I think part of the problem is that most Americans have no clue how the immigration system works. They see a large number of immigrants and hear horror stories about "chaos at the border" and "open border" and assume it's easy to immigrate. Even if you know someone who immigrated, you probably only know that route. Even though I'm a nationalized citizen myself, I can only tell you about the exact route that applied to my specific circumstances and beyond that mostly just know that it's extremely complicated and burdensome.
My wife is an immigrant and there were so many times when I’d talk about something related to her not being a citizen and the other person would say, but you’re married, doesn’t she get citizenship from that? They just thought it was automatic. People have no clue.
Or they do have a clue, actually want the cruelty, and assume that somehow, some nebulous "good ones" will be exempt from the cruelty. I was at a gathering and someone's garbage uncle was on one of those MAGA-rants about immigration and how we need to kick foreigners out of the country and how they don't deserve to be here and so on. I chimed in that my wife is an immigrant and you're telling me that my family should be broken up and my kid's mother should be taken away from her. The guy got all red faced and bashful and muttered something about how he's not really talking about my family in particular but all the bad ones out there who really need to go, blah blah blah. The usual MAGA-coward trash.
A lot of America has this world view that there's a hierarchy, and the people they know and like are above the people they don't know and don't like. One group gets the benefit of the doubt and the other group gets rules and cruelty.
Yes, agreed. I came on a fiance visa, then work authorization, then green card, then naturalization. Spouse (the OG US citizen) thought we just needed to get married in the US..
The number of times I've heard "just wait your turn in line like my grandparents" from people is infuriating. There is no line! We have a series of lotteries, and even these are straight up forbidden for people from a bunch of countries. Failing the lottery one year does not get you any close to immigrating.
I think part of the problem is that most Americans have no clue how the immigration system works. They see a large number of immigrants and hear horror stories about "chaos at the border" and "open border" and assume it's easy to immigrate. Even if you know someone who immigrated, you probably only know that route. Even though I'm a nationalized citizen myself, I can only tell you about the exact route that applied to my specific circumstances and beyond that mostly just know that it's extremely complicated and burdensome.
My wife is an immigrant and there were so many times when I’d talk about something related to her not being a citizen and the other person would say, but you’re married, doesn’t she get citizenship from that? They just thought it was automatic. People have no clue.
Or they do have a clue, actually want the cruelty, and assume that somehow, some nebulous "good ones" will be exempt from the cruelty. I was at a gathering and someone's garbage uncle was on one of those MAGA-rants about immigration and how we need to kick foreigners out of the country and how they don't deserve to be here and so on. I chimed in that my wife is an immigrant and you're telling me that my family should be broken up and my kid's mother should be taken away from her. The guy got all red faced and bashful and muttered something about how he's not really talking about my family in particular but all the bad ones out there who really need to go, blah blah blah. The usual MAGA-coward trash.
A lot of America has this world view that there's a hierarchy, and the people they know and like are above the people they don't know and don't like. One group gets the benefit of the doubt and the other group gets rules and cruelty.
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Yes, agreed. I came on a fiance visa, then work authorization, then green card, then naturalization. Spouse (the OG US citizen) thought we just needed to get married in the US..
The number of times I've heard "just wait your turn in line like my grandparents" from people is infuriating. There is no line! We have a series of lotteries, and even these are straight up forbidden for people from a bunch of countries. Failing the lottery one year does not get you any close to immigrating.
We don't even have to imagine. Many in this very comment section support this.