally don't think that any immigration process should cater to the serendipitous. It's a legal process and most modern countries have processes in place where if you say "I want to move to X" and start the legal process to move to X in your own country, then yes, you can go there and live there if you meet the given requirements. Are there any countries without any requirements for new immigrants (money in the bank, job offer, etc) so that anyone regardless of status can just come? That I don't know. In my experience the barriers are always money, time, patience, and background. Usually in that order.

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#89

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:33 PM UTC

huhtenberg wrote: post #85

rdtsc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is marrying a citizen or getting an H-1. They are legal. Read my comment, I mean someone from any part of the world, just getting enough money for a plane ticket, getting on a plane or boat, landing in NY and eventually becoming a citizen of US. No need to marry anyone, getting any company to sponsor you, no "gifted" abilities, no need for $50K, no need to have been raped and mutilated by militias and so on. That…

Ok, got it. In that case, and with a possible exception of EU zone, there are no countries that allow doing what you described. For example, being a citizen of Canada I can travel almost everywhere w/o visas, but I cannot just fly to Italy or Mongolia or Japan and get settled to live and work. Nor would I be able to get a work-enabling visa easily. In other words the USA is not an exception, there is nothing unique a…

The difference, is that US (and Canada I guess), unlike many other countries was founded on immigration and prides itself with that fact ("melting pot, yada yada.."). However it ended up as a country with one of the most complicated and difficult immigration systems in the world.

Re: Immigrant entrepreneur arrested to meet quotas

#90

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 2:36 PM UTC

gujk wrote: post #76

huhtenberg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a substantial amount, but it is a legal way to live in the US. So your factoid while interesting is not exactly accurate. Also, to put the $50K in perspective - Canadian permanent resident visa has a requirement of showing $10K in available funds, and there is a metric ton of such visas getting granted every year. $50K is not far off.

That is exactly what the "oid" in "factoid" means, by the way. fact : factoid :: human : humanoid

You are right. I said it because I am not an immigration specialist (apart from having navigated the system myself and know people who for for it). So it is possible that I am wrong. I did not go and research the laws in depth before posting. It is just what I heard from others.