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U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

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

#81
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> 90% of new jobs since 2020 went to people not born in America. That's a passive-aggressive invasion. Do you have a source for this claim?

I looked it up there are a few articles.

https://cis.org/Camarota/New-January-Data-Still-Shows-Most-J...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/feb/7/immigrants-t...

https://guestworkervisas.com/bls-a7-analysis.html

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

#82
post #7

The US seems hellbent on destroying its own economy, immigrants have always played a key part in it. Looking forward to Trump yelling about how the radical left has somehow undermined the US economy in a few months.

Looking forward? He never stopped. It's been 10+ years of narcissistic scapegoating, even for times when he was President, even while Republicans controlled congress, and even over trade-deals, policies, and laws that he took-credit for and bragged about . (e.g. USMCA in 2020.) > Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremen…

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

#83

50% of all American unicorns were started by immigrants. This is sheer stupidity to prevent the best of what the world has to offer when they are knocking at your door.

And now they can be more evenly distributed all over the world. I'd call it a net win even if administration did not think it this way.

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

#84
post #70

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Because if that were the case they should have just kept the existing staff that already had the requisite knowledge instead of letting DOGE fire 400 people from DHS who did this kind of thing. You have no backing for your presumption either. The Iran war was supposed to be short. The Trump admin is full of pathological liars. Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.

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

#85
post #26

Same ruling class that goes on a bunch of tangents about birth rates stops immigrant visa processing for US citizens who married abroad.

This is classic goomba fallacy. Right wing oligarchs want infinite immigration because they get a larger labor pool and lower wages. Right wing normies want less immigration because they don't want to compete with the entire world for a job and don't want to become a minority in their own country. Spend some time on X and you can see the two parts of the right wing attack each other over this issue.

Ultimately, there is some value in each position, and in a corresponding set of positions on the left. Unlike many issues in US politics, in the long run this one is not well left-right aligned, and there is no single correct number for how much immigration is best. It's a bunch of trade-offs, which should be made democratically and end up somewhere around the number that the median person wants, such that roughly half of us are unhappy because too many immigrants come in and roughly half unhappy because too few. Arriving at that number and changing it slowly would be far better than wild swings.

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

#86
post #15

So for those that don't know, it's quite common for a visa renewal to be required to leave the country. Depending on the visa, you might have to do this every year. So just imagine, having a normal job in the US and you're asked to leave to renew your visa and this stuff happens. That's no more appointment, not even a new date and you're now very likely unable to work and possibly can't even enter the country to get…

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Yeah, this is a pretty big risk. I'm similarly married to an American and we have an American child. Other country seems to have screwed the family, though. Mine (India) offers a fairly indefinite visa called an Overseas Citizen of India. And my wife's other nationality (Taiwan) also permits foreign spouses to live there after some straightforward paperwork. So, in theory, we could live in either of these other places together. I suppose I will only know when push comes to shove.

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

#87
post #79
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the current admin are working hard to destroy the U.S as if they're foreign agents The U.S. had a draconian restrictive immigration policy from 1921-1965. That worked fine. How can you say with a straight face that someone must be a “foreign agent” to think doing the same thing again will have the same result? Surely the burden is on you to prove the opposite, right?

Oh god I hope this lie is part of an attempt to get right-wingers on board with a “let’s roll immigration policy back to what we had in 1950!” push. I hope this because it’d be hilarious if they got what they wanted and realized that meant actual open borders with most or all of the Americas.

Before Hart-Cellar we had national origin quotas, it wasn't a free-for-all.

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

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't understand the utility of having welcoming and creative/tenacious people involved in your science (which your questions listed are asking about) then you are not nearly the expert in qualifications you think you are.

You misunderstood my reply completely. I am saying we are not selecting for those people. When we hire at the university, we ignore creative, tenacious people and instead select mediocre people with a nice woke story that meets the woke requirements.

I would encourage you to reflect on what you think "woke" is, and why things that you think are woke are mutually exclusive from the skills and qualities you value.

"Woke" is a nonsense scare phrase at this point, when what you're actually taking issue with is valuing people's lived experiences and backgrounds as a part of what they contribute. Understanding where people come from and how that colors their world view is simply a good practice when doing anything, but especially when you're trying to do science/academia. Too many similar minds in a room will never produce what one with a diverse group will. Diversity is good science, and valuing it is not "woke".

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

#89
post #81
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 90% of new jobs since 2020 went to people not born in America. That's a passive-aggressive invasion. Do you have a source for this claim?

I looked it up there are a few articles. https://cis.org/Camarota/New-January-Data-Still-Shows-Most-J... https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/feb/7/immigrants-t... https://guestworkervisas.com/bls-a7-analysis.html

Thank you (and thanks to tzs) - was genuinely curious and wanted to read about it.

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

#90
post #61

I wonder if this has to do with the current economy and job market. Anecdotally I have found it very tough to find a new job (software engineering), though my previous employer continues to post job listings for green card applications as part of the required labor market test.

Are you... genuinely this naive and ignorant to what's happening in USA?

didn't big tech co's layoff thousands of people here and then filed for thousands more h1b ?
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