Comment by GeneralMayhem
4 hours ago
First, that's not what this is talking about. "Leave to renew" becoming "leave, and you will not be renewed" on a whim is insane, self-destructive cruelty.
But also, it's only been "the policy" since 2004. That's technically "decades", but only just, and it was also introduced for idiotic pretextual reasons. The ostensible reason is that domestic State Department offices don't have the equipment to capture biometric data. Seriously. That's the argument. The law doesn't say "you have to leave to renew", it says "you have to get fingerprinted to renew", and conveniently there's nowhere in the United States that can do that, despite every police station in the country having that equipment at this point.
> "Leave to renew" becoming "leave, permanently" is insane, self-destructive cruelty.
Which visas legally come with renewal guarantees? Isn't that called permanent residency?
They come with renewal expectations, assuming the situation hasn't changed. Reserving the right to change the rules unilaterally doesn't make you not an asshole if you actually exercise that right. And government only functions if it's predictable - if it's a random-number generator (outside of processes that are explicitly lotteries), what is anyone supposed to do? Why would anyone engage with it?
In most states, employers have broad rights to fire employees at will, including no reason or "he wore the wrong color shirt". That doesn't mean that if you have a dickhead manager who fires you because he doesn't like the color of your shirt isn't a dickhead, and if you defended that manager I would similarly consider you unfit to participate in civil society.
> They come with renewal expectations, assuming the situation hasn't changed
What? Where is this expectation enumerated? An expiration date is in fact defined. I'm not sure where some legal expectation of guaranteed renewal could arise from.
> unilaterally doesn't make you not an asshole if you actually exercise that right.
"Asshole" is a matter of opinion, and rights aren't actually rights if you aren't ever able to exercise them.
> if you defended that manager I would similarly consider you unfit to participate in civil society.
Why have laws, borders at all by these standards? What's the point?
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