US Immigration Policy Megathread

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Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

PT6A posted:

What's best for our society is eonomically productive immigrants, but also their support structures around them including extended family members.

If we're going to integrate people into our communities and into our society, it's going to work a gently caress of a lot better when they have a stable and comfortable family life, with support systems in place, rather than hoping a bunch of single people with strong connections to another country decide that they don't like their family anymore and want to become fully American.

That's not what they hope for... :ssh:

# ¿ Feb 12, 2018 03:20

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 17:27

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

They all died in the Senate, anyway. :smith:

# ¿ Feb 16, 2018 03:32

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Schumer is quite possibly the stupidest person to have set foot in the senate

We're stuck with him until 2022, but is there at least a good contender for Dem leader, or is that going to be his gig until he retires?

# ¿ Feb 16, 2018 15:04

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

exploded mummy posted:

The actual holding is that the 9th circuit erred in interpreting statutes and the issue needs to be reconsidered on the basis of if his constitutional rights were infringed.

https://twitter.com/LilySAxelrod/status/968633174703116295

# ¿ Feb 28, 2018 02:40

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

The thing is, the whole visa system isn�t about becoming citizens and it�s good to have simple temporary visas too and it�s less that the h1b system itself is bad and more that the whole system is so bad that a little temporary work visa program got overloaded into being a system people have to use as an immigration system and it�s bad at being that.

Like in a better system the people that wanted to move here would have a functioning system then the people that needed to work here for a year on a specific job then leave could have h-1bs to be a quick and simple thing. Like lots of countries you just fill out a form and pay a hundred bucks and you can come in and work some limited scope job then leave and that is a separate thing from the more complicated actual plan to live there system.

But you can't ignore the possibility that someone who wants to "just" work here might decide they also want to live here, either on the merits of quality of life, or because they got romantically involved with someone here.

But why even bother? If you have a system where you can just come here, pay a nominal fee, and become a permanent resident, why not just have that? Somebody comes here, becomes a permanent resident, works, and then if they want to leave they just leave and let their residency lapse.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2018 12:44

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

I mean, every time you take a weekend trip to canada you don't want to go through the whole rigamarole of becoming a canadian citizen, you WANT there to be a system for temporary entry that is separate from the immigration system. Once the guy falls in love and changes jobs there should be a new more immigration focused form he goes and fills out.

"Improving" the temporary visa system and keeping people in it isn't actually good for them, by design it's meant to be a lesser system for people that don't need full immigration rights. The problem isn't that that exists, since it should exist, the problem is that the greater system has been crippled so people have no choice but use the temporary entry system to be a permanent entry system with no path between the two. But even in a utopian open border society you'd still want the two tiers of the guy coming in for 9 months to set up a factory that doesn't have to deal with all the paperwork to sign up for all the long term systems that will never apply to him and the open immigration where you come in and sit down and they sign you right up for access to rights and services of a US citizen.

I'm just saying, once you've decided that committing to staying in the US is most of what you need for a permanent residency, a lot of the "temporary" stuff is entirely irrelevant. It's like when you go to Florida, you can go there for a week for vacation, or you can go for a summer job, or you can move there for longer. You only have more paperwork once you're there long enough that residency is an issue, and even then at no point will you be "deported" back to Michigan. At worst they'll say "hey, you've been here for more than 6 months, you need to pay state taxes and get a state driver's license to replace your out-of-state one".

# ¿ Mar 2, 2018 02:27

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

moving to a country is actually different from temporarily going to a country and it�s fine to have two systems since what each group wants and needs is different. The issue isn�t that temporary visas exist, the problem is people forced into them that should have had better options.

It�s like visiting a friend, stay for a week and you absolutely do not want to get written into the lease, plan to stay and being kept out of the lease harms you. Different systems for different situations. If you are moving here you want the rights and responsibility of being a citizen ASAP, if you are just here to set up a machine at the new factory and leave you want a simple system that never engages you in anything that doesn�t apply to you. Having two good systems and people free to use the right one for their situation and move between them as needed is ideal, not mashing everyone in some bad compromise.

Do you need a visa to visit your friend?

# ¿ Mar 2, 2018 13:10

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

In another country? sure, if it's a country that requires visas for visiting.

In the apartment analogy? The point of that analogy is that you gently caress someone over if you force someone to be put on the lease to stay the night but that you also gently caress someone over to be "kind" and let them stay for years and years and deny them the rights being on the lease would give. And you want someone to be able to stay short term just on light verbal permission but someone that really lives there wants to be on the lease day one. And the two systems are for people with different wants and needs and just mashing the entry visa system to be a bad immigration system or to mash the immigration system to be a bad visitor visa system are both bad and the solution is to actually fix the problems and have both, not make everything worse by making it impossible to immigrate here then force people into some eternal second class citizen state because they are in a program not made for people that are citizens.

But sometimes it might work out, you visit a friend and realize you want to live in that area - if it works with that friend (say they're looking for a roomate anyway), you can talk to the landlord about getting in on the lease; if you don't, then you find another apartment there. Your friend could ask you to leave his specific house and maybe will remove you by force if you insist, but you won't get deported back to Michigan or barred from that area.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2018 14:40

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

I mean, this metaphor is getting muddled up, but yes, when you are just visiting it's correct that your friend should be able to just say "get out" and you have to, once you have moved in fully you should have legal immunity and even standing to your friend.

Countries that aren't broken manage this, they have it so if you work short term you fill out a short form and your company submits a thing then you can work for the length of the contract, and it's not even part of the immigration system at all and it's only when you have intent to immigrate they actually collect the needed information and do the interviews and whatever.

Like at the very least even in super utopia when you show up at the airport you'd want two lines, one where they give you a SSN so you can get enrolled right in all the utopian social programs and one where the guy stamps your passport and waves you through and says not to worry about anything (and the company submits a one page tax form on you if you are working).

Why would you need two lines at the airport? Why not manage moving to an open-borders country the same way you manage moving from one state to another? Or from one EU state to another?

# ¿ Mar 2, 2018 15:01

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

I mean, why even have countries at all I guess.

In a world with countries though the answer is that a new factory is opening in wyoming and two men from germany are starting work there, one of them is a german engineer hired to set up a chemical mixer, he's gonna set it up, make sure it runs for 6 months then leave and never come back or think about it again and have a happy german life. the other guy was born in germany but moved to the US and got this cool new factory job and has a wife and kid now and votes in every election and has honk if you love america tattooed on his butt and is american and barely even remembers he used to be german where he will never return ever again. Both of those things are valid. A system for foreign workers who are foreign and want to stay foreign can and should exist along side a system of becoming american.

They aren't the same thing, and either person would be annoyed and frustrated to have to go through the other's process or system or have the status the other is assigned.

But there is no arduous process that you needlessly undergo under open borders. You just go in either way, and in one case you don't stay enough time to require all the registration to become a permanent resident, nor through whatever the step is to become a citizen (which I can see being required even with open borders, as it changes how the country is responsible for your conduct internationally). It's funny that you're putting it this way, by the way, because Americans are notorious for moving to, say, Germany and then isolating themselves in an enclave of other expats and staying "American" even though they were there for 6 years and married and have kids there.

I was born in California, and now have been in New York since 2010. The only process I had to undergo that was special to me making my home here was to register to vote here rather than where I was registered previously, and after a year of residency I qualified for cheaper tuition. I got my US license here, if I had had one from a different state I would also be required to change that to a local one or face penalties. On the other hand, I also came here for a visit in 2000, stayed at a hotel for a week or two, then left. I wasn't required to do any of the things I mentioned earlier, and I didn't want to, and because I wasn't staying here that long, I didn't have to. In neither case did I have to stand in a different line or get a special visa.

Now if you don't want open borders, that's a different thing, and we can talk about the various processes that would entail. But open borders obviate pretty much all the distinctions you're making, and all the paperwork they entail. If you do want open borders, you have two models you can start from: moving from one state to another in the US, or moving from one country to another in the EU. In neither case do you need to do anything different before you make your move. It's only as your stay becomes longer and you move the center of your life to the new place that paperwork comes up. Why not do it that way?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2018 03:13

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

You get that california and new york both have the same federal government, right? That the reason you don't need to do paperwork to move is that you are still in the same country and they still have all the paperwork you filled out over your life.

Like I can imagine a reciprocal agreement with the EU or something where we share databases to make relocation easy, but like, we aren't very near some one world government thing where information on everyone on earth is in just one big database any country can search. We will still need an immigration system even if we make some deals with particular countries we might sign a deal to have like england share citizen data so we can import it automatically, but we aren't making that deal with the government of Libya or something any time soon.

What are the things that are shared on the Federal level?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2018 04:15

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Are you asking me what the US government is?

I'm asking you what is it that you think that the federal government has about you that is relevant for allowing someone to move to your state. Aside from the very fact that you are a US citizen, of course, but we're trying to establish a contrast with open borders, so that aspect is not relevant.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2018 04:48

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Social security? Criminal record? Selective service registration? Passports? All the dozens of state issued things that are managed nationally to be nationally equivalent ? I don�t feel like I know what your asking.

Social security and passport are just information that says that you are a US citizen. Selective service registration doesn't mean anything, either. No state checks your criminal record before allowing you to move there.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2018 06:52

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Instant Sunrise posted:

Trump admin is ordering EOIR judges to meet a quota of 700 cases per year.

That�s 2.68 immigration cases per working day.

Which means that EOIR judges will be pressured to judge and move on, which means that any chance of getting a sympathetic hearing went out the window.

At least they might spend less time in the ICE concentration camps. :smith:

# ¿ Apr 3, 2018 02:21

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Apparently the State Dept is moving to revoke transgender citizens their passports.

https://twitter.com/MattBaume/status/1022934116000518145

# ¿ Jul 28, 2018 08:31

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

I'm a first generation American. My parents were here on temporary visas, had me, and then left with me when they were done studying/working. Moved here in 2010 to stay. I am only a citizen due to birthright, if they suddenly start making restrictions based on what status my parents have, that's going to hit me. I knew it was coming eventually, like, a long time ago (at least as early as the first Muslim Ban), but I guess they're really making the arguments, so he's going to loving do it. I already started taking my passport on even domestic flights just on the off chance some immigration rear end in a top hat at an airport decides my name sounds too foreign and they insist I should prove my citizenship.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 02:14

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

GreyjoyBastard posted:

that hasn't worked for donald trump so far (see, most notably, the muslim ban, but also family separations and a chunk of smaller / lesser known things)

Families are still separated and Muslim Ban 3: Return of the Muslim Ban did go through. Meanwhile the people affected were left in uncertainty and doubt at best, or in loving cages waiting for a resolution to come at worst.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 03:35

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Ashcans posted:

If they actually try to push this through, it would essentially have to be only a forward-facing program - meaning applying to people born in the US moving forward. Trying to implement it to revoke the citizenship of people who are already here/have claimed it would be a completely insane legal move that would be exceptionally hard for even political appointees to justify. You could probably get moderate support for a policy of denying the children of undocumented people citizenship from now on, but having the government actively stripping citizenship from people would be a much harder sell. Particularly because there almost certainly be people effectively left stateless and they would have to come up with someone to do with them. People like dreamers are already pretty sympathetic, having people who were literally legal citizens and have lived their entire lives in the US suddenly destated would be horrific. Not to mention the sheer difficulty of trying to identify who those people are and actually implementing any sort of revocation.

The side effect of this is that it would have considerably less impact while it was being challenged because everyone actually effected would either be eligible for a dependent status (if their parents have one) or would be an infant likely to be leaving the US with their undocumented parents if they're in the system and being processed in any way.

They are already stripping citizenship from people who have them.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 04:13

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Ashcans posted:

This is substantively different, because revocation of immigration benefits gained through fraud is an existing and long-held standard- they are taking it an applying it in a reckless and vindictive way, but it has always been the case that if you obtained a benefit through some manner of fraud, it could be revoked because it was improperly given. I am not defending that policy, but the legal bedrock it's leaning on is at least valid and recognized. The argument is, those certificates were fraudulently issued, and if that information had been known at the time, they never would have received the benefits they did.

This is different than if the certificates were legally, properly issued and recognized, and then at a later date someone comes to declare them invalid because of a post-fact revision in the laws. Trump isn't claiming that people received their certificates illegally or fraudulently, he's saying that he wants to change the law to something else that would prevent it. There isn't any claim that if some information had been known at the time, the certificates would not have been issued at all. I realize this is small comfort, but it is a significant difference.

It's also true that sometimes ICE or CBP do things that are completely illegal, because they can act faster and without out immediate review; like deporting citizens. But these actions don't hold up under review and are not a matter of policy. Trump's administration has already raised the amount and severity of this sort of action, but it's still substantively different than trying to actually make it policy legally.

In this case the "fraud" would be that I "fraudulently" claimed to be a citizen because they suddenly decide to "interpret" the Constitution differently.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 14:56

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

With respect to retroactive changes of status, does anyone else remember someone in the Obama administration suddenly losing their clearance/job because the city they were born is was transferred from the US to Canada? I could swear there was a story like that, but it's hard to filter through all the recent bullshit to find it on Google, and I don't remember either the person's or the city's name.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2018 13:55

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

karthun posted:

That happened to Donna Moss in the Bartlett Administration.

Wow, awkward.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2018 02:35

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

I don't think you're going to have any luck refuting it, because it's not really a factual statement, and it's purposefully vague. The intention is to justify a horrible practice, so that's the starting point, and no amount of arguing is going to get you anywhere.

It reminds me of that really outrageous scenario that I encountered either in the wild or in the Idiots on Social Media/Crazy email threads, where people were saying the law should require teenagers to report any abortions to their guardians because what if an evil rapist takes that poor innocent girl, impregnates her, and then forces her to abort thus removing the evidence of his crime! :gonk:

Does it make sense? Is it common? Is it common for the girls who might want to seek an abortion provider without alerting their legal guardians? No, but it's enough for them to somehow hold in their head the thoughts "I'm a good person" and "I support a clearly abhorrent policy".

It's a conservative fairy tale.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2018 02:01

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Dead Reckoning posted:

Also, while the US economy as a whole may benefit, illegal immigration is a net negative on the balance sheets of state and local governments: they do not pay enough in taxes to make up for the services they consume. This is localized to the communities where illegal immigrants live, while the profits from cheap immigrant labor do not necessarily remain in the community.

Even if we take this to be true, this means that certain policies aimed at hurting illegal immigrants would actually hurt those communities. Specifically, anything that would dissuade someone who might fear being deported or harassed by ICE from answering the Census would decrease the recorded amount of people in a community, in turn decreasing the community's proportional influence in state legislatures, the US House, and the Electoral College.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2019 06:12

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Ashcans posted:

Update to my complaints above; USCIS has still not released updated versions of the forms, which they are still planning to stop accepting if mailed after Monday. Only real progress is that AILA has filed a suite over it, but we'll see where that goes.

Current prediction among the lawyers I know is that USCIS will release the new forms on 10/15 so that there is technically no period where a valid form isn't available and makes the suite moot, but maximizes the disruption to filing and prep.

Also I had been so focused on the green card aspect, I previously missed that this also applies to the I-129 (used to apply for work visas) and I-539 (all other extensions/changes of status). This means that until it is straightened out, people cannot do things like switch jobs or file to extend their status at all. Those things tend to have more leeway on timeline so it won't be dire unless the situation drags on after next week, but it's still completely ridiculous. Imagine if it was April 10 and the IRS said it wouldn't accept the current version of forms for tax filing, but also hadn't issued any new ones.

It's almost as if they're trying to get more people to give up/not be in compliance and thus be eligible for deportation. :thunk:

# ¿ Oct 10, 2019 14:59

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Ashcans posted:

And the new forms are actually out, so hooray for there not being an actual dead period!

How much worse are they?

# ¿ Oct 10, 2019 20:01

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Ashcans posted:

Initial reactions are... not good. People are still going through it to make sure that we have the whole picture of what is required. The non-immigant stuff is an additional 2 pages of forms and is restricted to your current status (ie, if you are applying for an H-1B, they only care if you have previously used any public benefit while an H-1B in the last couple years). The biggest issue here is that all this information is about the beneficiary (worker) but the forms are signed by the petitioner (company). On the face of it that means you would have to disclose any use of public benefits you used to your employer and they have to review and attest to the information, which is incredibly awkward and invasive. But it's at least doable.

The new requirements for the green card are.... really something. There is an entire additional form to be completed (I-944) which is 18 pages long, and in addition to completing that everyone has to file the following documents:

- Household Income, including your most recent tax return and tax transcripts for members of your household.
- If your income is not high enough (125% of federal poverty), Enumeration of household assets that may be converted to cash in less than 12 months, with documentation of value (ie, bank statements, for any physical assets it requires proof of ownership and an appraisal of value) - this will not apply to a lot of people in general because the bar is low
- Enumeration of all liabilities and debts, including car loans, mortgages, and credit cards
- Copy of your credit report from one of the 3 agencies and your credit score
- Copy of your health insurance policy with terms and coverage, with a letter from the company or other evidence that you are enrolled and covered
- Enumeration of any public benefits you may have received, with documentation including your name, benefit, date you were authorized for the benefit, and dates of receipt.
- Copies of all your educational documents, degrees, transcripts from high school up, with evaluations if these are not US institutions
- List of any occupational skills, including certifications and licenses, apprenticeships or other documents.
- Proof of English or other language literacy(!) You must provide documentation of your skill in English or any other language, either through a literacy test or documentation that you have completed language courses for credit (ie, high school diploma and courses, college transcript showing language course for credit)

These are going to be required for everyone applying for permanent residence, regardless of the basis. So if your spouse is being sponsored based on their job in the US, as a dependent you still have to furnish all this information even if no one has every claimed benefits and you make plenty of money. The justification for this is that USCIS wants to review the 'totality' of the situation to evaluate whether someone might, some day, require public benefits. At this point we have no idea what happens if you just say 'I make $100,000 in pharmaceuticals, gently caress off I'm not giving you all this bullshit'.

Also hosed up - because some of these are 'household', you may have to include information for people in your household who aren't applying for any immigration benefit, or are US citizens.

My biggest concern is that they have created a huge amount of additional paperwork that people are going to have to fill out and complete, a lot of which is really intense and complicated. This is already bad, but last year USCIS amended its policies so that officers are no longer required to issue a Request for Evidence or Notice of Intent to Deny before denying an application - it was previously the case that they were almost always required to send one of these notices for any deficit in an application, and give the applicant the opportunity to respond and furnish additional documentation. So if you screwed up, you would get a notice and a chance to correct it before a decision was reached. Now, not so. An officer has much greater discretion to simply deny an application, and the more they request and the more they require the greater chance someone is going to forget a tax transcript for their household member or something.

There is a a lot going on here and we're still in the 'initial reaction' phase, but one of the partners emerged and said 'I don't know how we're actually going to file these applications any more'. It's just so much documentation to gather and coordinate, especially for families or more complicated households.

What a bunch of hosed up bullshit. I'm sorry you and your clients have to deal with that.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2019 00:04

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Ashcans posted:

My clients at least have attorneys to deal with this, and a company willing to pay for them to work their way through it. I mean, it's still going to be tough, but the people I work with are high-skilled, well-paid professionals. This kind of thing is absolutely devastating to other groups, especially people who are going it without representation.

I did get a good article in Vox about some of this - it's actually focused on the other change revolving around health insurance that has not been a priority because, again, my clients get health insurance that meets the requirements through their work. But the impact on other immigration streams is even worse than I expected.

Do the district court decisions about the public charge rule that came out today make any difference to this?

# ¿ Oct 12, 2019 00:01

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Does any of this sound credible?
https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1371921671750303747

People are rationalizing the media blackout with wanting to stop an unruly ICE from further undermining these new policies:
https://twitter.com/BuddJenn/status/1371965457704525828

But on the other hand, wouldn't you want to use the media to expose problems with an agency you're trying to put to heel? "They can manipulate the media", okay, but the President can send the head of DHS over there with media to take a look at things. What are they gonna do, deport him, like he's continuing to have single adults and families?

e:fb

# ¿ Mar 17, 2021 15:26

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Jaxyon posted:

My take is that Biden doesn't want journalists in there because it's Real Bad.

He may not have specifically created the conditions but he sure hasn't done enough to fix them, nor quickly enough. So pure cover-your-rear end politics.

We can debate whether he actually cares about it but he sure hasn't resolved it.

He could just be transparent about it taking a while to fix just like with COVID or pretty much anything else inherited from Trump. Show us what's wrong, tell us what he's doing to fix it, or what's stopping him from fixing it the way he thinks it should be fixed. Keeping press out is a bad look.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2021 21:36

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

A decade into an intense refugee crisis that several right-wing parties have ridden to prominence, with refugee camps set up in every European country, and occasionally set on fire by fascists, it's weird for anyone to suggest that European racism isn't being made clear enough because they don't get as many takers as the US.

And yeah, I know several people who have had to deal with immigration in Europe, Canada, and the US, and US is definitely the worst of the bunch. Post-Brexit UK is angling to contend, of course.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2021 21:18

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 17:27

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

I wouldn't call the "trial" you get in front of immigration "judges" (actually employees of the DOJ) "fair".

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 05:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Immigration Policy Megathread