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
U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
891–900 of 1001 posts
Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#892Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not until all Americans who can work have jobs
But America is a capitalist system. The market has determined that not all Americans deserve jobs. Are Americans willing to work a 996 schedule for 2.00/hr to compete with labor overseas?
Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#893Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an American that lives abroad. I have first-hand experience how other countries treat 'immigrants'. H1B is a temporary non-immigrant visa. I could never imagine myself buying a home in a country where I don't have permanent access to that real estate. I am not opposed to voting to prevent non-PRs from owning real estate in order to keep housing prices lower for residents and prevent non-immigrants from shooting t…
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…
I'm curious as a non-American - labelled by who? People who want to talk tough on immigration but benefit from H1Bs in their companies? Or the system itself in some way?
Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#894Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can try again later. Can they? Because one of the questions on these questionnaires is almost always 'have you had a prior request being denied'. > But they’re not advising when that may be happening. To me, that tells you everything you need to know. These are life altering decisions for people that might have put decades into doing their best for the US. This is not about what to have for dinner. This causes…
So maybe you have stated a reason a pause is better than an explicit no. No history of a denial is maybe a better thing. I get the human component but I can separate that from policy. I have my own risk assessment on it and it’s that I couldn’t imagine ever making any material investment financial or community in a place like this. I’ve thought about doing the digital nomad thing in the past, and I don’t think anyone…
As with a lot of things this administration does, this is where the cruel part comes in. That would be the sensible thing to do, it's just a choice not to.
> I don’t think anyone would be surprised if some random South East Asian country did this same thing and nobody would bat an eye. It to be expected that other countries can have wavering policies, it’s when the US does it that people cry about the humanity of it.
Because those countries would typically do it with a warning period of some sort, the fallout won't be as much.
In general these countries typically don't do this because the legal immigration system is how they pick and choose who to allow in, as the US does. So typically this would be to their advantage.
Also, the US is the country that used to call themselves "leader of the free world and all that". So maybe they should hold themselves to high standards?
> Also, I don’t think you can challenge a blanket policy.
There isn't a policy here that has been changed. It's the executive branch stopping some function it was tasked with. We've seen in the past that they've tried such things many times for the courts to then come in and say that the law says they should do XYZ and so they're forced to resume their work. DOGE stopped a bunch of things that the courts later reinstated, including rehiring the people they fired. Thankfully the executive branch isn't completely unchecked, yet.
> Exactly why this should be less of a surprise to those that know how things work and that they may actually get locked out
So you would suggest that people cancel their lease, pack up their stuff, don't sign their kids up for school and all? Just on the off chance that this hits right when they're abroad? I think that's just arguing around the issue created here.
Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#895Earlier quoted context omitted.
when you treat immigrants like they were not people with lifes, you are just one step away from treating poor people as they were not people and then too treat all common people as they were not people. also it has been quite convenient explanation for adopting systems such as Flock and allowing all kinds of para-police actions which seems very similar to what happened in germany circla 1930-1934
> when you treat immigrants like they were not people with lifes, you are just one step away from treating poor people as they were not people and then too treat all common people as they were not people. "The way that a society treats its prisoners is one of the sharpest reflections of its character." - Nelson Mandela http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/1998/980625_dcshr...
Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#896Earlier 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…
> And when you decide it's no longer worth it, you might even have issues getting back in to get your stuff... Do they refuse tourist visas for someone who recently had an immigrant visa?
Someone applying for a tourist visa, who recently had an immigration renewal denied, who has no life to get back to in their country of origin (because they built a life in the US) but clearly has a life in the US (owns property in the US, has family in the US, has work ties -maybe even still has a job in the US); that applicant is an enhanced overstayer risk and this increases the chances of being denied a tourist visa.
Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#897Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#898Earlier 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
couple of notes — 1a. Illegal immigration has nothing to do with visa based, legal immigration. illegal immigration is the type of immigration people are upset about here in the UK. most people have no problem with legal migration. 1b. anyone claiming the UK’s legal migration is any sort of problem right now, or in the past, should probably not be listened to in any way shape or form for anything they have to say on…
If legal immigration means millions of new people every year and rapid demographic change, of course that will cause a political issue.
It would be very strange (basically unheard of in human history) if it didn't.
People I know who are non-white all report increased racism (mostly not aggressive but noticeable) since Covid, despite having English accents so clearly not being illegal immigrants.
That is caused by reckless immigration policy stoking resentment
Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#899Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
#900So 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…