Comment by wat10000
8 hours ago
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.
I have a conservative family friend that would always speak his mind at social gatherings about immigration Well he ended up meeting a woman who was an illegal immigrant and they wanted to get married. Luckily she only overstayed a student visa and didn't enter unlawfully but it still took several years for her to eventually gain naturalization. Now all he does is complain about how difficult it is for immigrants ("the good ones") to come to America. I've spoken to him recently and he's now concerned about her losing her naturalization. He's pretty much one foot out the door for moving to her home country just to avoid the prospect.
Yup. It's always "hey, rules are rules" until it personally affects them, and then suddenly it's not fair.
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..