I don’t know if you’re US-based or not but in the US, government work has the stigma of attracting the bottom of the barrel. It is nearly impossible to get fired for performance reasons. Combine low pay and high job security, and you’re not going to attract the most innovative, motivated, or competent people.
Early in my career, I was warned that if I took a job with the state of California, I’d be stuck there for my whole career. I’d be unhirable in the private sector.
Not so much after DOGE fired entire departments for dubious reasons.
I don't know why anyone would work for the federal government now - pay still sucks, and job security has been demonstrated to no longer be guaranteed.
From 2014 until it was, in effect, obliterated by DOGE actions this year there was the "United States Digital Service", a crack team of programmers, a sort of skunkworks who worked to improve U.S. government websites of departments that wanted the help. So it seems to be partisan to want good websites, but there are countless people involved in politics with many agendas.
My wife, a green card holder, applied for citizenship in April and was naturalized yesterday (from an EU country). Not that I don’t believe it could be true but where are you getting the 3-4yr timeline? If that’s accurate she/we may have dodged a massive bullet.
Spouses always get better treatment as there is
a voter who would be mad otherwise. They check for scam marriages but otherwise hurry the process through - if they don't a voter contacts their congressman to push the process. That voter will also likely know a lot of other voters and thus influence the next election while someone not married is unlikely to have that local network to use.
3-4 year timeline makes more sense for Greencard application to Naturalization, that was 4.5 years for my wife. But its not 3-4 years N400 to Naturalization, no way.
Timelines for USCIS depends heavily on where you are, since some offices just have more people to go through than others. So I have talked to people that one step might be 4 months for them and a year for another person.
Indeed, the real problem is a pervasive attitude that the USA is the best country in the world by far and everyone is clamoring to get in. We don't really care if foreigners come or not, and they'll come anyway, so why bother making the process friendly?
It's not new. Rabid ideologues on the other side blamed Obama for things that pre-dated his administration, as well. Some people just can't be rational when it comes to politicians they don't like.
I don't see how blaming the pre-existing website on the current administration makes sense.
Many federal web sites were very quickly altered or replaced by the new administration.
This is common. Work begins on some web sites immediately after the election. For example, when a new president is sworn in, the White House web site flips immediately.
More to the parent poster's point, it has been widely reported in the legitimate media repeatedly that many federal web sites have been replaced or significantly altered by the current administration. There's an entire pseudo-department for it that also makes headlines for its greater transgressions.
Add to that severe and sudden budget and staffing cuts, and like all government functions -- you get what you pay for.
People really really dislike when you point out that the democrats are also broadly anti immigration in practice. They forget Biden deported 4.6 million people vs Trump's 2 million.
Elon Musk set out hundreds of very young and arrogant programmers to modify code throughout the federal government including to change decades old code used by Treasury, Social Security, etc. While this went on he would tweet idiotic statements like "Dead people are getting social security!" (because he didn't understand the deceased have beneficiaries) and "we're giving social security to people who are 150 years old!" (because he and we presume some subset of his young programmers didn't understand date fields being set to the epoch indicated the date of birth/death had not been recorded).
All this is to say we probably shouldn't assume any current US government website, especially ones that have to do with immigration, hasn't been completely modified by this team.
You don't have a good enough imagination for how stupid our current leadership really is.
I guarantee the visa system was created before the current administration.
I don’t know if you’re US-based or not but in the US, government work has the stigma of attracting the bottom of the barrel. It is nearly impossible to get fired for performance reasons. Combine low pay and high job security, and you’re not going to attract the most innovative, motivated, or competent people.
Early in my career, I was warned that if I took a job with the state of California, I’d be stuck there for my whole career. I’d be unhirable in the private sector.
> high job security
Not so much after DOGE fired entire departments for dubious reasons.
I don't know why anyone would work for the federal government now - pay still sucks, and job security has been demonstrated to no longer be guaranteed.
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During 8 years of Obama and 4 years of Biden, none of this was different or better. Perhaps this isn't a partisan political issue.
From 2014 until it was, in effect, obliterated by DOGE actions this year there was the "United States Digital Service", a crack team of programmers, a sort of skunkworks who worked to improve U.S. government websites of departments that wanted the help. So it seems to be partisan to want good websites, but there are countless people involved in politics with many agendas.
Hard to imagine that the US wouldn't be as paranoid, self-sabotaging, and bureaucratically inept as possible? </sarcasm>
As a US citizen, I feel it’s opposite. Hard to imagine they’d want anything related to visas to be easy.
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My wife, a green card holder, applied for citizenship in April and was naturalized yesterday (from an EU country). Not that I don’t believe it could be true but where are you getting the 3-4yr timeline? If that’s accurate she/we may have dodged a massive bullet.
Spouses always get better treatment as there is a voter who would be mad otherwise. They check for scam marriages but otherwise hurry the process through - if they don't a voter contacts their congressman to push the process. That voter will also likely know a lot of other voters and thus influence the next election while someone not married is unlikely to have that local network to use.
5 replies →
3-4 year timeline makes more sense for Greencard application to Naturalization, that was 4.5 years for my wife. But its not 3-4 years N400 to Naturalization, no way.
Timelines for USCIS depends heavily on where you are, since some offices just have more people to go through than others. So I have talked to people that one step might be 4 months for them and a year for another person.
I don't see how blaming the pre-existing website on the current administration makes sense.
Indeed, the real problem is a pervasive attitude that the USA is the best country in the world by far and everyone is clamoring to get in. We don't really care if foreigners come or not, and they'll come anyway, so why bother making the process friendly?
It's not new. Rabid ideologues on the other side blamed Obama for things that pre-dated his administration, as well. Some people just can't be rational when it comes to politicians they don't like.
I don't see how blaming the pre-existing website on the current administration makes sense.
Many federal web sites were very quickly altered or replaced by the new administration.
This is common. Work begins on some web sites immediately after the election. For example, when a new president is sworn in, the White House web site flips immediately.
More to the parent poster's point, it has been widely reported in the legitimate media repeatedly that many federal web sites have been replaced or significantly altered by the current administration. There's an entire pseudo-department for it that also makes headlines for its greater transgressions.
Add to that severe and sudden budget and staffing cuts, and like all government functions -- you get what you pay for.
1 reply →
People really really dislike when you point out that the democrats are also broadly anti immigration in practice. They forget Biden deported 4.6 million people vs Trump's 2 million.
2 replies →
Elon Musk set out hundreds of very young and arrogant programmers to modify code throughout the federal government including to change decades old code used by Treasury, Social Security, etc. While this went on he would tweet idiotic statements like "Dead people are getting social security!" (because he didn't understand the deceased have beneficiaries) and "we're giving social security to people who are 150 years old!" (because he and we presume some subset of his young programmers didn't understand date fields being set to the epoch indicated the date of birth/death had not been recorded).
All this is to say we probably shouldn't assume any current US government website, especially ones that have to do with immigration, hasn't been completely modified by this team.
4 replies →