Comment by fredrb
2 days ago
This news has to be read alongside the immigration visa emission pause for 75 countries by DOS[1].
Since USCIS is blocking Adjustment of Status, and the Department of State is blocking green card emission for citizens of 75 countries, this means that if you are from the following countries you are effectively banned from getting a Green Card:
Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
[1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/i...
I'm from one of the countries on the list. Not only is there no way to legally immigrate to the US anymore, but just visiting US once requires me to give an interest-free loan of up to $15k to the US government. Yeah, no, thank you.
I never considered illegal immigration, nor will I ever - I value predictable outcomes.
But looking at these new rules, I can't help but think that it really punishes people who want to play by the rules and sets the price for ones that don't to approximately $15k.
My country is not in the list (Mexico, not that we need to... Americans hate us), but I just cannot comprehend why people would go through all the pain for the immigration process in the US.
Actually, it kind of make sense why only the most desperate try to get into the US , people who have something to lose are naturally repelled by the bureaucracy.
The average American, at least in my state (Washington), does not hate Mexicans. The people running the federal government seem to, however.
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Yeah, I'm brown. I'm not even going to visit the US while the turd reich is in power. I had always wanted to visit the Smithsonian.
>Americans hate us
I don't mean to minimize any negative experiences you've had. But as a lifelong American, I've never heard anyone make a negative comment about Mexicans. Even in online spaces like X where there is a lot of racism, it's usually not directed at Mexicans.
If you look at Trump's famous comment about Mexicans in his speech from 2015, he actually points to Mexicans in the audience and refers to them as Mexico's best people. The media cut that part out, of course. (I'm not a Trump supporter.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apjNfkysjbM#t=3m25s
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I've always thought I'd end up in the US at some point, but as someone who prefers to make things rather than spend years at some faceless megacorp (writing up cover sheets for TPS reports), it never seemed hugely viable, even starting out from a first-world country.
Now it doesn't seem viable at all. Meanwhile, anyone who shows up illegally is merely "undocumented", and half of US politics consists in coddling them (the other half in enforcing existing immigration laws capriciously). Even for someone who's quite pro-immigration like myself, that's just bizarre. There's no way this is a functional system.
Most of the people in my circles don't want to go to the US anymore. I suppose I'll ride it out and see what comes next (after 2028 at minimum). If I ever make it, I'll have spent many of my productive years outside the US, since I wasn't welcome during those. Weird system.
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India has the largest backlog of applicants, this will help Indians (and to some extent Chinese) get GCs quickly.
How so?
Immigrating to the usa is not a right. It is granted.
I don't see the problem, and I'm not even American or Trump supporter. It just makes sense.
That's what I just commented as well, I'm not from the US but that seems so obvious, in which country it's a "right" of some sort? It should definitely be hard, maybe even very hard to emigrate there, to show strong commitment and intent and most especially you should have something special to bring to the table knowing you didn't abed by the same rules growing-up (not the same level of education necessarily and so-on) which is a bit unfair for local citizens.
I don't really understand the position of many comments which seems to be somehow "We should be welcoming the world" but like why? Why wouldn't you prioritize your citizens first especially seeing the job loss lately?
>Immigrating to the usa is not a right. It is granted.
It's not about rights, it's about keeping your promises.
"Join the army and get a green card" -- oops did we say that?
But then we have only been fair weather friends (see how we treated pretty much any one who put their lives on the line) so I'm not very surprised at what's happening.
I don't know, some Americans are earning a ton of money in their 30s post-millitary and are retired for life and can even live abroad and keep getting their pension, do you have statistics to back it up?
We carry the seeds of our own destruction they say. So this is a good thing. America should take care of their own citizens first. It is a good thing. Also there is a school of thought that says prosperity of any country is primarily a function of the kind of citizens they have, and how the country is able to leverage the intellect of its citizens. An important thesis of recent discussions of American prosperity is that a lot of it has been built up by the immigration of enterprising people into the US. So it can be argued that American prosperity is at the cost of prosperity of the rest of the world. And most of these things have compounding effects. The more intellect gathers in the US, that country can leap frog into the future at a far more vigorous pace than other could if most of these people were left inside their own countries. But in any case, these current events give us an opportunity into testing the thesis of American prosperity. Either balance will be brought to how global prosperity is distributed, or finally a country will be able to take care of its own citizens first. Either way this is all a great thing.