Comment by hodgehog11
2 days ago
How many "mistakes" are going to be made in this process, I wonder? A colleague of mine had his student's visa status suddenly revoked a few months ago. Fortunately, the student's lawyers successfully argued in court that there were no grounds for revocation. It still isn't clear why any of it happened.
This isn't discussed enough. One argument I've heard is that "this only applies to people who break the law".
One thing to consider is how easy is to make minor mistakes that technically count as an infraction. When acting in good faith, the administration can acknowledge this and promptly fix it, as it happened to me during my immigration process.
Then there are random mistakes out of your control. For example, when I first moved to the US and tried to get insurance for my car, I received extremely high quotes from the insurer. When I inquired why, they replied that my file showed several traffic infractions years ago in a different state. Simply clarifying that they'd mistaken me for another person was enough to fix it. Imagine if instead they deported me to a prison in El Salvador without a chance to defend myself.
And this is not talking shadier practices, such as changing the rules so that certain things suddenly become offenses, or simply fabricating evidence against someone.
Is Freedom of Speech only meant for US citizens?
No, next they'll be reviewing citizenships too in order to make sure you haven't said anything mean about Trump or Vance online. Oh sorry, to make sure you haven't said anything that goes against the fundamental values of the United States.
They better be careful, saying something true online is less work than the renunciation process to demand the freedoms everyone else is born with.
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Ostracism was core of Athenian democracy, and yes it was politicized often.
No democracy for enemies of democracy.
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> As an US citizen, do you really want to fight for the "rights" of muslim students to chant "from the river to the sea" while burning american flags on campuses?
Vehemently, yes.
I will fight with everything available for the right of anyone to say anything critical about anyone else. Including burning the American flag, the Israeli flag, or the Palestinian flag.
Free speech is free speech. Get out of here with this authoritarian take.
“Break a few eggs”. This is digusting rhetoric.
Horrifying how illiberal vast swathes of the US and also parts of HN have become in a very short few years.
Putting aside the dislike of other cultures, you're making several assumptions here. This student was of Asian descent, and was selected for their talents. The student never committed any crime or misdemeanor, was never fined, never spoke out of turn or rallied for any cause, and had no government connections. It's possible a name was mixed up, which isn't surprising as funding is being channeled from legal immigration offices to deportations. He's one of several I've heard about.
Believe it or not, the US enjoys a special status as a prominent place to study and contribute knowledge. I'm talking about students doing fundamental, valuable, possibly even patentable research. The best talent flows through here, and domestic students get to benefit from that. Because of these "mistakes", it is already the case that good talent is choosing not to come to the US. Certain other nations will benefit instead.
If you want a US for existing US citizens alone (immigration "the right way" is rapidly deteriorating), then that is what is happening. One way or another, we'll witness what the US becomes.
Are you "an" US citizen?
Your argument basically calls for ending Blackstone's ratio in the US courts and instead adopting Dwight Schrute's ratio of ” Better a thousand men are locked up than one guilty man roam free" because of your fear of immigrants having differing opinions than you.
Plenty of other responses, but I just wanted to say that your conspiracy theory about a politician marrying her brother for a visa is a complete lie. This article traces the origin of the theory, outlines who has spread it (not surprising), and generally debunks the issue: https://www.yahoo.com/news/everything-know-persistent-unprov...
I felt this important to call out because using specific examples as a caricature illustrating a purported more general point is a common discursive tactic used to dehumanize larger groups of people. "Look at what this member of group did, aren't they all barbarians?"
Since I assume your ideology is more individualistic, maybe try viewing people as individuals instead of throwing an entire group of people together and instituting collective blame for purported wrongs.
1) I probably know very little about the rules & laws of your country, so it's fair that you clearly don't know much about America's Constitution/Bill of Rights. One of several violations of the constitution you're espousing, trashing Freedom of Speech is trashing an inalienable right in the US, arguably the MOST important. So yes, I want people incl. visa holders talking smack about the US and burning flags and perhaps most importantly not fearing losing citizenship for criticizing a foreign government. Esp. if it's a foreign power which is likely supplying a list of the visas that are to be revoked. Flag-burnings and criticism of the US govt are the chirping birdies in the mineshaft of freedom. You and other non-Americans think that they are experts in US governance from watching the TV. It's likely that you know more about it than the average US citizen knows about their (your) country's laws, but I'd suggest doing some more research. Or y'know just stick to expressing opinions about your country's govt, if they allow that.
2) Good to hear that my life (a born and bred 9th generation US citizen) and the lives of many others can be torn asunder as a rounding error. My community and myself have built their lives around people who are in the US on a variety of long-term visas that were guaranteed until oh say 213 days ago.
3) Unless your side can get the big dub (100 Year Reich), the pendulum swings both ways, baby. Probably going to be a while because there's no left-wing party in the US, but sooner or later this pain will be revisited upon your American counterparts tenfold. I don't like this, to be clear. I want that pendulum resting right in the middle.
4, I guess? I don't know anything about the Somali guy but sounds like you're admitting you don't either. You could start your research there but like many things foreign conservative critics of America point out, it doesn't sound particularly germane to national American politics.
Sounds like you’re terrified of immigrants for lack of human understanding. Like a child. Here’s the thing - this whole experiment was built on stolen land with slave labor and there can never be immigration “justice” on stolen land. What problem is being solved by making “a few mistakes” because that’s what you have to do in such situations? Libertarian conservatives like yourself have created a service based economy where labor can’t afford to live where the work is making the economy inherently dependent on immigrants of any stripe. But like so many other things understood by people who think like 8 year olds we will have to learn the hard way that, for example, scaring away all the illegal Mexicans will result in billions in food losses and price increases on everything, but at least we got some bad immigrants, right?
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