Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/us/politics/green-card-changes-trump.html

by tlhunter • 2 months ago

1129 1571 2 months ago

nytimes.com

https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/us-citizenship-...

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-... [pdf]

https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/2057817233200418837, https://xcancel.com/DHSgov/status/2057817233200418837

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrpz4l1klgo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/05/22/new-ru..., https://archive.is/yi2cX

bokchoi2• 2 months ago

Got this email (!) from an immigration attorney friend that basically says green card applicants need to leave the country in order to file.

    From: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services uscis@messages.dhs.gov Sent: Friday, May 22, 2026 6:59 AM Subject: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Will Grant ‘Adjustment of Status’ Only in Extraordinary Circumstances

    WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced a new policy memo reiterating the fact that, consistent with long-standing immigration law and immigration court decisions, aliens seeking adjustment of status must do so through consular processing via the Department of State outside of the country. Officers are directed to consider all relevant factors and information on a case-by-case basis when determining whether an alien warrants this extraordinary form of relief.

    “We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly. From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances. This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes. When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency,” said USCIS Spokesman Zach Kahler.

    “Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process. Following the law allows the majority of these cases to be handled by the State Department at U.S. consular offices abroad and frees up limited USCIS resources to focus on processing other cases that fall under its purview, including visas for victims of violent crime and human trafficking, naturalization applications, and other priorities. The law was written this way for a reason, and despite the fact that it has been ignored for years, following it will help make our system fairer and more efficient.”

SilverElfin3• 2 months ago

That’s really unfair, sorry this is happening to you.

Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process.

Do they consider H1B workers to be “temporary” for this purpose? It seems broken and cruel to force them to go back to apply when they’re here legally and could easily just apply here (assuming their visa is still valid).

bokchoi2• 2 months ago

Yes, it looks like H1B workers will have to do this as well. It sounds like it applies to "dreamers" as well even if they have never visited their "home" country before.

ericjmorey3• 2 months ago

Xenophobia driven policies are intentionally cruel.

s03nk3• 2 months ago

TBH I think that is fair.

cloche3• 2 months ago

Have you been through an immigration process?

archagon• 2 months ago

Who are you?

SilverElfin3• 2 months ago

That’s crazy. If someone is already living and working here, and is legally here (like on a work visa), why shouldn’t they be allowed to apply here? Why require them to lose time and money by traveling somewhere else?

toomuchtodo• 2 months ago

It is to disincentive those on a temporary visa to apply for permanent residency, without eliminating the visa path entirely. What your mental model is optimizing for (easy, efficient) is different than what they are optimizing for (hard, inefficient).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-22/trump-to-...

The policy change could impact hundreds of thousands of people a year and potentially reduce legal immigration further amid a sweeping government crackdown, according to immigration-law experts. President Donald Trump’s administration has introduced a series of restrictions affecting everyone from asylum seekers to students and highly skilled workers.
The new rules generally apply to any foreigner who came to the US on a temporary non-immigrant visa, including students, employees on H-1B or L visas and visitors. The US awards about 1 million green cards a year, though roughly half of those are for foreign relatives being sponsored by an American citizen. Those applications are generally already processed outside of the US.

(POSIWID [The Purpose of a System Is What It Does])

panny• 2 months ago

That's how it works for legal immigrants, yes.

kylehotchkiss6• 2 months ago

This seems like it could have some ramifications.

Let's saying you're dating somebody on a work visa, if you wanted to marry and sponsor their residency, would they now need to return to their home country to wait for the embassy?

The embassies reviewing applications put a LOT of weight on time spent in person, BUT they also require the US applicant to have domicile. So effectively, the only way to proceed is a long-distance marriage that could take years to process a visa for (remember: move abroad, and you could lose the domicile required to sponsor the green card).

So with our shrinking birthrates, our regularly documented & growing "will never marry" population, immigration effectively cut off, what does the future of this country even look like anymore?

cybercatgurrl3• 2 months ago

yea, i’d say this is rather ridiculous. it places an undue financial burden on someone to uproot their life after they’ve already made community connections just to stay permanently. this seems very much obviously designed to discourage and halt immigration by making it more painful

ericjmorey3• 2 months ago

I think you articulated the administration's intentions well.

enraged_camel2• 2 months ago

This is an absurd change that will have catastrophic consequences in both academia and the private sector. Even if you're a US citizen who is "America First", you will feel the impact, and it will be net negative.

commandlinefan• 2 months ago

I doubt it. We've seen time and time again that what the USCIS considers "extraordinary" are actually very, very ordinary circumstances. Anybody with proof of employment will qualify.

arrowleaf7• 2 months ago

Only after losing in court, time and time again. This will take expensive lawyers and a lot of heartache to get any clear answers.

freediddy6• 2 months ago

You don't know what you're talking about. This is the very last stage of the GC process. Before everyone had the choice to do AOS or CP. I personally chose CP. Now there's only the choice of CP. But nothing else has changed. It means you need to fly back to your home country for a few days for the interview and then you get your GC on the spot.

lelandbatey3• 2 months ago

This is only true in the cases for folks on longer visas. If you meet the love of your life and marry them on a tourist visa, you'll be forced to leave your spouse and head back to your country of origin for probably about a year while you wait for USCIS to process I-130.

enraged_camel2• 2 months ago

> You don't know what you're talking about.

I can assure you I am intimately familiar with the entire process.

> It means you need to fly back to your home country for a few days for the interview and then you get your GC on the spot.

Not necessarily. That's the best and most optimistic scenario. I know of people who have waited weeks, even months. It depends on a lot of factors. And now there will be a lot more people booking interviews at every consulate so expect wait times to skyrocket.

airstrike27• 2 months ago

The US consulate is currently not hearing cases in 75 countries.

bradreaves22• 2 months ago

Is this intended to ensure that students and H1-Bs will not have a path to residency unless they disrupt their lives here?

hgoel2• 2 months ago

Isn't this about applying for a green card directly from a non-immigrant visa, e.g. student? H1-B is an immigrant visa.

bradreaves22• 2 months ago

H1-B is defined as “non-immigrant.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa

sokoloff3• 2 months ago

H1-B is an immigrant visa.

I don't believe that's correct. H1-B is formally a temporary, nonimmigrant work visa/status which permits "dual-intent" (meaning a holder can be openly seeking permanent residence when applying for [or when on] such a visa without that dual intent being immigration fraud).

outside1234• 2 months ago

It is intended to disrupt immigration full stop and especially brown immigration.

y-curious• 2 months ago

I notice India being omitted from the list of affected countries though. That’s the major contributor to “brown immigration”

gbraad• 2 months ago

This is how it works for legal immigrants for many countries.

throw-the-towel10• 2 months ago

Can you name some of these countries please?

declan_roberts9• 2 months ago

Almost every single European country requires you to leave the country in order to apply for a new visa status, which is what is happening here in the USA.

In SE Asia there's a whole cottage travel industry taking business and tourist visa holders on a quick trip out of the border in order to return to renew their visa (of course you can also pay for this service under the table).

mothballed4• 2 months ago

This appears to close off the method by which all the "dreamers" I'm familiar with got GC/citizenship, which is by marriage.

boredatoms• 2 months ago

Is this just for when applying for I-485 that you have to make a quick entry/exit trip,

or is it effective all the way back at I-140 time where people would then need to spend years away from the US?

airstrike27• 2 months ago

Quick exit/entry trip unless you're from one of 75 countries in which the US consulate is literally not hearing cases.

garbawarb3• 2 months ago

Doesn't it take a few months to process a green card application?

0xy11• 2 months ago

This is to close the common loophole where people would fly into the US on an ESTA, B-2 or another temporary visa "without immigration intent" (fraud) and then marry a US Citizen and adjust status.

On visa forums this method is commonly discussed. By entering on an ESTA/B-2 with the intent to marry a US Citizen, they're committing immigration fraud, inherently. You would be denied entry at the border if you admitted to your plans.

The correct way to do this is to file a K-1 visa outside the United States, or marry outside then file a IR-1/CR-1.

rafram• 2 months ago

Maybe it does close that loophole, but the effects are much, much broader and more harmful: https://www.cato.org/blog/dhs-quits-granting-green-cards-alm...

0xy11• 2 months ago

The article you linked is patently incorrect. It claims "Now, every legal immigrant must leave the country—that is, self-deport—even if they are qualified for a green card and even if leaving would disqualify them.". This is false according to USCIS' memo.

It very specifically lays out common exceptions to this, including for legal immigrants on dual intent visas and those whose only pathway to permanent residency is via adjustment of status.

It also wildly misinterprets the news to claim that the K-1 visa has been effectively ended, even though the memo specifically excludes it.

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...

freediddy6• 2 months ago

This article is intentionally misleading.

Department of Homeland Security is no longer processing Green Cards via AOS. That included UCSIS.

However the STATE DEPARTMENT is still processing it via Consular Processing.

The article makes it sounds like the US is no longer offering Green Cards which is false.

beej713• 2 months ago

Given our population problems, I can't think of a single rational reason why we'd want to stop this from happening.

arrowleaf7• 2 months ago

Our population problems, in that we need immigration to avoid population decline? Our total fertility rate is 1.6.

BrokenCogs5• 2 months ago

No, this also affects anyone under employment based immigration petitions unrelated to marrying a US citizen.

0xy11• 2 months ago

Only if they do not maintain lawful status, which is what the law says anyway. In fact, it specifically mentions this: "USCIS acknowledges exceptions including nonimmigrant categories with dual intent and immigrant categories where only adjustment of status provides a pathway to permanent resident status"

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...

nrmitchi4• 2 months ago

It is absolutely NOT specific to the very limited situation you are describing, which is already a big red flag when processing applications.

0xy11• 2 months ago

"USCIS acknowledges exceptions including nonimmigrant categories with dual intent and immigrant categories where only adjustment of status provides a pathway to permanent resident status"

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...

rorylawless• 2 months ago

Slight correction here. It is fraud if you intend to stay after getting married. Nobody cares if you get married on a tourist visa and leave the country after.

axpy9064• 2 months ago

Holy shit why is this comment buried?! This is exactly the purpose.

wesleyd• 2 months ago

When I renewed my H1B visa (I think after three years), I had to leave the US to do it. I couldn't renew it from inside. The permission to work got renewed just fine - I could just keep on working for another three years - but if I left after the first visa expired, and wanted to come back, I would need a new _visa_ (thing stuck into my passport) to come back, and I could only apply for that while outside the country.

I read that it used to not be like this, that it used to be possible to renew the _visa_ itself from inside the US, but that got changed before my time. I can only imagine that the reason for that was that non-citizens inside the US are entitled to due process, but non-citizens outside the US are not. And denying a visa to somebody outside the US is therefore a lot easier than denying it to somebody inside the US, and essentially cannot be appealed.

When I applied for AOS form H1B to Green Card, I didn't have to leave the US. With this change, I would have had to. The only reason I can think for this change is that denials of AOS would now become unappealable. I hate this.

nutjob2• 2 months ago

This is just Trump trying to torture immigrants likely due to the psychopath Steven Miller.

In general the law applies equally to everyone associated with the US in any respect so you get due process (in theory) regardless. Specific laws may apply to different classes of people though (see 'enemy combatants').

ivewonyoung• 2 months ago

I read that it used to not be like this, that it used to be possible to renew the _visa_ itself from inside the US, but that got changed before my time. I can only imagine that the reason for that was that non-citizens inside the US are entitled to due process, but non-citizens outside the US are not. And denying a visa to somebody outside the US is therefore a lot easier than denying it to somebody inside the US, and essentially cannot be appealed

No, after 9/11 they passed a rule to always collect biometrics before issuing visas and validating them at border entry. The DoS facilities in the US did not have fingerprinting facilities but the consulates and embassies did, so they forced the change. Recently there was a pilot to allow it in the US itself.

owl57• 2 months ago

But then why change the renewal process for the people who were already fingerprinted for the original visa?

grahamgooch7• 2 months ago

This is a good thing. Adjustment of status for those within the USA is backlogged- by years for people from certain countries. Going to the home consulate for the final stamp will save years for many people.

F1 and h1 are non-immigrant visa.

American law only allows a person to reside in the country with one Visa type.

The green card is an immigrant visa - and the new visa is issued through an adjustment of status for those inside the USA (backlogged) or by consulates (nearly immediately).

So this is a good thing. It’s easy to get alarmed.

ceejayoz4• 2 months ago

Why is it "nearly immediately" at a consulate but "backlogged" in the US? Why can't that be fixed?

freediddy6• 2 months ago

USCIS serializes it and they have a limited number of workers. CP shards it based on country so it will be much faster for many people.

throwaway_620223• 2 months ago

This is not true. It is not nearly immediate at US consulate and backlogged in US. The parent doesn't know what they are talking about.

grahamgooch7• 2 months ago

Because America only has a few processing centers in within the US where is that literally hundreds and hundreds of consulates that can now take on this activity they have always been doing this activity but the vast majority of the backlog is caused by the slow processing of the US processing centers.

arrowleaf7• 2 months ago

From what I've gathered, the consular route is nowhere near immediate, especially if they are from one of the countries typically backlogged (e.g. India). You're saying that someone who gets married while on F1 + OPT/STEM should leave with their partner, potentially for months if not years, while pursuing the consular route.

grahamgooch7• 2 months ago

No. All it leans that you go to the consulate on your appt and get your immigrant visa stamped - you get an appointment date and that’s it’s. It was a 3 hour process for me. I flew into Frankfurt and flew out the same evening.

kylehotchkiss6• 2 months ago

Consulates are not nearly immediately. You have to wait months-years for appointments at some.

ryandrake• 2 months ago

Looks like this means if a US Citizen marries someone who visited on a non-immigrant visa without the intention of getting married, the US government will now force the family apart for an unknown amount of time, potentially forever, instead of allowing the spouse to stay while the I-485 is processed.

I wonder how this would work with a K-1 "Fiancé" Visa. Typically a K-1 holder can enter the country as long as they get married within 90 days, and then the family stays together while the I-485 is processed. Now what? Come to the USA, marry the US Citizen, and then you're banished back to your home country?

There's also the K-3 which lets the foreign spouse enter as a non-immigrant to keep the family together while the I-485 is processed. Are they getting rid of that entirely?

This is all totally bonkers, likely not well thought out, and pretty cruel to families, which is completely on-point for this Administration.

mothballed4• 2 months ago

The reason why you allow married people to adjust status is because it's absurd to actually expect a spouse not to just break the law and harbor their illegal immigrant spouse. They are going to choose to break the law rather than kick their spouse out and have them apply from overseas. Maybe they deserve to be punished when inevitably that happens en masse, but one has to consider the societal effects of creating a bunch of criminals over what amounts to an administrative fuck-fuck game over a spouse who was already determined to be admissible to the US.

charcircuit• 2 months ago

who was already determined to be admissible to the US

If that was true why even go through a whole process. To me it sounds like there is still an approval required meaning the person is not determined to be admissible yet.

adjejmxbdjdn3• 2 months ago

This government is run on mafioso leadership principles.

Thats why they’re appointed a whole bunch of unqualified people at high positions. This is what happens in the mafia. Those people know that the only reason they’re there is because of the dear leader and not because of their competence, so purely out of self preservation, they will put loyalty to dear leader above every other principle.

Similarly gangs will get even low level people to commit completely unnecessary crimes. Because once you’ve committed a crime, they own you. You’re at their mercy, since you can’t run to the police anymore, without risking jail time yourself.

So you make a whole bunch of your residents criminals, so they’re unable to exercise their rights effectively without threat of being punished for a completely different reason that the government now holds against them.

They’ve started with immigrants because making them criminals is as easy as writing administrative memos, but the same incentives will lead them to start making criminals out of American citizens too. You can already see some of it with the way they’ve criminalized protest against Israel. The next step will be to redefine whatever acts they can as terrorism since Congress granted the executive tremendous power when it comes to terrorism. But they won’t stop there.

electronsoup• 2 months ago

likely not well thought out

Or it has been, and cruelty is the point

cozzyd• 2 months ago

I wonder how this would have applied to Melania

daft_pink4• 2 months ago

I think if you enter on a B1/B2 tourist visa, you should not be allowed to adjust status to a green card except in extraordinary circumstances. I’m not so sure about other non-immigrant visas.

K1 will obviously be an exception as substantial steps are generally taken at a home consulate.

nrmitchi4• 2 months ago

There is no carve out in this memo that says it’s only for B1/B2. Or that K-1 is excluded.

An entire visa class is not “obviously an exception”, or it would be clear.

esalman3• 2 months ago

What if you obtain a B2 visa to attend a conference in the US, and a year later receive and employment opportunity?

kylehotchkiss6• 2 months ago

I responded similarly in another article. This policy punishes American citizens who pursue relationships with people they met in USA who were foreign born. At a time when marriage rates are rapidly declining.

FWIW K1s were never a great visa category. Doing an engagement party with a white dress and posting it on instagram could lead to a "go apply for CR1 instead" rejection.

arrowleaf7• 2 months ago

Curious to know how this will affect immigrants who arrived on a student visa, receive OPT to stay while working, and then subsequently get married. I know many top performers at my company who are in that boat, especially from India, who have built lives here during their OPT + STEM. It would be a shame to lose them if they have to go back to India and wait years (if not decades) for a green card or H-1B.

freediddy6• 2 months ago

No. This is the last stage of the Green Card process. When you do Consular processing you make an appointment at the US embassy or consulate in your country, go do the interview and then you are granted the GC on the spot. Then you fly back. You don't need to fly back for years, it's only for the purpose of the interview at the consulate.

arrowleaf7• 2 months ago

What is the typical wait time for appointments when going to consular processing route? My brief searches say anywhere from 2-9 months. 60-90 day NVC review phase, 60-120 day interview scheduling, and then 1-2 weeks once you have the interview. Are you saying that the 120-210 day wait time can happen while you're still in the US?

throwaway2194503• 2 months ago

IANAL. If you adjust status in the US you can also apply for AP/EAD if your original visa/legal status expires. You can't do that if you opt for consular processing.

Nothing new there, but under the new rules the former is no longer an option and you'd need to leave immediately. On the plus side consular processing tends to be cheaper and often faster (AOS and all the approvals vs the consular processing fee and a plane ticket).

airstrike27• 2 months ago

US consulates have halted green card processing in 75 countries.

freediddy6• 2 months ago

All this means is that I485 is no longer allowed and everyone needs to do Consular processing. It doesn't mean that Green Cards are no longer being processed.

I did consular processing when I got my Green Card. It's the FINAL step fo the GC process. You don't need to be outside the US for all the other stages, in fact I think if you leave during some parts, it would be considered abandoning your application. It just means that while you're in the US, you need to schedule an appointment at the US embassy/consulate in your home country, and fly back. Then you go through the appointment and there on the spot you're approved or rejected. It's a big nerve wracking but unless you lied you will be fine. Then you fly back to the US.

For me CP was much much faster, on the order of months.

daft_pink4• 2 months ago

I think in specific visa circumstances, an i485 will still be required such as K1 visa which is granted outside the country and then by nature of a K1 visa, adjustment to green card must happen within the United States.

adjejmxbdjdn3• 2 months ago

but unless you lied you will be fine.

That’s a huge unsubstantiated claim.

fredrb• 2 months 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...

gck1• 2 months ago

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.

xtracto• 2 months ago

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.

troad3• 2 months ago

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.

aucisson_masque• 2 months ago

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.

pixel_popping6• 2 months ago

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?

callmeal• 2 months ago

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.

thelastgallon4• 2 months ago

India has the largest backlog of applicants, this will help Indians (and to some extent Chinese) get GCs quickly.

Synthetic73462• 2 months ago

How so?

swat535• 2 months ago

The quota per country isn't being adjusted. I'm not sure what you're referring to?

kaycey2022• 2 months ago

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.

aborsy4• 2 months ago

One issue (apparently a feature) that may arise is that, if application is rejected in consular proceeding, the applicant is locked out from usa. AFAIK, if someone applies for an immigration visa in usa, they will not be able to obtain non-immigration visas in the future. A refused green card application might be the end of being ever in usa. The person may have to truely exit USA since there may be no way back (close bank account, sell property and assets, etc).

If the person adjusts status in usa, there are more possibilities for appeal etc.

xpl• 2 months ago

they will not be able to obtain non-immigration visas in the future

Why? Aren't L1 and H1B "dual intent" visas?

aborsy4• 2 months ago

I should have been more precise, yes. But the majority of non-immigrant visas are single intent. H1B requires 100K and if you can’t first enter to see people and attend interviews, chances seem slim in these circumstances, if H1B program is not altogether scrapped.

throwaway2194503• 2 months ago

The end result is the same though. If your application is rejected in the US, you could stay while you appeal, but if you're ultimately rejected then you have no choice but to re-apply through consular processing anyway once your status runs out. Good if you have a job in the US, but you're kicking the can down the road.

A refused green card application might be the end of being ever in usa.

Do you have evidence for your other claim? The main thing you need to prove for a non immigrant visa or VWP is that you won't overstay or have intent to immigrate at the time of application and upon entry. Otherwise it's up to the consular officer like usual. You would need to declare the refusal/denial of course.

What will get you denied is "inadmissibility" if you don't submit a waiver. If you're inadmissible that usually means some serious violation and you've got other problems.

As far as I know, people have been successful in re-applying for EB green cards after being rejected when they've assembled a better packet.

aborsy4• 2 months ago

If you apply for immigration status and are rejected, sure you can apply for immigration again if you gain much better qualifications. I haven’t seen many successful examples though.

People are deemed to have immigration intent for small things like they don’t have enough ties to their country of residence. An application for immigration is definite proof you had intent to immigrate. You can wait like ten years, but time doesn’t work in your favor (immigration gets harder every year, people get older and handcuffed elsewhere…).

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

I mean this in the kindest possible way while still being critical: I really wish people would stop making definitive statements about things that, I'm sorry to say, they don't understand. This is just wrong. The end result is absolutely not the same, for multiple reasons:

1. Decisions by consular officials largely can't be challenged (with some exceptions). Decisions by USCIS can be challenged in immigration court and/or federal court, depending on your case;

2. Thanks to Trump v. Hawaii, the president has the broad power to ban the granting of visas to people overseas. There's currently a ban on 39 countries. That cannot be challenged. It can be challenged in the US;

3. When you apply for an immigration benefit in the US, the USCIS field office that deals with it is determined by where you live. It used to be the case that if you were outside the US, you could get an embassy appointment in the country you were residing in. This administration changed that such that you can only use the embassy in your country of birth/citizenship. So, if you're a Kenyan citizen living and working in France, you have to go back to Kenya for your consular interview. That might take wait times for getting an interview from 1-2 months to 1-2 years, depending on the embassy. It's also a huge hassle and expensive, possibly;

4. The GP is correct here. When you apply for any immigrant visa, meaning you or a spouse, sibling, parent, child or employer files an I130/I140 for you, you've demonstrated what's called "immigrant intent". That means that for people from many countries they are unlikely to ever get a nonimmigrant visa ever again. USCIS thinks you're tryign to sneak into the US to adjust status rather than consular processing. They also think if you enter the US, you won't leave. Obviously citizens of Norway are treated differently to citizens of Nigeria. I'll let you ponder why;

5. If you accrue unlawful presence in the US (for which the rules are complicated), you may get a 3 or 10 year bar on returning to the US. In addition, because you have overstayed a visa (or have entered without inspection), you may simply not ever get another visa again anyway. It's unclear from this memo if the 3/10 year bars will apply here. We won't know until we see how it's implemented;

6. Certain people may be in limbo because they don't have the option to leave to consular process. I'm mainly thinking of people who have made an asylum claim. There are people who have filed for asylum in 2015 who don't have a ruling on that case yet. 11 years is a long time. They might meet someone and get married and then seek to adjust. This is a complicated process that comes with its own perils but generally they adjust status and then withdraw their asylum case or, in some cases, seek cancellation of removal from immigration court. Do they have to leave? They may not have travel documents. They can't really go back to their home country. This may create a situation where they can't adjust and they can't leave so they're in limbo. Also, if the asylum office decides your asylum case was "frivolous", you may have a permanent bar on ever receiving an immigration benefit. That's much more difficult if not impossible to challenge overseas;

7. What makes you inadmissibile isn't necessarily serious. It can be a simple mistake. For example, if you marry a US citizen then working without authorization is forgiven (mostly; it's complicated) but you have to be really careful how you answer questions on the forms and to officers. So you might answer "no" the I485 question about working without authorization even though you did a few Ubers 7 years ago, which is forgiven, but you've now made a false claim and that may make you inadmissible needing a waiver. A good lawyer will argue that it wasn't "material" but this USCIS much more than any previouis is having a stricter interpretation of any of this;

8. As another example, "crimes", particularly "aggravated" crimes or crimes of "moral terpitude" can make you inadmissible. But what are those? There are guidelines but there's some grey areas where USCIS has discretion. For example, being convicted of a crime with a potential sentence of more than 365 days will make you inadmissible. But sentencing guidelines can be whack such that if you speed as a 16 year old, you might get charged with something and, not knowing any better, get offered a deal for probation on a crime of reckless driving that can technically be up to 2 years of jail time by the sentencing guidelines. Well, guess what? You're now guilty of an aggravated crime and can not only have your green card denied, you can be denaturalized and deported. No, this isn't a made up example.

IANAL but I know what I know and, more importantly, I know what I don't know, which is a lot. But what's particularly frustrating to me is the people who have no idea what they don't know. The above just scratches the surface.

JuniperMesos13• 2 months ago

Yes, this is a feature. I don't think non-immigration visas actually exist, or can in principle actually exist until there are massive legal and constitutional changes in the US up to and including ganking the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th amendment. Anyone who sets foot on US soil for any reason - even illegal immigrants, let alone people on a legal, ostensibly non-immigrant visa - can try to adjust their status, and has lots of "possibilities for appeal".

The US government should not give permission to anyone at all to set foot on US soil, unless the mass of existing citizens of the US are comfortable with that person eventually voting as a citizen on what the composition of the government should actually be. And as a US citizen, I am not comfortable with letting the vast majority of people in the world - many of whom are scrambling for any legal opportunity at all that will let them legally reside in the US - vote for the government that passes laws that affect me.

sleepyguy2• 2 months ago

So if someone is here in the US on an H1B and they want to become a permanent Resident/ Green Card holder, they will have to go back to their country of origin to apply? Otherwise they just stay on their H1B VISA and work.

Is that right?

jleyank3• 2 months ago

Aren’t h1b’s time limited? 1-2 renewals?

sameers• 2 months ago

Yes - the rule is that the application for Adjustment of Status can't happen while you're already in the US.

SV_BubbleTime• 2 months ago

I was under the impression that this is roughly how it works (assume equivalency) in most European countries is it not?

busterarm2• 2 months ago

Except for the part about requiring you to leave to process your application.

Wait times to process applications depend on your country of origin and visa type. If you are an H1B from India that was already decades approaching never. Same for Brazil and elsewhere.

And that was before Trump. All that was practically halted.

jesseendahl• 2 months ago

No, it is not. And if you fall in love and want to get married to someone on a student visa, your fiancée should not need to leave the country for a year or two to wait for paperwork to process. Which is one of the real world impacts of this change.

refurb6• 2 months ago

Why wouldn’t your spouse just stay on the student visa? From what I gather it’s purely the processing that is overseas.

Stay on whatever visa you’re on -> apply for consular processing -> travel for interview -> enter on green card

_fizz_buzz_• 2 months ago

Absolutely not. My wife could apply for German permanent residency as well as now German citizenship from within Germany. She has been living in Germany for 10 years now and at no point in the process did she have to go through a German consulate (she is a US citizen).

nyargh• 2 months ago

For many immigration statuses in Sweden, you must leave and apply outside of the country (outside of Schengen for non EU-citizens) to change status. This was even the case before the current right wing government was elected.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

The U.S. doesn’t have a real statutory pathway to permanent residency for skilled immigrants. The current H1B to Green Card pipeline is built on a legal fiction papered over a visa program that was the word “non-immigrant intent” written all over the statute.

Gemini gets this correct: “The H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant classification that allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign nationals in ‘specialty occupations’ that require highly specialized knowledge and at least a bachelor's degree.”

airstrike27• 2 months ago

You're not actually wrong, but your phrasing makes it sound like that somehow excuses this travesty of justice.

I can only assume that's accidental. You're the 17th most active person on HN, so I'm certain you've seen an overwhelming amount of evidence of how skilled immigrants are immensely beneficial to the US economy.

The H-1B is not the only path to a green card. There are many ways, every case is different, and pretty much all of the paths suck, even if you do everything right.

This decision only makes all of those paths worse.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

evidence of how skilled immigrants are immensely beneficial to the US economy.

That's irrelevant. "Justice" means following the rules. Congress gets to decide the immigration laws. Congress has never created a real system for skilled permanent immigrants. The term "H1B" actually comes from 8 USC 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(B).

Subsection (a)(15) literally defines the term "immigrant" to exclude people in the subsequent subsections, including (H)(i)(b). Subsection (a)(15)(H)(i)(b) then reiterates that the category is for someone "who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform services." Congress didn't hide the ball.

It's just an example of how the immigration laws have been a bait-and-switch for decades: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...

buzer2• 2 months ago

Intent (are you planning to switch immigrant visa later) and status (immigrant/non-immigrant) are two different things. Visas like B1 are non-immigrant and require that you are not intending to abandon your foreign residence. In practice that means that when you enter US you cannot be planning to apply for immigrant visa. H1B is also non-immigrant visa, but it is dual intent visa meaning it doesn't have that requirement and thus it's fine to enter even if you intent to apply for GC. You can even exit and re-enter after submitting your application.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

In practice that means that when you enter US you cannot be planning to apply for immigrant visa.

You are correct about this.

H1B is also non-immigrant visa, but it is dual intent visa meaning it doesn't have that requirement

You're incorrect about this. The concept of "dual intent" doesn't exist in the Immigration and Naturalization Act. It was created by executive fiat. H1Bs, like other non-immigrant visas, still requires non-immigrant intent. It's different only that it has two carve-outs:

Subsection (b) excludes H1Bs from the "presumption" of immigrant intent that applies to other categories of aliens. Subsection (h) provides that applying for permanent residency "shall not constitute evidence of an intention to abandon a foreign residence" for H1Bs.

So H1Bs must still have non-immigrant intent. It's just that they are carved out of certain presumptions that would automatically establish immigrant intent, which would lead to denial of their visa. It gives the executive flexibility to essentially look the other way when an H1B applies for a green card. But it doesn't confer any legal rights* onto the H1B. The administration can at any time decide that you actually have immigrant intent and yank your visa.

bubblethink9• 2 months ago

This sounds quite non-sensical. The statutory pathway is employment based immigrant visas (EB 1 through 5). I don't get why you bring up H-1B into the discussion. If you are looking for congressional intent for this H-1B->EB AOS path, Congress passed AC21 precisely to address this path.

zaptheimpaler8• 2 months ago

This is probably for the best in the long term. They've added enough friction, insanity and disdain for foreigners that no sane person will immigrate and we can start to build stronger industries and trade relationships outside the US.

epistasis4• 2 months ago

How is this good in any way?

How could this ever help to build stronger industries or trade relationships?

If somebody hands you a shit sandwich you don't need to pretend it tastes good.

zaptheimpaler8• 2 months ago

It will help would-be immigrants understand that the US does not want them and that it would be a mistake to invest time and energy trying to build a future in a country that hates them and can nuke their lives at the drop of a hat. It will help other countries that are not the US retain their talent and build up their own industries. A greater diversity in distribution of talent and industry across the world is a more resilient system.

hiddencost• 2 months ago

I think the parent is saying it's good because immigrants will go elsewhere and the US will continue to decline. Which will be good for humanity.

drivingmenuts• 2 months ago

It could be good for anyone country that's not the US (despite our hubris, we're not actually the center of the universe). But for the US, a country built on immigrants ands immigration, probably not so much. We fucked around, we found out.

Well, we're continuing to find out. We haven't exactly scraped rocked bottom yet.

BrokenCogs5• 2 months ago

I think it's sarcasm

RamenJunkie_2• 2 months ago

They mean good for everyone NOT the US. Because now say, Germany or France, or where ever, come off as a better place to immigrate, so other countries can build stronger more competitice businesses.

This move, like everything the MAGA administration does, will only weaken the US.

Even better for other countries, anyone the US produces who isn't a raging idiot, also are more likely to want to immigrate from the US.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

Isn’t it better for the smart people in India to stay there and make India richer, instead of coming to the U.S. to make billionaires here richer? These countries absolutely suffer from the brain drain.

zaptheimpaler8• 2 months ago

Yes exactly. One country sucking up all the best talent is not good for the world, its a single point of failure.

hibikir• 2 months ago

The way it works is that the origin country is worse off when people leave, but in general immigrants are much better off for moving, and it's not even close.

A big argument for letting people emigrate is that they owe no real debt to the county where they are born, or the city, or anything like that. They aren't selfs owned by a nobleman. If moving increases their personal lot, why should we stop them?

gyomu• 2 months ago

In many cases a talented/smart person will bring little to zero value to a country with ossified institutions, but huge value to one with the right systems in place to build value.

cheinic64933• 2 months ago

Isn’t it better for the smart people in India to stay there and make India richer, instead of coming to the U.S. to make billionaires here richer?

An Indian’s greatest accomplishment in life is leaving India.

ViktorRay6• 2 months ago

The problem with this thinking is assuming that countries are equivalent in terms of opportunity and life.

India does not have the same opportunities that America does to have a good and successful life. This isn’t just due to the country being relatively poor but due to structural issues along with corruption. Then there are other issues too. Environmental issues. Too many issues to list.

It’s disingenuous to suggest that a families or individuals should stay behind to change this. Also isnt it a loss for everyone? If smart people come to America and take advantage of opportunities and accomplish things that help many people what good is it to say no to this. That they must stay in the home country and inevitably not accomplish as much due to all these issues. Even if Elon Musk and Jensen Huang had stayed in their home countries they certainly could not have accomplished the same amount they did in America. Both South Africa and Taiwan in that period lacked the opportunities.

Also what is the rationale behind an American saying to people not to come to America and improve it but to stay back? Individual Indians aren’t any different from individual Americans beyond their accent. The children of these immigrants are indistinguishable from Americans who have been here for generations (aside from skin color). I really don’t understand why Americans wouldn’t want the brain gain from having smart people come here. Also if a surgeon is operating on you would you care what skin color or accent they had? Doesn’t make sense to me.

hermannj314• 2 months ago

From what I could understand from the 6-page memorandum, (my paraphrase) "the law allows us to be nice and convenient, but doesn't require us to be nice and convenient, so we decided to make things hard and cruel going forward"

The current administration is sending a pretty clear message to immigrants.

busterarm2• 2 months ago

This is such an insanely unpopular move even among some of trump’s supporters. I really think this will be this version of the republican party’s suicide note.

airstrike27• 2 months ago

It's an insanely stupid move, but from what I'm seeing on Twitter, it's somehow not that unpopular among the less bright.

serf• 2 months ago

it's somehow not that unpopular among the less bright.

politics aside, do you realistically believe that you can view twitter and actually mentally carve out the opinion of a group of people in real life?

that's exactly the issue with twitter.

for one : you're polling twitter users (a TINY subsect of humanity), two : you're extracting opinion from those that seek to broadcast it (an outlier) , and three: twitter never self-exposes the world to a user, it selectively curates and amplifies, and fourth : it's one of the most gamed communications arenas in existence.

you're viewing the world through an itty-bitty twitter-colored monocle and making sweeping accusations across large cohorts, it's not an accurate portrayal of actual human opinion.

vixen99• 2 months ago

Why insanely stupid? No, I don't mean you might not be right but it's nice to hear arguments rather than a pointless slight against people you assume fit your category.

henry20232• 2 months ago

Twitter is mostly bots (take almost any response and look at the account history).

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Twitter / X noise is consensus.

digitaltrees7• 2 months ago

Or evidence that they are confident their takeover and transition to single party rule was successful a they are not subject to further accountability.

If something seems irrational it’s usually a sign that you don’t understand the underlying logic. This behavior is totally logical if they aren’t worried about losing power.

darth_avocado3• 2 months ago

I don’t know how this will play out for employment based categories. You need to be have a job and be on a valid visa to even apply for a green card. How do you then go outside the country, apply for a green card, all the while maintaining your job and a visa while you wait for the application to be processed? As far as I know not being in the US for extended periods of time, voids your work visa in the first place.

buzer2• 2 months ago

IANAL. My understanding is that you can do consular processing even if you are in the US, it's just that you need to leave to do the interview (and things like biometrics) and get the actual visa.

Now I'm not sure if you are allowed to re-enter after your interview before your case is decided/you get the visa but I would imagine so (if have valid visa), you would just need to exit again to get the visa later.

kettlecorn2• 2 months ago

Also not a lawyer.

I believe the issue with what you're describing is that if you're on a temporary visa, like a student visa, applying for a green card shows intent of immigration so you cannot return to the US on a student visa.

If you have an H-1B already you may be able to do what you're describing. If you're a recent grad in the US this basically locks you out of trying to get a green card until you've already secured an H-1B.

darth_avocado3• 2 months ago

If that’s true, things may be slightly better, but I’m also reading this move will take away substantial funding from uscis since it is funded purely based on fees collected with immigration applications. Processing times are already pretty large in a lot of countries. So even with the flexibility, you carry a substantial risk.

cheinic64933• 2 months ago

You need to be have a job and be on a valid visa to even apply for a green card.

False

You don’t need a job to apply for green card.

Valid visa, yes. But that’s easy.

darth_avocado3• 2 months ago

If you read my full comment:

don’t know how this will play out for employment based categories

I am only talking about employment based categories if you refer to my original comment. I’d be curious to know what visa categories allow you to file for an employment based greencard without a job?

chopete3• 2 months ago

From the USCIS policy directive.

> admitted into the United States as nonimmigrants to depart rather than pursue adjustment of status. Such aliens are generally expected to pursue an immigrant visa and admission from outside the United States if they wish to reside permanently in this country.

H1-B was already a dual intent visa. Are they trying to create a new visa category?

Whatever they are trying to get to this is a big concern for all H1B employees.

cheinic64933• 2 months ago

Whatever they are trying to get to this is a big concern for all H1B employees.

Thankfully H1B is a small visa category.

KingMachiavelli2• 2 months ago

Absurd, currently trying to figure out how to sponsor my wife and now this. The wording seems to imply that even those here on valid non-immigrant visas (F1) would need to apply via their home country. It doesn’t help that I130+I485 (AOS) could take over a year to process?

If you have filed I485 and they fail to process it before your current visa expires (D/S ends like F1 OPT). Then what? You just have to leave, abandon AOS and re-apply for CR1?

It’s insane that the simplest immigrant pathway; spousal green card could take 12+ months and may now require temporarily moving and being separated. Guess I actually will be paying $4K for a lawyer (plus the 3-4K just to file the USCIS forms).

I wish they would just have a simple fast lane for the 100% legal, non-complicated case.

airstrike27• 2 months ago

And don't forget that US consulates in 75 countries, or approximately a third of the globe, have stopped conducting Green Card interviews.

bulbar4• 2 months ago

Happens as well in Germany and it's pure insanity. The US at least does not depend on migration as much as Germany, I believe.

Even the current right wing party CDU doesn't seem to want to make migration harder, but when the extremist party AfD gets voted into office, an already highly damaged balance will break.

Sad how people become so detected from reality that they make their society irrelevant and destroying a lot of wealth in the process.

ornornor6• 2 months ago

The US at least does not depend on migration as much as Germany, I believe.

To me it feels like the US pretends they don’t need immigrants when:

1. The overwhelming majority of current US residents were immigrants themselves at some point in the last 150 years (only natives were there, everyone else immigrated from somewhere)

2. The US wouldn’t function without illegal immigrants

3. Every country is short of workers in one domain or another. Encouraging immigration in these domains (see how Canada does it for instance) would be the smart move. But instead… yeah let’s make it even harder across the board

chewz• 2 months ago

People are repelled by country shopping by 3rd worlders.

EU countries are working on imigration rules that would allow for bringing imigrant labour without ever extending citizen privileges to them. A sort of permanent uderclass. This is what voters want at this time.

kylehotchkiss6• 2 months ago

By the way, if you move outside the country, you lose Domicile which is required to sponsor the visa. And if you don't spend enough time in their country visiting them, your application can be temporary "denied" (delayed) with a request for evidence (that the relationship is real) they'll spend 3 months deliberating over.

Today's news make this crystal clear: the current admin does not want citizens marrying outside the country, regardless of how quickly the marriage rate among US population is falling.

anigbrowl3• 2 months ago

simple fast lane for the 100% legal, non-complicated case

Immigration policy in the current administration (which seems to be driven by Stephen Miller) is not based around legalaities, it's based around cutting immigration as much as possible because that's what satisfies Trump's voter base. These people do not care if you 'did it the right way'. They have an atavistic hatred of foreigners.

esseph3• 2 months ago

Immigration policy in the current administration (which seems to be driven by Stephen Miller) is not based around legalaities, it's based around cutting immigration as much as possible

White immigrants are fine with this administration.

"All but 3 of 6,069 refugees taken in by Trump are White South Africans"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/05/22/trump-south-a...

danaris3• 2 months ago

I wish they would just have a simple fast lane for the 100% legal, non-complicated case.

The explicit purpose of this is to reduce legal immigration, and reduce the number of people becoming citizens.

There is no world in which the same racist, fascist administration doing this does anything remotely like what you describe.

pixel_popping6• 2 months ago

I'm not from the US, but isn't it like almost every country in the world? Reducing immigration when it's already too much does increase job availability for locals (which should always be priority imo). Immigration to a country is a privilege, not really a right, but again I don't really know about the US, I just know that like Emigrating to Japan permanently or like in Dubai getting citizenship is very difficult and it does sound normal to me, why should it be easy? You want ultra motivated potential citizens, not the ones that just want to come for a few years to improve their CV or just pile up savings and then bail, they don't bring anything to the country as they'll not spend in the long-term within the US and will not really assimilate as well.

I don't think this is "racist", even Europeans are in the same boat to apply as far as I know, those are mostly white, I don't think racist is the right term here. Isn't America already heavily mixed?

arjie• 2 months ago

Jesus Christ, that's a bad situation. It seems extraordinarily risky to leave the country to return. I know a native-born American whose foreign-born wife has been waiting years now to come to the US. By contrast, I received my green card (through marriage) shortly after application. Considering the rapidity by which friends of mine (who were married after and applied after me) received their green cards in mid-2024, I wonder if the Biden administration anticipated losing the election a few months later.

I suppose little matters from the before days, but I've only been a permanent resident for 2 years so maybe this timeline helps: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Green_Card_Application#Timel...

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

It sounds like your wife came to the US on an F1 visa, you got married and are now filing or have filed for I130+I485 for her. I assume too that you were a US citizen. These facts may not be correct. IANAL but I absolutely think you should be forking over the money for an immigraiton lawyer and that was true before this memo came out.

I've seen so many people who call their cases "simple" or "straightforward" but 2 minutes of fairly superficial questioning reveals there are actually huge minefields or deep, fundamental flaaws in their case. It's way cheaper to have a lawyer from the start than it is to screw up her case and then get a lawyer involved once she's in removal proceedings, which is a very real possibility.

So here are some base questions to ask:

- How did you get your citizenship? If you were born here or got a green card through an employer or parent, that's fine. If you got it from being sponsored in a previous marriage, that's what USCIS calls a "pivot case" and you will have a high level of scrutiny;

- Did you know your wife prior to her coming to the US? If so, USCIS might take the position that this was a scheme for her to come to the US and adjust status rather than consular processing and the burden of proof that it wasn't is on you;

- It sounds like your wife is on OPT. If so, she completed her studies, which is good. USCIS hates cases where someone comes on an F1, doesn't complete their studies and get married. They can accuse such people of committing immigration fraud;

- How soon after her last entry to the US did you get married? Too quick (generally under 60-90 days) and USCIS may accuse her of misrepresentation, which is a huge problem;

- Did she make any visa applications and misrepresent her status to you?

- Did she make any misrepresentations to CBP about her relationship to you when entering the US?

- Did she ever violate the terms of her F1 visa? For example, working without authorization;

- Has she been married before? If so, were there an I130 filed for her previously?

- Has your wife ever been arrested, charged or convicted of any crime other than traffic ticket citations? This can be a far bigger problem than you realize even if it's something "trivial" where she gets probation;

- Did she apply for an F1 for one school, come to the US then change schools? If so, USCIS might take the position she did a misrepresentation.

Also, anecdotally, USCIS seems to be taking advantage at interviews of people who don't have a lawyer by threatening the citizen to withdraw the case or by getting the citizen or immigrant to agree not facts that aren't in evidence or aren't true and then using those facts to deny or delay the case.

Are you prepared for the interview where the officer may separate you and then compare your answers?

There's more to an immigration attorney than just filling out forms. A good attorney will prepare you for the interview and identify (and hopefully solve) any potential issues before they become issues. People generally make bad witnesses. I'm reminded of the "do you know what time it is?" scene from the west Wing [1].

I'd strongly advise a lawyer.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VChTiGcWsCs

FireBeyond6• 2 months ago

I would strongly advise for a lawyer, too, but some of your statements are less accurate, as someone who came here on a K-1 visa, in a genuine and sincere relationship, divorced and in the process of the divorce missed some filing deadlines and also hired a lawyer to clear it up.

Did you know your wife prior to her coming to the US? If so, USCIS might take the position that this was a scheme for her to come to the US and adjust status rather than consular processing and the burden of proof that it wasn't is on you

Depending on status, per my lawyer, the assumption is that the visa is valid based on the initial application process. The burden on my "fixing" things, despite divorce, etc., was on USCIS to show that it wasn't sincere. That means they -did- ask for evidence (bank statements, insurance policies, financial instruments, cosigned leases, etc.) but they had to show that those "didn't sufficiently show an authentic relationship".

Did she make any visa applications and misrepresent her status to you

This can be a challenge, but not usually a problem. After my visa was granted I started interviewing from Australia for jobs. When I did get a job, my new employer through a HR mixup set wheels in motion for a H-1B for me, which I hurriedly told them to cancel as I didn't need it.

Are you prepared for the interview where the officer may separate you and then compare your answers?

Definitely will, not may. We faced questions like "what night is garbage night and who takes out the trash usually", "how long have they been working in the field they are currently employed in" (not just how long at current job). "Are both their parents alive, where do they live?" etc.

A lawyer is, especially now, a solid investment.

KingMachiavelli2• 2 months ago

1. Born in typical midwest American town from American parents also born in the US just as their parents (at least 4 generations) 2. Nope, met after arrival. 3. Studies completed and employed legally. 4. "How soon after her last entry to the US did you get married" - actually maybe an issue, we just happened to travel internationally before deciding to get married sooner. But it would be silly to not return to the country you live and work in just because you took a vacation. 5. CBP doesn't even ask questions when you re-enter with valid visa documentation. 6. No previous marriages of either party. 7. No criminal history, not even a speeding ticket. 8. Nope, went to school, graduated, started working, so on.

We live together and spend >90% of our non-working time together so I can't imagine an interview being a problem.

As you can see, besides maybe the "crime" of taking an international vacation, our case is as simple as it should be.

Also, anecdotally, USCIS seems to be taking advantage at interviews of people who don't have a lawyer by threatening the citizen to withdraw the case or by getting the citizen or immigrant to agree not facts that aren't in evidence or aren't true and then using those facts to deny or delay the case.

I mean that's really the issue. USCIS appears to be intentionally adversarial.

FireBeyond6• 2 months ago

As someone who came here on the K-1 (fiance) visa, this would have impacted me as (IIRC) there are two points where I had to adjust status: once, after marriage, to get "Conditional" Permanent Residency, and after two years of marriage, to "remove conditions" on my residency.

I get being out of the country for the initial application (the consular officer in Sydney explained that it typically had to be filed by the sponsor, while the sponsor was in the US and the applicant was overseas, so that there was "no" concerns on coercion, etc.), but this... oof.

Guess I actually will be paying $4K for a lawyer (plus the 3-4K just to file the USCIS forms).

And then of course the $85 biometrics fee every time you talk to USCIS, which could be multiple times in the process.

Guess I actually will be paying $4K for a lawyer (plus the 3-4K just to file the USCIS forms). I wish they would just have a simple fast lane for the 100% legal, non-complicated case.

It would have been cheaper, and faster, for me to have come here from Australia on the visa waiver program (which says "no marrying a USC"), married my partner, said to USCIS "oops, my bad, can I stay anyway?" and go through -that- process, than the proper K-1.

seanmcdirmid5• 2 months ago

I’m pretty sure you can both be out of the country, at least me and my wife were. We were married long enough to get a fast track though, according to the rules at the time.

digitaltrees7• 2 months ago

It’s amazing to see someone do literally all of the opposite things to create a successful business, country, economy and world.

jaybrendansmith• 2 months ago

It's shocking, actually. Horrifying, and again I say: They do all of the things one would expect them to do if their stated goal was the absolute destruction of the United States of America. They are traitors, no more, no less.

ashley952• 2 months ago

Which is so puzzling to me given Trump's impeccable record as a successful and prudent businessman.

xena• 2 months ago

The dude bankrupted a casino.

mstank• 2 months ago

They obviously know how unpopular this is, or else they wouldn't be releasing on a Friday night. This is so unimaginably disruptive, I wonder who inside the administration is suggesting this.

SilverElfin3• 2 months ago

So the racists in the Trump administration - my guess is Stephen Miller types - are literally making it so that LEGAL immigrants have to spend thousands of dollars and time to go submit a form in another country, when they can do it here? Or online? Why?

The cruelty is the point. They want the economic benefit of immigrants but also want them to live in uncertainty and without any easy path to settling down. Complete and utterly stupid.

airstrike27• 2 months ago

I find the amount of people chiming in on something they do not understand to be disheartening.

Anyone is entitled an opinion, even when they're wrong.

But perhaps before posting, engage with intellectual curiosity and get informed.

Otherwise you're just posting a layman view that could easily be rebutted.

_blk• 2 months ago

This does not seem to target NIWs but rather those who use change of status as a way of extending their stay.

Change of status was never meant for those without status in the first place or for tourists.

I would love be to hear an immigration lawyer's perspective on this.

Here's the memo directly:

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...

cyanydeez• 2 months ago

next headline: trump closes consulates in nonwhite countries

mrlonglong• 2 months ago

White supremacists on the rise in the US. Never forget, there were people already in the US when they first arrived. White supremacists stole their lands.

Come to the EU instead, we want more STEM people.

_doctor_love9• 2 months ago

Ah yes, the EU, which has no problems with white nationalism.

jsadfsdafh5• 2 months ago

I don't think the US or the EU has specific problems with "white nationalism" more than any other country.

You can't migrate to Arab countries easily if you come from sub-Saharan Africa. Is that "Arab nationalism"? No, it's just countries enforcing their borders and immigration policy. Effectively what pretty much every country does. You can't immigrate easily to most countries, it's the norm, not the exception.

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

White supremacy never left. There are a whole bunch of people in the US that never got over the abolition of chattel slavery and arguably we're in this mess because not enough slaveowners were strung up after the Civil War. And by "not enough" I really mean "anything less than all of them".

That may sound harsh, even hyperbolic, but we teach a really whitewashed version of slavery in schools, like these were just laborers who worked the fields but just happened to be owned by people. That couldn't be further from the truth. Conditions were normally horrible. The conditions captured people were kept in in Africa, the Middle Passage, the slave auctions, the living conditions, the physical violence, the loss of language and culture, the destruction of family units and, last but certainly not least, the industrial-scale, systematic rape of enslaved people for centuries, easily numbering in the tens of millions of victims.

But I have to object to the implication that the EU is somehow free of any of this. Like the UK, France and Germany (in particular) don't have far-right to neo-Nazi movements threatening to take over government.

Also, ask any average European about Romany, Syrians, Turks, North Africans, Arabs, Muslims in general, Polish people or Russians and there's a decent chance you won't get American-style racism, you'll get almost "scientific racism". I'd posit that a decent number of Europeans are only 1-2 steps away from taking phrenology seriously.

You will hear arguments like "they don't assimilate" or "it's cultural not racism", just as you would in the US.

bitexploder• 2 months ago

I was in high school in the 90s in the deep south and was taught about the horrors of slavery. Has that changed? Not disagreeing about reconstruction. It established a pattern of letting conservatives get away with their malfeasance and “let’s just get along” politically instead of extracting a real price for crime and destructive behavior.

anelson• 2 months ago

Anecdote time:

My Eastern European wife and I recently faced the decision of how to go about getting her a green card. At the time we lived outside the US.

One option was to enter the US on her B1 visa pretending to have no “immigration intent” and then “change our mind” a respectable number of days later and apply for AOS. The process for this was 1.5 to 2 years. I didn’t want to do it for that reason and because I wasn’t comfortable with what amounts to visa fraud, but our attorney presented it as a pretty standard option.

The other option was consular processing. This wasn’t automatic. Our attorney contacted a few consulates in the region where we lived to see if any would accept our case (due to war the consulate in her home country wasn’t handling routine cases). We got approved for consular processing in Budapest.

I had to go once as the US citizen spouse to submit our application packet and do a pro forma interview. Then a few months later it was my wife’s turn to go to the interview.

The process, like any immigration process, was paperwork heavy and nerve wracking. The final interview was very simple and felt like a formality.

In that case once approved she received a visa that would be stamped upon entry to the US and this would count as a temporary green card pending receipt of the physical card.

All of this happened during the second Trump administration so I was expecting a hostile or at least adversarial process. But it was quite the opposite. Total elapsed time was about six months from initial attorney consult to entry into the US as an LPR. It would have been faster if our attorney was more on the ball getting our final interview appointment.

If I were to find myself in need of a green card for a foreign spouse again I would opt for consular processing if given the choice. Now that it’s required I imagine there will be a longer backlog.

Obviously if you need to do this at one of the consulates that no longer offers consular processing that’s a different story. I was fortunate that the Budapest consulate agreed to take our case.

dyauspitr2• 2 months ago

How to destroy the greatest country on earth.

sys_64738• 2 months ago

Petrodollar is gone now. Only ships paying in Yuan can exit the Strait.

jimmydoe• 2 months ago

There's no THE greatest country; every country can be great.

US&A has been the escape hatch for oppressive regime in China/Russia/... for many years, young people from there seek freedom in US, instead of fight for freedom in their own.

Individual freedom is great but collectively they made people who can't migrate have less and less freedom. Some expected US&A compensate that with trade, military and twitter, which all turned out to be disasters.

I'm sorry for anyone stuck in those processes, but for long term US&A giving up on Green card / dual citizenship is not necessarily a bad thing for the world.

talon86353• 2 months ago

Individual freedom is great but collectively they made people who can't migrate have less and less freedom

Damned if we don’t allow people in and, apparently, damned also if we do allow some in

Your strange argument would actually support this policy: stop letting these people into the USA so that they stay in their own repressive countries and are forced to reform them.

sleepybrett• 2 months ago

... by what metric is/was the us 'the greatest country on earth'?

beej713• 2 months ago

We just dropped three points to 81% on the Freedom House freedom index, so it's certainly not that.

Jare• 2 months ago

the greatest country on earth.

Hundreds of millions of people from abroad shared that belief up until 2 decades ago or so. I don't think they believe it anymore. It's been like watching your awesome high school friend throw away their lives over time.

saltcured2• 2 months ago

Step 1: tell ourselves we are the greatest on earth?

rebekkamikkoa2• 2 months ago

I don’t think this is realistic at all.

It basically means a huge percentage of these people might never come back. Once you go back to your home country, life moves on. Your plans change. Your path changes. And that could be terrible for the economy.

Hundreds of thousands of people either wouldn’t enter the local economy, or they’d be delayed for a very long time. I really don’t see companies being okay with that. Think about all the students who are ready to enter the job market. Instead, they’d have to go back home, wait for a visa, and only then come back. That kills the speed of the economy and makes hiring way more unpredictable.Or at the very least, it would seriously slow things down.

TimedToasts• 2 months ago

Number must go up

thinkcontext2• 2 months ago

Curious how the tech lobby will react. You would hope Musk and Huang might take their own personal experience into account.

rebekkamikkoa2• 2 months ago

Absolutely. I don't think they will be happy.

So many great students will be off the market. This will affect to the whole tech space. No way they will be happy with this decision.

pixel_popping6• 2 months ago

Not from the US, but is a green card actually necessary to work there after studying? afaik student visa is different from green card right?

Most countries, you get a visa of some kind but you have no way to permanent residency at all unless you marry but you can keep staying there somewhat permanently.

Arodex• 2 months ago

Musk has no problem "pulling the ladder behind him", and Huang's only duty is to shareholders - which means kissing Trump's ring to avoid retaliation.

Americans voted for this.

driverdan• 2 months ago

You think either of them care about other human beings? They have continuously demonstrated they only care about themselves.

declan_roberts9• 2 months ago

The tech industry and general business lobby is extremely pro H1b/immigration. They're probably the only thing holding back a total ban on h1b immigration right now.

In some ways that industry is losing a tool. Sponsoring a green card used to be the prize they dangle in front of the h1b to keep their nose to the grindstone.

thinkcontext2• 2 months ago

Another immigration policy that would have negatively effected Trump's own wife. Oh well, she got hers.

This could be a big deal for Big Tech. I wonder how personal experience of Musk and Huang will play into how they react.

amazingamazing6• 2 months ago

From now on, an alien who is in the US temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances

Whats the equivalent policy for other countries? Can you stay like you could prior to this?

noodlesUK3• 2 months ago

Many other countries including UK enforce a similar rule. It's very inconvenient in those countries, but there's a significant difference: in most other countries that have this kind of policy, visas can typically be processed in a timely fashion (and are actually processed at all). It's insanely expensive and very arduous administratively to get a visa for the UK as the spouse of a British citizen, but the process will typically only take a month or so.

zipy124• 2 months ago

Isn't the Uk the opposite? There are many visas in which you have to be in the UK to apply. This is why we have people coming on boats, and why they are not illegal immigrants. They technically have to travel here to apply for aslyum, and since they do not have a visa cannot take conventional transport, but it is entirely legal for them to come here on a small boat as long as they present themselves to the authorities to claim aslyum upon arrival.

Graduate visa's are the same for example, where you cannot apply abroad, so you must be careful not to leave the country between graduating and getting that visa.

ShinyLeftPad• 2 months ago

It's insanely expensive and very arduous administratively to get a visa for the UK as the spouse of a British citizen

How expensive is it?

dwa35924• 2 months ago

In other countries (Germany, France, Canada etc) - there are spelled out paths for getting the permanent residency. I would be a permanent residency by now or maybe even a citizen if I had decided to go to any other developed country. But here, after 10 years, with a clean record, I worry I will be picked up by ICE someday.

asploder• 2 months ago

I first entered Canada with my spouse as a visitor, then got a work permit as a NAFTA intra-company transfer, then became a permanent resident – all without having to return stateside for immigration reasons.

TFNA4• 2 months ago

In European Union countries, transitioning from a temporary residence permit to a permanent residence permit is typically done inside the country: once one meets the eligibility based on length of stay or whatever, one files an application with the local immigration office. No need to leave and apply from outside.

jfengel3• 2 months ago

I hear "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant" a lot. To which there is an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow.

Instead we're doing exactly the opposite, cutting down on legal immigration as well. Making it hard for me to believe that it was ever about illegal immigration at all.

happytoexplain7• 2 months ago

In my experience, the phrase is just used to mean, "I don't hate immigrants, but..." (which, like the phrase "I'm not racist, but...", you are free to doubt case-by-case). I.e. it is not inherently inconsistent to apply the same disclaimer regarding a belief that legal immigration is too loose, too high, mismanaged, whatever; since that doesn't necessitate a belief that immigration as a concept is bad.

stego-tech3• 2 months ago

I'm right there with you, and it's why I go to great pains to articulate the entirety of my position on immigration when I get into these sorts of debates. The simpler someone's position on immigration is, the less they understand it at length or the more extremist their viewpoints tend to be.

zulux• 2 months ago

It's wickedly complicated, isn't it? I'm distressed by anybody who doesn't change their position from time to time.

Aniket-N4• 2 months ago

Threads like these make me realize how wrong people can be. I understand the complexity and can see how misinformed people are. Makes me wonder what happens in other threads where I know little and just take whatever at face value. Eesh.

gib4442• 2 months ago

Do you believe mass immigration has any negative side effects, at all?

Let's say hypothetically the UK increased its population by around 3 million since 2020, including one particular influx designed and implemented by Boris Johnson to suppress wage inflation, which had a direct effect on the lower end of the job market for the native population. You could also easily argue it led to a direct surge in popularity of the far right party Reform.

Purely hypothetical of course...

You'd consider that a good thing?

cmiles74• 2 months ago

Even worse, with changes like this we are taking large swathes of legal immigrants and transforming them into illegal immigrants. It reads to me that a substantial number of green card applicants will now be subject to ICE detention.

leoqa• 2 months ago

The cynical take is that with US companies expecting productivity increases via AI, they need to protect the US workers from competition via foreign labor. The current administration was voted in with an anti-immigration mandate so this is consistent. The practical reality is that you are not safe on any visa, it can be terminated arbitrarily by the state department and your recourse is likely expensive and timely.

Georgelemental• 2 months ago

I hear it a lot too. It makes no sense. Obviously, if only the illegality was the problem, we could just declare all immigration legal and that would "solve" it. But it wouldn't, obviously, because that's not what people are concerned about at all

peyton2• 2 months ago

What are people concerned about? If I walk into your house uninvited, that’s trespassing. Is that “solved” by declaring all entry into residences legal?

rubyfan• 2 months ago

It wasn’t ever about illegal immigration. It’s a way to make the position sound logical and tolerable. Now the goal post is moving to make only certain people legal.

p_j_w2• 2 months ago

Trump equivocated when it came time to condemn people shouting “The Jews will not replace us” and the Proud Boys. Anyone who thinks it’s just about illegal immigrants is delusional.

JCattheATM• 2 months ago

I hear "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant" a lot.

A lot of those people had no issue with ICE bullying and detaining legal immigrants.

cwillu• 2 months ago

Or citizens who look like a immigrants.

cmiles84• 2 months ago

Somewhat ironically many of those most vocal about supporting all this are immigrants.

Those that jumped through all the hoops above bar, paid their dues in a messed up system where they bit their upper lip and got through it, and have been extremely frustrated at others trying to game the system.

behnamoh3• 2 months ago

I was one of them, and supported the idea of going after illegal immigrants. But now they're coming after me too, a faculty with a PhD, researching AI.

b0sk• 2 months ago

This was from the official DHS account -- https://xcancel.com/DHSgov/status/2006472108222853298

What do you think they mean by "100 million"?

snapplebobapple2• 2 months ago

Point of order: that is blatantly untrue. Anti illegal immigrant has everything to do with ensuring the people in the country are known and allowed. It is completely uncoupled from legal immigration. To say an easy solution is increasing legal immigration is just saying lets leave all the security holes wide open and just make it so only the real bad guys use them because others have an easier time going legal.

amanaplanacanal6• 2 months ago

You could keep the vetting system and still increase legal immigration a lot. Those are two separate issues.

simonsarris• 2 months ago

Many people hold one or more of the following positions:

1. Illegal immigration is bad, and we should do more to reduce it.

2. Immigration (any kind) is too numerous. Eg someone could say "Nashua, New Hampshire is now 17.2% foreign born and I think that is too high." Within 2. there are multiple separate reasons to have the position. One could think that its bad for assimilation, or one could be upset that the Nashua school system's budget increases are almost completely due to having to hire more ELL staff to accommodate the rapid rise in non-English speakers in a school system that used to be almost entirely English speakers. I'm sure there are more complicated examples but I hope that one is easy to understand.

3. Immigration (any kind) is used to lower wages of the working and middle class via labor and program abuses. At the low end, this used to be a leftist talking point (the kind Bernie Sanders once talked about). At the high end, it is grousing about H1B abuses. Despite many agreeing that th program has large abuses, H1Bs are legal immigrants.

Your idea of an "easy solution" doesn't remotely correspond to a solution for people who think #2 or #3. Even for #1, someone who dislikes illegal immigration does not necessarily want more legal immigration, though that used to be a very common view (eg, Bill Clinton in the 1990s, I think George Bush too). If a person believes #3, increasing the number of legal immigrants may simply increase the corresponding abuses.

n.b. the text above is descriptive, not normative.

thisisit2• 2 months ago

Its not about immigration at all. It is about creating a "us vs them" tribal narrative. That's why people defend even US citizens being harassed under this administration. And the justification is because they might hold a different PoV.

The irony is that if anyone thinks they are going to solve this problem - I have a bridge to sell. If GoP solves this then they are going to lose of the biggest talking points in next elections. I can see this being challenged and drama played out for long time saying "other side" is not letting them move forward with it.

All the while the "extraordinary" Green Card will actually be "ordinary" - done by greasing POTUS palms. Because POTUS and his supporters are hell bent on turning America into a third world low trust country.

tstrimple• 2 months ago

This pattern plays out across so many things conservatives say. It was never about free speech. It was never about being civil after someone was killed. It was never about balancing the budget. Their anti-dei stance was never about fairness. And no it was never about illegal immigration. It’s almost like they lie constantly about their beliefs. To themselves as much as everyone else.

mikelitoris• 2 months ago

It’s a smokescreen people use to claim it’s not racist. It reminds me of that south park episode with the cable company representatives with velcro pockets. “Oh you want to migrate here legally? Oh it will take 3 years and it requires an active employment offer at application time and on arrival? Oh no… tell me more”

ern• 2 months ago

I know this is going to. be contentious, but US mainstream discourse seems to have completely eliminated the distinction between illegal and legal immigration, in the last 10 years. Everyone seems to be a "migrant".

postflopclarity3• 2 months ago

US policy has also nearly completely eliminated the distinction, by making legal immigration close to impossible and ~arresting~ kidnapping people at courthouses who are there for their immigration hearings, then shipping them off to foreign torture camps.

Fraterkes• 2 months ago

Nearly half of the workforce of crop farmworkers in the US is made up of "illegal" immigrants. The US food-supply relying on those people has meant that, in practice, immigration law enforcement is deliberately selective and self-serving.

So, the idea of illegal immigration as a vice worth cracking down on and punishing has not been consistently applied by the people publicly condemning it (like this current administration), meaning there is a very real sense in which the distinction between illegal and legal immigration is not real.

0xDEAFBEAD11• 2 months ago

I don't think that is true at all. For example, it was considered a big deal when ICE was rounding up US citizens. It caused a big drop in public trust for ICE.

rwmj• 2 months ago

The aim is not to fix the problem. These populists would be out of power the moment the problem is fixed. They want to prolong it - even make it worse - because that's what keeps people angry.

kadomony• 2 months ago

It's not. Trump has always wanted to revert back to a predominantly white America if he could achieve it. The government is racist and hides their racism behind shitty interpretations of our founding articles.

seanmcdirmid5• 2 months ago

They were always just against immigrants, legal or not. It was obvious back then, it should be super obvious now. And most of them didn’t really hate all immigrants, just those with a particular skin color. The MAGA movement was always racist at its core, no one should be surprised by the turns it has taken.

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

There are deeper lesson here.

First, a lot of the immigrants that people complain about now are only immigrants because the US fucked up their country. Venezuela is the poster child for this. There are consqeuences to destabilizing other countries for American corporate interests.

Second, companies like illegal immigration. It allows them to pay people sub-minimum wage in horrible working conditions and if the workers every complain, you just call in ICE to deport them. You pay a small fine for employing undocumented migrants and the next day hire a new batch. You probably even have avoided paying wages to the deported workers.

Third, a lot of attention is paid to people who sneak into the country. This is the minority. Also, "entering without inspection" (that's the legal term) is a civil infraction (unless you've previously been deported; then it's a crime), much like a traffic ticket. You technically aren't a criminal if you do this.

But the majority of undocumented migrants are visa overstayers. They get a legal visa to come to the US, often a visit visa, a student visa or a temporary work permit (eg J1, H2A, H2b) and just don't leave.

And to answer your implied question, it's not about illegal immigration. It's about white supremacy and the exploitation of labor under capitalism.

JuniperMesos13• 2 months ago

But the majority of undocumented migrants are visa overstayers. They get a legal visa to come to the US, often a visit visa, a student visa or a temporary work permit (eg J1, H2A, H2b) and just don't leave.

Yes, and that's a big part of the motivation for this policy of forcing people on temporary visas to physically leave the US in order to apply for permanent residency. It prevents people who get a temporary visa and plan to overstay that visa and nonetheless apply for some kind of pathway to permanent residency in the US from being able to do that.

nroets2• 2 months ago

Do you have any proof it's "white supremacy and the exploitation of labor under capitalism." ? Why can't it just be xenophobia ?

There's xenophobia almost everywhere: Just look at South Africa this year.

bluegatty5• 2 months ago

"an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow."

Not really.

The answer is: have a fair, transparent and function system.

Then - yes - you can totally 'increase' (or decrease) as needed.

'Increase a bit' likely the right thing to do - but it's a completely separate question.

But throwing Green Card holders out is completely insane, grabbing people out of church and schools and putting them into detention without oversight is cruel and inhumane.

The national debate is insane.

Just basic, normal, reasonable policy and process.

That's it.

Like DMV level stuff.

Then you can adjust the numbers one way or another.

echelon• 2 months ago

Then you can adjust the numbers one way or another.

The numbers need to go up.

China, in particular, has an "elite overproduction" problem. We should be welcoming every English-speaking Chinese STEM degree holder with open arms.

Anyone, from anywhere, with a STEM degree and a job offer from a US company, should be in this country. Period.

America needs to be the leader of the knowledge workforce world. We also need a vibrant and wealthy tax base and consumer base.

If we don't do this, China and other up-and-coming nations will increasingly start to displace us, which puts all of our workers at a disadvantage.

Larrikin• 2 months ago

Trump grew up when anybody not white legally could be treated as less than. He lost this legal ability in his formative years in college.

Stephen Miller is upset he never got to experience that.

Immigrants from Europe will some how get an exception depending on their skin color. Same goes for South Africans

platevoltage14• 2 months ago

I'm not anti immigrant, I just really care about paperwork \s

SecretDreams2• 2 months ago

They only want a certain type of immigrants. I know some that go through the process easy breezy and others that absolutely suffer. It is largely dictated by country of origin, outside of the normal checkboxes.

happytoexplain7• 2 months ago

Everybody across the world only wants a certain type of immigrant. The salient difference is whether the definition of "certain type" is petty or not (e.g. based on skin color vs based on qualifications).

hibgymnb2• 2 months ago

The reality is that people who say that are certainly anti-immigration, they just know people don’t like when they say that

JuniperMesos13• 2 months ago

There are plenty of voices explicitly saying that there are too many legal immigrants coming to the US under existing US immigration law, whose presence is not good for the majority of existing Americans despite not being illegal.

E.g. https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-we-ha...

And by the way, I want to make – I want to be very clear. I’m not just talking about illegal immigration, we have way too many legal immigrants coming into this country, too. 1.5 to 1.6 million legal people coming – Ilhan Omar came in legally and she hates the country. She’s a sleeper cell infiltrator of the United States representing Congress. She hates the country. She hates the west. She should be deported back to where she came from, Somalia. Go run for City Council in Mogadishu. The country is not enriched by people like Ilhan Omar.

marcusverus2• 2 months ago

Democrats actively encouraged more than 10 million illegals to pour into the country during the previous administration. They lied about it and downplayed it for three years, and then (when election season rolled around) they talked tough about their plan to "seal the border"... which was another lie, as the bill they proposed would have allowed illegal immigration to continue at up to ~6X the historical average rate without requiring any action whatsoever to "seal the border". When the American people vote for mass deportations, those were called "fascism" and the basic enforcement of immigration law is actively, even physically opposed.

But an inconvenient process change has you clutching your pearls and crying "bad faith"? Yikes.

amanaplanacanal6• 2 months ago

I'm curious what you think "actively encouraged" means here?

array_key_first18• 2 months ago

Okay so? Just saying "buh buh immigration!" doesn't demonstrate why the immigration is bad, which was the posters point.

Also, the fascism isn't enforcement, lol, and you know that. I hate people who try to be cheeky and dishonest and hope nobody is paying attention.

No, I know you've talked with people on the left. The problem is pouring tens of billions of our taxpayer dollars into ICE while they:

1. Do fuck all to improve the economy

2. Cause violence in our cities for no discernable gain

3. Have already shot and killed numerous American citizens

4. Regularly violate civil liberties because they have zero accountability

I mean, listen: you've won. We have the secret police, we've been deporting people left and right.

Well... is it better? Did it magically fix the economy like dumbass Republicans told you it would? Or is everything still shit?

Same shit as DOGE. "Ohh we just have to cut some stuff! Get those greedy Dems and their welfare state!"

Well, we cut it. Okay where's my check? Right guys?

Oh... or were we just duped. And maybe the reason you, and others, can't admit it is because your ego is bigger than your need for self preservation?

tty456• 2 months ago

The "anti illegal immigrant" crowd ignores, or more likely supports, the systemic racism built into the current immigration system put in place by racist lawmakers throughout the country.

This new policy is no different and is a trap to kick out and never accept back more non-white immigrants.

caminante5• 2 months ago

How is a scheme systemically racist when >50% of 13M green card holders are from Latin/South America and Caribbean?

You can't be serious.

BrenBarn• 2 months ago

I agree. I think there are ways to do that that could get more support than the way we're currently doing things.

Imagine if we began processing immigration applications at a rate ten- or a hundredfold of what we currently do. Imagine if just about anyone could get in, barring things like people with actual serious criminal records, etc. Imagine if when you got in via that system, you got some kind of long-term resident visa, which required you to pay an additional tax for, say, the next 10 years. Also imagine that this long-term resident visa gave you a path to citizenship, on condition of permanently renouncing all other citizenships you might hold. In other words, imagine that becoming a legal immigrant was far less onerous in process, but slightly more onerous in official requirements.

Such a plan could be framed as encouraging immigrants who want to "put down roots", and that kind of immigration is much more plausibly spun as beneficial, because people who move to a place to live permanently do not want it to be sucky. By making the process simpler but applying clear costs (e.g., extra tax), it also gives people an easy to way to demonstrate that they want to do things the right way.

Also, making the process more straightforward makes it much more politically palatable to deport people who violate it (which will still happen). A large part of the "bleeding-heart" leftist perspective towards immigrants stems from a sense that many people who immigrate illegally do so because "they had no other choice". If the bar to legal immigration is lowered so that it becomes a live option, this argument is harder to make.

Aniket-N4• 2 months ago

It took us 12-15 years to get a GC (depends on how you count).

People who fraudulently or illegally come in have had it easier. And I was in the top 1% earner, built things that everyone here on HN has used. I’ve contributed a lot and struggled to get recognized. People don’t know how much of a mess this is. They claim they want smart people to come to the US. The system isn’t setup for it.

sagarm2• 2 months ago

It's the Stephen Miller types that instituted a policy that throttled GCs by country of birth, independent of that country's population, as a way to achieve racial bias without explicitly talking about race.

Miller's ilk is ascendant in this administration and their Court has blessed their approach to discrimination.

frogperson2• 2 months ago

Anyone who uses this line is a racist.

happytoexplain7• 2 months ago

Some people.

lovich4• 2 months ago

Most of them saying they are anti illegal immigrant are lying if you dive into their numbers. It conveniently lines up with the legal asylum seekers.

Usually when I find out someone’s making that deceptive claim and call them out on it they quickly admit that they don’t think asylum is/should be legal

bluecheese45221• 2 months ago

Presumably the people saying that mean they like immigrants that meet the current requirements not a different set.

Otherwise we could just get rid of immigration law and then everyone would be a legal immigrant.

cmiles84• 2 months ago

This is a bit extreme. On the other end of the spectrum the existing system is heavily abused and hard to defend. For example many if not most PERM applications in tech are a complete sham. Putting tiny job adverts burred deep in a newspaper hoping nobody applies to try and say there are no skilled workers in the US is just one example of current abuse of the system.

hellojesus4• 2 months ago

Isn't the correct response to the sham hirings to regulate that jobs are posted on a gov-run board for some period of time, ~30 days, before you can claim no qualified workers? That seems more reasonable than turning the spigot off entirely.

cmiles84• 2 months ago

Perhaps. But given the volume of abuse that appears to be out there the tactic is more turn it all off then selectively back on where appropriate.

Thats obviously extreme but given the abuse in the status quo it’s hard to defend what was going on and whine about this now. Some folks are obviously angry, but that anger is better directed at those that were abusing the system not those trying to fix it.

sokoloff3• 2 months ago

Only if that job board was an actually useful and common source for genuine hiring. If it becomes “these companies are checking a box, don’t bother applying” or “these companies are considering an H1-B application, flood them with resumes”, neither of those is helpful to qualified workers who actually want to find a job.

ianhawes2• 2 months ago

You've just described what already has to occur for PERM, you have to post on the respective State Workforce Agency website.

dwa35924• 2 months ago

Not anymore. My PERM was cancelled for this exact reason. The job advert was put on LinkedIn and the company's website like any other job. They didn't hire the local worker either because they didn't pass the interview but my perm had to be cancelled bc a skilled local worker with "minimum qualifications" existed.

What you are saying used to happen but not anymore.

OptionOfT• 2 months ago

Interesting that there is a difference between minimum qualifications and actually qualified to do the job.

What is minimum qualifications? Enough to get an interview?

ianhawes2• 2 months ago

They still do the tiny print in a Sunday newspaper, they just also now are supposed to post on LinkedIn and the website (aka normal hiring process).

mpalmer• 2 months ago

So punish/disincentivize employers. This is a burden on the presumptive legal immigrant.

nceqs33• 2 months ago

Exactly this. The difference in the pitch to voters (labor market test) vs the actual implementation (box checking sham), just shows how dishonest the whole tech industry and immigration lobby is about this. The actual solution is somewhere in the middle, but it will likely never happen because those with political capital and high social status benefit enormously from low wage h1b/opt/l1 workers. The people who are hurt by these immigration programs don't have high social status so nobody cares.

Ironic that liberals turn into libertarian boot likers for mega corps when it comes to immigration.

cogman106• 2 months ago

So much of the US immigration process is built around punishing and exploiting. The primary reason for the strong border is allowing farms and construction companies to find cheap labor which can't complain about mistreatment.

It helps that a decent portion of the population hates and/or is fearful anyone different from themselves. That is what's allowed for these even more draconian and brutal measures.

hellojesus4• 2 months ago

This is the part that is the wildest to me. The current system seems to generate a collection of second-class citizens: people we openly rely on for labor but that have no recourse if they're exploited and no regulatory protections such as minimum wage (even though I argue against min wage, if we're going to have it, have it!).

My personal preference would be to allow nearly unlimited legal immigration but strip welfare programs for all. In this way we allow anyone and everyone to become an economic participant, voting participant after the naturalization process, and mitigate those immigrating purely for handouts.

But I haven't thought through this policy well. Maybe there is something this seemingly solution is missing.

bognition• 2 months ago

Is this a surprise? This is hardly anything new. The United States was built with slavery.

jfengel3• 2 months ago

There are vastly fewer "immigrants for handouts" than right wing media would like you to believe. Coming to the US is incredibly challenging. People who do it are mostly young and wish to work, to support families. Handouts don't accomplish that.

It take tremendous effort to immigrate, legally or illegally. Anyone telling you that they are lazy is obviously lying.

actionfromafar• 2 months ago

Best I can give you is Russian oligarchs and criminals, and corporate welfare. Deal?

alistairSH3• 2 months ago

That’s by design. Maybe not initially, but we’ve been having this immigration debate as long as I’ve been politically aware, which is going on 4 decades. It absolutely is the desired outcome today.

Mezzie• 2 months ago

But I haven't thought through this policy well. Maybe there is something this seemingly solution is missing.

What about long term immigrants who end up disabled through no fault of their own? Or who get cancer? Or who end up having a child (who is an American citizen) and that child is special needs and the immigrant can't manage a full time job and care for their child? If they get pregnant and end up on bed rest or with a traumatic birth that takes them out of the workforce for a period of time?

There are ways to end up needing to rely on welfare that aren't due to laziness or a desire for handouts.

If the answer is 'kick them out', I'd be worried about what we're teaching our American kids watching. There are two lessons they could pick up, and neither is good for their moral development or sense of self. The first is that anyone who lacks the ability to work has no value, and that will engender greater alienation and isolation as they place all of their self-worth on their ability to earn money. They'll look upon the elderly, children, and caretakers with disdain (Interestingly, this probably won't help the birth rates either...). The second is that they are protected but those people should be disposed of when they're not useful. This will make them arrogant and introduce the idea of dehumanizing other groups, which will further the cracks of division in our society.

xdennis2• 2 months ago

The current system seems to generate a collection of second-class citizens

Poor choice of words. Illegals are not citizens. That's the whole point.

have no recourse if they're exploited

The recourse is to go back. In the era when you could just immigrate to the US just by getting on a boat (before the Immigration Act of 1924), about 1/3 of immigrants went back to their home country if they did not make it in the US.

See:

From 1908 to 1932, 12 million individuals migrated to the United States. Over the same period, four million returned to their source country.

-- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144... (you have to pirate it to view the full thing)

But now, the expectation of leftists is that the government is somehow supposed to help the failed immigrants.

wombatpm• 2 months ago

Are you going to allow ER’s to refuse patients and let people die on the street? What if the Patient is unconscious with no identification but looks Hispanic? Can they be turned away?

Stripping away all wefare because of immigration is a bad bad bad idea.

tick_tock_tick• 2 months ago

This is the part that is the wildest to me. The current system seems to generate a collection of second-class citizens

What do you mean seems too. The biggest proponents of immigration routinely ask "who's going to work the fields?" As a call to allow immigration. I don't know how to interpret that as anything but importing an underclass.

JOnAgain• 2 months ago

Kids. Kids are the piece of this policy you haven’t considered. Poor people have kids too. Then you have starving babies in the street and 5 year olds trying to find work to pay for food. Then you might think, “okay, maybe we take care of kids. Healthcare? Food? Education?” Great. But do you have forced separation from parents in order to provide these services just to the kids? What if the parents eat the kids food because they’re starving. Now you have to feed the parents. And providing care for orphans costs more than healthcare for parents, so probably rational to give them healthcare too. And do you want to create a system where having a kid gets you food and healthcare? Probably don’t want that incentive. So now you’re maybe giving food and healthcare to people without kids.

So, whenever you think about purely capitalistic policies with no social policies, we just have to be okay with having a large number of babies and toddlers starving on the streets in front of us.

When you hear about republicans cutting $900 billion from Medicaid, and millions of families losing coverage, that means children. Almost 50% of Medicaid recipients are children. Most of the other 50% are their parents. So millions of children now do not have healthcare. Your post advocates for millions more to lose coverage. That translates to children dying and having lifelong disabilities from otherwise preventable illnesses.

The other inevitable outcome of policies like this is exploitation of women. It might start with “voluntary” sex work, but it becomes a bigger business that invites true exploitation and rapidly leads to human trafficking. Btw, that “voluntary” is there because it’s usually a choice between sex work and spiraling into homelessness and poverty - so not super voluntary to begin with. And we’re not even counting women more women who stay in abusive relationships because they are fully dependent on their partner for sustenance and shelter.

All that is to say that anytime advocate for a certain set of social policies over another, it’s usually informative to look at how they impact the most vulnerable in our society. Start with kids, then consider disabled and women. And finally ask why we’re generally okay with men starving on the street but not toddlers.

palmotea• 2 months ago

The primary reason for the strong border is allowing farms and construction companies to find cheap labor which can't complain about mistreatment.

That doesn't make any sense. If you want "cheap labor [that] can't complain about mistreatment," you want a weak border, not a strong one, because a weak border creates a larger pool of illegal immigrants to draw from.

A strong border, at a minimum, reduces the supply of illegal immigrants, and may even push the employer into hiring people with legal immigration status who can complain and sue over mistreatment.

It helps that a decent portion of the population hates and/or is fearful anyone different from themselves. That is what's allowed for these even more draconian and brutal measures.

I'd put it another way: a large part of the population has been put under a lot of stress and pressure, while simultaneously being intensely conditioned to not blame the people actually responsible. That stress has to go somewhere. Don't blame the little guys, even if you find them contemptible because they're not from your culture. Blaming the little guy (for "hat[ing]...anyone different from themselves") is another aspect of the conditioning that protects those actually responsible.

sokoloff3• 2 months ago

Strong border policies with moderate (weaker) and selective enforcement will give the combination that GP describes: enough supply backed by the threat of strong individual penalties if someone here illegally “gets out of line”.

cogman106• 2 months ago

because a weak border creates a larger pool of illegal immigrants to draw from.

A larger pool with more rights and less fear of being deported. That means it's easier for them to pick and choose the jobs they do or even to start their own businesses.

They could, for example, form a union without the fear of deportation.

Look, if this were all about stopping illegal immigration, there are very fast paths to doing that. A prime one would be punishing not the immigrant, but the employer of the immigrant. Fine every farm in the US that employs an illegal immigrant and you'd quickly see the number of those jobs being worked drop.

But that's not what ICE is about which is why they and legislators haven't done that really basic enforcement.

Heck, at the start of this admin, Trump had to pull back ICE from raiding farms because the business interests of the farmers collided with the xenophobia of Steven Miller.

hakrgrl• 2 months ago

Why does the US have to offer jobs to the whole world? People flood US borders like it's a magnet sucking them in and cry when they can't stay. If it's so exploitive why don't people stay in their own country or go somewhere else?

cogman106• 2 months ago

People flood US borders

They have "flooded" the US borders because in the first Trump term, Trump instituted a policy of having applicants for all sorts of reasons to have to stay in Mexico before they can be accepted.

That's the primary reason why there are now huge encampments at the border. They weren't there under Obama, Bush, or Clinton.

why don't people stay in their own country or go somewhere else?

A lot of people are asylum seekers, and a lot of that reason they are seeking asylum is US policy which has destroyed their home nations. The best example of this being the likes Venezuela, Cuba, and Haite. The US putting international trade embargos on governments it doesn't like, plunging them into poverty, creates a bunch of refuges.

Some people are simply seeking a better life. Some have bought into american propaganda about how awesome the US is to live in. Some people are simply trafficked into the US for the explicit purpose of being exploited. (In fact, that's the majority of human trafficking in the US [1]).

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/human-trafficking-quick-facts

pparanoidd• 2 months ago

lol "draconian and brutal measures", it is not your right to become a citizen in another country, they are doing YOU a favour. If at any point you think it is unfair, go somewhere else.

hax0ron33• 2 months ago

I question the idea that the US has a strong border compared to other countries of a comparable economic and development level.

Also, allowing farms and construction companies to find cheap labor is a reason for a weak border, not a reason for a strong border.

cogman106• 2 months ago

I question the idea that the US has a strong border compared to other countries of a comparable economic and development level.

It's all over the map. A lot of countries are easier to visit. Becoming a citizen, however, is difficult for most countries.

Also, allowing farms and construction companies to find cheap labor is a reason for a weak border, not a reason for a strong border.

You are mistaken in thinking this is a normal labor market. The reason it reduces prices is because it weakens the ability for labor to negotiate. A strong border with internal enforcement makes it easier for a farmer to tell a day laborer "do this, or I'll call ICE on you". How well do you think a day laborer can negotiate a raise in that circumstance?

Consider, for example, the fact that farmers aren't employing US citizens or documented workers even though they are infinitely more abundant than undocumented workers. Why do you think that is? What mechanism is making the undocumented worker cheap and the documented one expensive?

A fast path to documentation and more rights lets more people in, but it also increases the labor costs because the workers are able to negotiate in the market.

scottyeager• 2 months ago

Refusing future applications to adjust status would be one thing (still wrong, in my opinion). The fact that they are canceling pending applications is simply evil. There will be so much unnecessary anguish and expense. I really feel for anybody who is now learning they will have to leave and wait years to come live in the US with their spouse, due to overstayed visas which were supposed to be forgiven under the status quo.

coolThingsFirst2• 2 months ago

Why on earth would they need to wait years?

lazide2• 2 months ago

Says right in the comment.

SyneRyder• 2 months ago

From the article:

"Forcing green card applicants to leave will render many green card applicants’ ineligible because, when they leave the United States, they will trigger the 3- or 10-year bars on receiving an immigrant visa based on accrual of unlawful presence."

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

This administration is doing things that are illegal. They're getting sued and they're losing. Constantly. But that's expensive and time-consuming for immigrants, which I guess is the point.

USCIS doesn't have the authority to just unlawfully deny a case. It can be challenged in court. They can make your life really difficult. For example, they can put you in removal proceedings if you're an overstayer with a petition that they unlawfully deny and then you're out of status. So now you have to go to immigration court, where the odds are stacked against you, and either get your case approved there or get removal proceedings cancelled. And the administration is holding certain people in removal without bond even if they've been here for decades. And some people, like those on ESTA, have waived their right to see an immigration judge at all.

They prefer what's called "consular processing" (applying outside of the country vs "adjustment of status" in country) is that it takes way longer and the administration has way more power to arbitrarily deny your case, as is the case with certain current banned countries. The Supreme Court ruled the president's power to limit visas to certain countries can't be challenged. The case was from the first Trump term. It's called Trump v. Hawaii [1].

But one thing they are also doing, which is evil, is taking advantage of people come to a USCIS interview without an immigration attorney. They separate the couple and threaten the US citizen that they're committing fraud and to withdraw the case or they get the immigrant to admit things that are false or they just outright deny the case on faulty grounds because people aren't knowledgeable enough to fight back without a professional. It is evil.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._Hawaii

ai_slop_hater• 2 months ago

This administration is doing things that are illegal. They're getting sued and they're losing. Constantly.

Source?

dilyevsky2• 2 months ago

What’s different is in this case is applicants have years of status “runway” and can just sue or wait it out so to speak. I’m betting they will have to walk some of it back

tokioyoyo• 2 months ago

They're getting sued and they're losing.

This means nothing if there are no real consequences in terms of change in behaviour. Every country has their own priorities, and looks like the US decided to move on from pax-Americana.

timr12• 2 months ago

The fact that they are canceling pending applications is simply evil.

Where have you seen this documented? I haven't, and the only government statement I've seen about this was fairly clear that the change is for new applications.

I am genuinely asking. I have friends who are going through the process.

koalaman• 2 months ago

This is a really horrible policy and I personally know a fair few people and families that are going to have their lives upended by this.

On the other hand I've always wondered if most of America's competitive advantage at driving tech innovation hasn't simply been through capturing the ROI of other more social minded countries investing in public education. It could be a massive long term benefit to Europe and Asia especially if they get to keep the talent they created, and more globally distributed innovation seems like it could have some benefits to global welfare.

rangestransform• 2 months ago

Those countries could keep their own talent through economic policy (i.e. fuck you pay me)

That they don’t is entirely their own fault and they deserve to be brain drained. “Talent” are people with agency and not possessions subservient to national interests.

jjtwixman• 2 months ago

Sure, and now they don’t need to keep their talent through economic policy. The USA is being kind enough to force them to stay in Europe/Asia :)

bikelang• 2 months ago

My wife already has her green card through our marriage - but it expired under the Biden admin and we were given a 4 year “non-renewal extension” because USCIS was unable to process its renewal in time due to the post-COVID backlog. We’ve got about a year left on that extension and are absolutely terrified we are going to be forced to uproot our entire life by this evil administration and its pointlessly cruel policies.

hellojesus4• 2 months ago

It's shocking to me that the gov is allowed to claim "backlog" to defer one of the functions the gov is actually supposed to do. They print the money. They can hire enough to fulfill their obligation with almost zero effort.

ilaksh• 2 months ago

The DHS has made many communications that were openly white supremacist. It's not just an unfair situation with legal technicalities. Their views and plans are more extreme and dangerous than our society is able to accept as reality, so many are in denial. There are obvious historical parallels.

There need to be thorough weekly video walkthroughs of all of the detention centers. Otherwise you can expect actual starvation at some point.

tastyface• 2 months ago

If the perpetrators are not dragged in chains in front of a nationally televised tribunal at some point in the future, we will have failed as a country.

overlord1109• 2 months ago

The DHS has made many communications that were openly white supremacist

Just dropping this here: https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1970251208322621530

ck2• 2 months ago

Don't worry, the are letting in white South Africans

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/us/politics/trump-afrikan...

the wildly corrupt double-standard is breathtaking

There is well documented historical evidence Elon Musk not only illegally overstayed a student visa, he also illegally worked while on that visa AND did illegal drugs publicly while on that visa

Destroyed USAID murdering millions, highlights the President is in the Epstein Files extensively, then six months later is flying on Air Force One, it's all a cruel joke against humanity

dccoolgai• 2 months ago

Right - this is the natural extension of the dichotomy "There are those the law protects but does not bind and those the law binds but does not protect". The law doesn't bind Musk - those visa infractions are enforced on peasants, not Epstein Class Nobles like him.

anonym292• 2 months ago

So what does this do to the K-1 fiancée visa? Your partner gets the visa, they come over, you get married, and then they have to leave and submit an application to get status changed from their origin country? Seriously? WTF is this crap?

stackskipton2• 2 months ago

K-1 visa is immigrant intent, you are basically applying for temporary 90 day pass to get married and one of two things will happen: Get married and adjust your status or leave.

What this screws over is there was plenty of people from US visa waiver countries who decided K-1 was too hard and just flew over to US and got married. They would then apply for Adjustment of Status. That is big door being shut close because B-1 is non immigrant intent visa.

My room mate from college did this with UK foreign exchange student 20 years ago. She came over on visitor visa, got married and they got a lawyer to fix it all up.

anonym292• 2 months ago

What about for people who do want follow the K-1 process "by the book"? It sounds like they would they now need to come over, get married, go back to their origin country to apply for status adjustment, and then come back over again? Or am I misreading this?

NDlurker2• 2 months ago

We live on a prison planet. The borders are the cell walls. Some of us have more privileges and freedom to travel, but we're all restricted. This doesn't help anyone other than the few parasitic slave masters.

talon86353• 2 months ago

It’s an overly upsetting policy, but comparing me to a slave because of my US citizenship seems… distasteful.

The are other nits to pick with the analogy, but I’ll leave it at that

NDlurker2• 2 months ago

I'm talking about the whole world. The immigration systems are like controlling which pastures different herds are allowed to graze.

mapt• 2 months ago

One of my hardest working coworkers at the big box retail store was here on a perpetually extended U visa (reserved for witnesses to crimes of federal interest) after being sold to a sex trafficker at a young age back in the 90's.

Under Trump 1 she was fired because they wouldn't renew it and she lost work authorization. Her kids are citizens and she speaks better English than Spanish, she was educated here and is effectively fully integrated. But she's slightly brown, and Stephen Miller says we can't have that.

stego-tech3• 2 months ago

It's just sparkling xenophobia. Forcing a return to one's home country to apply for a Green Card can frequently remove the very qualifiers one has to getting said Green Card.

Just take a look at the categories of Green Cards available on USCIS' website[0], and think about how many of them will be unavailable if you're back in your home country.

* Green Card via Family? 18 months, minimum, for approval.

* Green Card via Employment? Well, self-deporting likely means the loss of said job opportunity, thus your ability to convert to LPR status

* via Special Worker? Here's hoping you're not an Iraq of Afghani national that might be persecuted back in said home country for cooperating with the US Government.

* via Refugee or Asylee Status, or as Victims of Abuse? Are we fucking kidding, here? Forcing refugees/asylum seekers/abuse victims back to their home countries is deliberately cruel, and I'm going to be looking for statistics on changes in approvals pre- and post- this policy change to make sure "special circumstances" are actually recognized as such

It's just a despicably cruel policy change that's so overtly xenophobic, it actually reveals the alignment of those reporting on it when it's not called out as such. It's the antithesis to legal immigration in that it all but destroys the process entirely, promoting more illicit behavior (dangerous and clandestine border crossings, exploitation of migrant workers, human trafficking, etc) in the process.

Fuck this regime.

[0] https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility-cate...

throwaway57522• 2 months ago

I'd disagree on nuance. Xenophobia is anti-foreigner. This targets people of color. They target people of color who are US citizens, too.

It is gutter racism.

edit: I wish I could be surprised by the downvotes, but it's gutter racism and I'm proud to point this out! I would be never be quiet about a matter of ethics and conscience just because of startup accelerator social media popularity points. This directly influences many of our friends and colleagues in this field. It is vile, evil racism and directly topical for software startups.

edit 2: the list of immigrants and children of immigrants who have founded software companies that are the absolute backbone of US information infrastructure is embarrassing to write down. Anyone can search for the information, but it's harder to list companies not founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.

lokar• 2 months ago

We will take all of the white South Africans

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF• 2 months ago

Why not both?

joquarky• 2 months ago

Just FYI, some of us down vote for complaining about down votes.

amazingamazing6• 2 months ago

What a strange comment. Foreigners are not inherently people of color…

elzbardico3• 2 months ago

Argentina is orders of magnitude more white than the US and yet, argentinians face the same issues as morocans in the US migration system.

bsimpson5• 2 months ago

My buddy married someone he met in grad school abroad, then got a job in the US when he graduated. She had to move in with her parents in Japan while waiting for the green card. It took at least a year.

ulfw• 2 months ago

I have never regretted abandoning my Green card and giving up US PR. Honestly every day I feel I lucked out by not being stuck there. Especially now in the NewUSA

konaraddi• 2 months ago

Objectively terrible policy for ethics, public safety, and, selfishly, the American economy. Immigrants contribute to economic growth and are less likely to commit crimes are well established facts. It’s the 21st century, we have the internet and education is accessible, but instead of recognizing and championing the vital role of immigrants in America’s rise to power, here the nation moves to hurt itself for some misguided anti immigrant ideology.

crazyfingers• 2 months ago

This thread has a lot of comments that seem to associate labor regulations and concern for the poor underclass, and immigrants themselves, with racism. Effective, but not in the intended way.

bsimpson5• 2 months ago

I'm so happy for my friends that got green cards before this insanity.

kibwen• 2 months ago

The government has completely abandoned any pretense of following the rule of law. Don't be shocked when they start revoking green cards. Don't be shocked when they start revoking natural citizenship. "But they can't do that!", you say. But who's going to stop them?

OutOfHere2• 2 months ago

For those who're in the US, the courts can stop the government. The ones more at risk are non-citizens who are abroad.

steveBK123• 2 months ago

Again worth asking VC Bros if the light touch on their crypto bags was worth all this ethnonationalism?

_doctor_love9• 2 months ago

If you recall, Andreesen said he’s not into introspection. Don’t think this is a thing they’d think about.

Also, a lot of these guys are simply straight-up ignoring the news today. They got their bag and they believe it will keep them safe.

jrmg• 2 months ago

Another case of this administration just doing what it wants and ignoring legislation - ignoring the will of Congress. And Congress abdicating its responsibility to even make its will clear.

I am no longer surprised, but still don’t understand why almost all members of Congress are wiling to just let their power slip away like this.

nrmitchi4• 2 months ago

doctrine of consular nonreviewability protects any denial from judicial review, and there is no administrative appeals process.

I personally think this is the big secondary benefit that the administration is going for.

dyauspitr2• 2 months ago

Step 324 of how to make Russia great again.

danielrmay7• 2 months ago

I had 10 years of work experience and had been married to my wife for two years, together for five, when I applied for my spousal visa. We had already gone through the UK visa process to bring her there, but decided we wanted to try the USA.

Despite being able to show 10 years of consistent working history with income far exceeding the minimum, because I didn’t have a job lined up in the US (who would, or could, in that scenario?) we had to ask my wife's elderly parents to sign affidavits of support to prove I wouldn’t become a "public charge".

There were several times where we felt so insulted by the process, the length, the cost, the targeting from scammy law firms, that we almost gave up. People who have never been through the legal immigration process don't quite understand the amount of work it requires and stress it causes. I feel for the thousands of people who now have little certainty over their futures, and it feels necessary to say: people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1, nor do they only come from white or european countries.

garyfirestorm• 2 months ago

They undid public charge from my memory. It doesn’t exist anymore.

SlightlyLeftPad• 2 months ago

How recently? As of about 2010, it was very much still there. I understand that is 16 years ago.

tmp10423288442• 2 months ago

It has always existed, but how strictly it’s interpreted (i.e., just cash welfare, or also Medicaid, SNAP, and other means-tested benefits) has shifted between administrations. If you applied during Biden’s administration, I could believe the public charge rule was applied very laxly, particularly because it’s rare to get direct cash welfare in the US these days, and even less for an extended period.

danielrmay7• 2 months ago

I looked it up, and we were required to complete form I-864 "Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA". My wife, her grandmother, and her grandfather all needed to complete one, and when considered together, prove that they earned 125% of the HHS poverty guidelines. As my wife didn't have provable income (we were moving together), we needed to dig into their social security income and complete the forms. I remember feeling sad that I needed to ask for such personal information from them.

My salary in the UK was many multiples of this guideline, but _earning potential_ is not considered. Pragmatism is not really a service offered by USCIS, it's too political. To be on-topic: this move will disincentivize smart but not-yet-wealthy people from immigrating to the "land of opportunity". It was already harder than it had to be.

philipallstar5• 2 months ago

This is pretty normal for most countries' visa processes. You often have to leave to renew a visa.

jimkleiber2• 2 months ago

I think the biggest question the US needs to ask itself is do we want to be normal like most countries or better?

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

Sorry but this is just patently untrue. Are you American? Because in my experience, most Americans just don't realize how arbitrary and capricious the US immigration system is.

Pick any other developed country and the process is generally fairly simple. With some you can just apply for a temporary work visa (possibly without a job) or just apply to immigrate. If you stay in many places long enough on a temporary visa you pretty much get residency and ultimately citizenship.

Beyond what's possible, the time frames for doing anything with US immigration is ridiculously long. Like if you, as a US citizen marry someone overseas it can take upwards of 4 years to get a green card for your spouse and they won't be able to visit the US at all in that time. Why? Because filing a marriage petition means you've shown "immigrant intent" so you'll never get a visit visa (B1/B2) again. Also, the president may well just ban your country from getting any visa. 75 countries are currently on that list.

It's also incredibly easy to make a mistake at some point in the process and that may end up getting an approvable case denied or, worse, you end up with an improvidently granted benefit that cannot be repaired, even if it was an honest mistake.

hvb25• 2 months ago

A green card is NOT a visa my friend. Getting a green card is a very involved process.

So why would you need to leave the country, if you couldn't figure out why you don't want to issue one in the year+ it takes to jump through the hoops

Just a fun fact, getting a green card means signing up for ten YEARS of tax liabilities in the US. And those 10 years start, AFTER you relinquished it...

jleyank3• 2 months ago

As I recall, we had to drive to the US border and turn around to "enter Canada" to process our landed immigrant letters. That was a while ago, so it's possible that there is more involved now... Was curious as they asked about our stuff and car(s), and we pointed out "at home, in Canada" which got a smile.

p_l• 2 months ago

The equivalent of greencard in most countries (permanent residency) usually requires that you're in the country, not outside, and the process is heavily reliant on you being present in country and able to show history of legal (temporary) residence.

nialv7• 2 months ago

is that normal? in UK you can extend a visa or apply for ILR without leaving the country.

grishka• 2 months ago

Indeed, but there are counterexamples as well. In the UAE you enter as a tourist and get a resident visa while you're there. They take away your passport for at least a couple of weeks so you can't leave either.

sega_sai2• 2 months ago

It is false. It is not the case for UK and several EU countries at the very least

dizhn• 2 months ago

This is how it has been in the US too. You have to go to an embassy abroad to get a new visa, renew, change status etc. (There are exceptions)

0xy11• 2 months ago

This is complete nonsense. All other countries, including the UK, Australia and most of Europe has immigration systems that are just as stringent if not more so.

Notably, and very relevant, the UK recently made it substantially harder for UK citizens to bring over spouses to the point that even teachers don't meet the income thresholds necessary to qualify.

Australia is more expensive AND takes longer than the United States for the equivalent spousal visa.

declan_roberts9• 2 months ago

It's a two tier system where the best outcome appears to be to simply break the law completely and illegally.

danielrmay7• 2 months ago

Sorry, which part of my personal experiences was nonsense? Immigration is hard, and yes, I'm aware of challenges in the UK as I moved my spouse over there in 2014. Do you have an experience with immigration that you can speak to?

sunshowers3• 2 months ago

Is the goal here to be the same as others or to be better than others? The US immigration system is far from great at the best of times, but it's becoming worse over time.

michaelmrose2• 2 months ago

Did you just pick other generally racist countries with unfriendly immigration policies to prove that all other countries have such systems?

beAbU2• 2 months ago

Simila in Ireland: you are not allowed to seek work while in Ireland on a holiday visa, you can only apply for work permissions/visas from outside the country, and depending on the type of visa you get (general work vs critical skills), your spouse might have to wait a year before they can join you.

CalRobert3• 2 months ago

Note - I immigrated to Ireland from the US and went through the visa process (including huddling in the cold in January at 4 AM at burgh quay, and years later, writing a scraper for their insanely bad appointment system that managed to actually be worse than huddling in the cold)

It's pretty normal not to be able to look for work on a tourist visa in most countries - are you suggesting this is unusual? As far as spouses, they used to have an incredibly asinine system where they told you your spouse _could_ work, without sponsorship, if they got a special form, but getting this form was de facto impossible. It was a very Irish approach, in retrospect. The campaign to fix this was, eventually, successful. (https://reformstamp3.wixsite.com/home)

rcxdude2• 2 months ago

Sure, but AFAIK a green card is more like indefinate leave to remain: it's not a visa as such, but a thing you can apply for after you have already lived in the country for some amount of time (on a visa of some other form, generally one which allows you to legally stay for the required time in the country) which gives the right to stay permanently. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to require leaving the country to apply first.

csomar• 2 months ago

How is this the same? You can't apply for a green card on a holiday/tourist/non-working visa. You have to be already in the country for many years before you can do that.

kakacik2• 2 months ago

Or you can simply move to a country that actually apreciates you and doesnt treat you like unwanted subhuman garbage. We have few in Europe, with QoL and happiness higher than US average, sometimes much higher. Just dont make the mistake of comparing salaries directly, US is massively more expensive if you plan to stay long term (ie healthcare) and/or have kids.

You would also have enough time to actually enjoy life, not just work till death/health issues come in some empty prestige rat race.

sssilver• 2 months ago

Most people come here for the economic and professional opportunities. I imagine that very few people move to the United States for the lifestyle.

Where else would people get opportunities that could match the United States? I can't think of any country that would even come close.

CalRobert3• 2 months ago

Ehhhhhh I like Europe, a lot, but when you're in you're 20's or 30's and looking at $300k in SF or €80k in Paris (and better access to investment products and lower taxes in the US to boot), suddenly clocking off at 16:00 on Fridays doesn't seem as nice as being able to retire in your 40's.

xdennis2• 2 months ago

Or you can simply move to a country that actually apreciates you and doesnt treat you like unwanted subhuman garbage. We have few in Europe, with QoL and happiness higher than US average.

Please don't. Europe has enough ethnic tensions. At least the US is built to be an ethnic melting pot. It's much better to go there.

sleepyguy2• 2 months ago

Under what administration was your process?

danielrmay7• 2 months ago

Trump, early 2017. I'm aware there was some attempt by the Trump admin to change "public charge" terminology in late 2018.

tsss• 2 months ago

The USA don't owe you citizenship. It's on you to prove that your presence there would be of benefit to the other citizens.

danielrmay7• 2 months ago

Given the opportunity, at the time, I would have happily taken steps to prove my presence would be of benefit. Instead, I had to spend my time asking family to give me their pension statements.

Later, I was recognized for that potential benefit. Last December, I became a citizen.

platevoltage14• 2 months ago

Green Cards aren't citizenship.

Terr_• 2 months ago

Wish granted: You are no longer a citizen because you never "proved you were beneficial". Please remit $100,000 to the Citizenship Payment Service immediately to avoid being downgraded to serfdom. /s

Framing it that way is backwards and anti-democratic. Democratic citizenship is something the government "owes" you because it is imposing control on your life. It is not some kind of magnanimous gift of club membership, you already deserved to have a say in what's being done to you.

That's why most Americans (and their children) have never once been required to "prove" that they are "beneficial", and it's why people the government is controlling in jails are still citizens rather than objects.

PlanksVariable4• 2 months ago

The reality is many people come on temporary visas, as tourists, as students, etc., and overstay. This policy is some attempt to address flows of quasi-legal immigration.

It's unfortunate there's friction to the process, but it's by design. 15% of American citizens and permanent residents are foreign born, the highest it's been in 50+ years, so people are successfully making it through the process. Ideally we'd have better levers to (1) modulate the rate of immigration, (2) simplify the process of legal immigration, and (3) still somehow limiting illegal immigration, quasi-legal immigration, overstays, etc. This is not the ideal solution.

it feels necessary to say: people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1

Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives? Maybe I'm a cynic, but I suspect the vast majority of people throughout history have migrated to improve their lives, not to altruistically benefit a foreign country. And that's fine, that's normal. It's what motivates people, and the U.S. has a long history of being shaped by ambitious people, especially immigrants, who wanted to improve their lot in life.

nor do they only come from white or european countries.

I don't know if that's necessary to be said, because who thinks that? In recent decades, 85%-90% of immigrants to the U.S. are not white. >90% if you include undocumented immigrants. The trajectory of America from a white majority to white minority country is fueling at least some of the immigration backlash today. But I think for most people, it's a feeling (right or wrong) that jobs becoming harder to find, houses are becoming harder to afford, and more and more people are competing for fewer resources.

simonw• 2 months ago

This policy is some attempt to address flows of quasi-legal immigration.

Is it though? This administration doesn't exactly have a track record of decisions based on carefully thought out policy implications.

danielrmay7• 2 months ago

Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives?

I think the two are often linked.

I don't know if that's necessary to be said, because who thinks that?

Effective January 21, 2026, the Department of State paused all visa issuance to immigrant visa applicants who are nationals of seventy-five countries. The overwhelming majority of the affected countries are not predominantly white and are not European.

mbgerring• 2 months ago

This policy is a further extension of this administration’s public, explicit and frequently repeated goal of ethnic cleansing. Acting like this is a rational policy response to any real problem is ridiculous.

qurren4• 2 months ago

have migrated to improve their lives, not to altruistically benefit a foreign country

These are not mutually exclusive. I want a better life, and I also have career ambition and skills that I'm willing to deploy in a place that will give me a better life in return.

BurningFrog2• 2 months ago

Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives?

People come to improve their lives.

Their employers hire them to improve their lives.

Both end up better off!

k8sToGo• 2 months ago

The uncertainty is one of the main reasons why I didn't bother to go the F1->H1B route and ended up leaving the US again.... but that was a decade ago.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1, nor do they only come from white or european countries.

But out of the pool of people who come from poor countries, who don't have jobs lined up in the U.S, and aren't here on a skilled worker visa, a large fraction of them will end up relying on welfare benefits.

Family-based visas are a huge loophole in U.S. If you look at most of the immigrant ghettos in the country, they're fueled by family reunification. In my own extended family we have several people, who came here based on my dad's sponsorship, who are a drain on the government. (The sponsorship commitment is basically never enforced.)

d--b2• 2 months ago

I am pretty sure you’re talking about the time when the doctor asks you to lift your dick to check that you don’t have an STD or something .

Best moment of the process.

qingcharles2• 2 months ago

Whoah. I never had that bit LOL. You got special treatment :) They did an eye test and made me get some vaccination records from when I was a kid.

The craziest bit I found was the GC interview where they test your spousal relationship. Expected questions like "What side of the bed do you sleep on?", "Who takes out the garbage?" -- instead they spent 30 minutes interrogating my wife about the military base she was born on and spent the first 6 months of her life at ("Who was the commanding officer at the time?"). It was like something out of a KGB script.

thrownthatway18• 2 months ago

Despite being able to show 10 years of consistent working history with income far exceeding the minimum, because I didn’t have a job lined up in the US (who would, or could, in that scenario?) we had to ask my wife's elderly parents to sign affidavits of support to prove I wouldn’t become a "public charge".

This seems entirely reasonable. You had as much time as you could have liked to apply for jobs after deciding to try the USA. Fortunately you were able to take advantage of an alternative that didn’t require that.

I’m not really sure what you were going for writing that. You think 10 years working in country A should entitle you to a work permit from country B?

nor do they only come from white or european countries.

Why should that matter? If country B decides to only allow white and / or Europeans to apply to live and work in country B, that is entirely fair. It’s not people-from-outside-country-B’s privilege to decide what country B does or doesn’t do.

Discrimination is a human right.

esalman3• 2 months ago

I received my green card in 2023 and I have mixed emotions.

On one hand, I'm so relieved that I have been able to dodge everything that the administration has been throwing at immigrant (legal and illegal alike), trying to see what sticks, like mass deportations, border wall expansion, visa restrictions, asylum crackdown, H-1B cuts, and chain Migration Ban.

On the other hand, we cannot apply for citizenship for 3 more years, even though me and my wife have been in the US for combined 25+ years, and paid over $100,000 in taxes last year alone, and it's jarring to imagine what the administration will come up with next to make the process less straightforward than it seems.

Most disturbing is the fact that a lot of people I know who climbed the same ladder will go out and cheer what the administration is doing.

Underphil2• 2 months ago

I received mine in 2020 and have decided to move back home. The uncertainty in general just keeps me up at night. Feels like the goalposts could move at any moment. I know I'm likely overreacting but it is what it is.

9999000009994• 2 months ago

If anything everyone else is under reacting.

You have ICE officers randomly abducting people off appearance alone and then detaining them for days if not weeks. If you were a citizen the whole time, cool who cares.

No one in America has any rights.

That aside, even as someone who's been in this country for generations, I've been exploring options to leave.

America is behind most of the developed world in terms of standards of living. I was in Asia for a while and I felt a fraction of the fear I constantly do at home.

It's not getting better.

simonklitj• 2 months ago

I don't think you're overreacting. Received mine in 2020 and decided to move as well.

bvan• 2 months ago

Gave back my green card the moment I left the US. No longer wanted the hassle and ties to an unpredictable regime. Haven’t looked back.

garbawarb3• 2 months ago

Not just uncertainty, but the apparent speedrunning of making the US an undesirable place to live compared to other countries.

Where did you move to and what are you doing now? (I'd love to hear from anyone else who's left too)

brokenmachine2• 2 months ago

You're not overreacting in my opinion.

If it looks like 1930s Germany and quacks like 1930s Germany, get as far away from that duck as you can.

pixelatedindex7• 2 months ago

and paid over $100,000 in taxes last year alone

Genuinely curious, what does taxes have to do with it? Everyone pays taxes, legal or illegal in some form.

I don’t think paying your dues should make you more likely to get through the pipeline. After all, you paid those taxes because you made good money, which is what people come here for.

imajoredinecon• 2 months ago

Taxes are supposed to pay for public services. An efficient visa system is a public service. If you pay tons of taxes but don’t get a public service that’s personally very important to you, it’s natural to feel let down

bonsai_spool13• 2 months ago

I think the point is that they are contributing to the US, and were the best option for their employer, and are supporting their communities, etc.

All things that we should be supporting if we are indeed wishing our nation to prosper.

A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, so we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country.

tybstar• 2 months ago

A lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric involves some version of the lie that immigrants don't pay taxes.

jezzamon2• 2 months ago

You have to do a lot when you get a green card to prove you won't be a burden on the US tax payer. It's a big part of the system and a big part of the anti-immigrant rhetoric

array_key_first18• 2 months ago

To show that they're not freeloaders. A lot of right-wingers have a belief that immigrants are implicitly freeloaders, and therefore getting rid of them will make the economy better.

Of course it's just not true. Like most current Republican talking points, it's plainly fabricated; it's an outright lie. But, since a lot of people believe it, it's useful to reminder everyone that its not the case.

throw-the-towel10• 2 months ago

One can reasonably argue that not paying your dues should exclude you from the pipeline.

adi_kurian2• 2 months ago

Uncle Sam likes tax payers.

taytus• 2 months ago

Signaling.

cush• 2 months ago

Citizenship is tied to the right to vote and Taxation without Representation was literally the driving force for the creation of America itself

wiseowise2• 2 months ago

After all, you paid those taxes because you made good money, which is what people come here for.

You mean they’ve contributed generously for the compensation they’ve earned?

_pdp_• 2 months ago

I don’t think paying your dues should make you more likely to get through the pipeline. After all, you paid those taxes because you made good money, which is what people come here for.

https://www.trumpcard.gov/

atoav4• 2 months ago

A very common xenophobic narrative is that foreigners do two things at the same time (1) steal your jobs and (2) drain your social systems. Another even more vile one one would be anything to do with coming for your daughters and women, but for this you will have to favtor in race. Because a rich white Frenchman coming your daughter doesn't have the same ring to it for bigots.

If the US, a country with a too low birthrate, throws out even the best kind of migrant (namely the kind that generates a lot of value for the country), you're going to be in deeper shit than ever before for decades to come.

Now I agree that paying taxes or not should have nothing to do with it.

matwood9• 2 months ago

Genuinely curious, what does taxes have to do with it?

It's popular trope from the GOP that immigrants are an economic drain on the US. They get free <insert whatever you want>, so the US must throw them out to save money.

root_axis5• 2 months ago

me and my wife have been in the US for combined 25+ years, and paid over $100,000 in

Sounds like you may be a good candidate for Trump's gold card.

I'm being fecitious of course, but I'm just pointing out that thinking of citizenship worthiness in monetary terms is something the president has already considered.

cybercatgurrl3• 2 months ago

i’m fairly confident the gold card is the only kind of immigration they want to encourage now. you either pay up or go home and cross your fingers

frogperson2• 2 months ago

Have you tried being white? The trump admin is rolling out the red carpet for white south Africans.

I'm being facetious of course. I hate what maga is doing to our wonderful melting pot.

noncoml• 2 months ago

Don’t listen to this op, you don’t need to change your race.

If I was you I’d choose to be a multi-billionaire instead and keep my race.

lovich4• 2 months ago

Not entirely safe even if you naturalize as they are now making noise about stripping citizenship[1]

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-administr...

QGQBGdeZREunxLe5• 2 months ago

They're doing this on the basis that crimes were committed before naturalization so therefore the N-400 submitted was fraudulent.

catlikesshrimp• 2 months ago

"Most disturbing is the fact that a lot of people I know who climbed the same ladder will go out and cheer what the administration is doing."

I always joke that all naturalized (citizens) immigrants automatically become republican. I say it in earnest because effectively all naturalized people who I know side with anti-immigration, except agaisnt people they know, but none of them take my "joke" seriously.

Der_Einzige4• 2 months ago

This shit is sadly true.

moosedev• 2 months ago

Even those still halfway up said ladder: https://x.com/flowersslop/status/2058161240350794165?s=20

testing223217• 2 months ago

I’m An immigrant, so I can relate. Not in the US.

I left my home country for a better life.

If the country I moved to was going downhill, I’d be looking to move again. I already did it, so I know it’s worthwhile.

tflinton• 2 months ago

If it makes you feel any better, and I’m sure it won’t. There are US citizens outraged by this as well. And I’m one of them.

cloche3• 2 months ago

I got mine in 2019 and feel the same way. I'm actually in the process of applying for citizenship and my application seems to have stalled - it's been nearly 10 months when the USCIS processing times page says I should expect 7 (it was 5-6 when I applied). There's been some articles that the government is going to force everyone to retake fingerprints again although there's been nothing official about that yet. I really wish I had applied for citizenship as soon as I was eligible.

QGQBGdeZREunxLe5• 2 months ago

I was approved 2 weeks ago. The process took 4 years end to end. I've been updating my paperwork (SSN, Global Entry and CA DL). I saw this news and immediately thought that it would've impacted me and I wouldn't've been able to maintain my job until a consular interview.

Also a consular interview has no appeal process. A denial stands unlike AOS.

AdrianB1• 2 months ago

I am paying taxes in US for over 20 years, don't hold a green card, not interested in ever getting one and not complaining that I don't have the right to vote. How are these things related?

geodel2• 2 months ago

What's with tax thing? Is it only paid in US? Are they not supposed to pay taxes when they have taxable income?

If one paid 100K+ in taxes I assume one had opportunities to make such high income by being in US which one can be thankful for.

On the other hand, we cannot apply for citizenship for 3 more years, ...

I am sorry but I am just seeing too much of an entitlement here.

esalman3• 2 months ago

I'm also seeing a lot of broken promises here.

bamboozled• 2 months ago

Same is happening in Japan because the politics here loves to copy the USA. It’s fucking lame.

linuxhansl• 2 months ago

Other countries paying $10,000's to educate people who then want to apply this knowledge in the US. US reaction: "Nah." Besides, we are talking about legal immigration here.

I don't get it.

seshagiric• 2 months ago

This is just reckless without any responsibility.

A number of people, especially in tech sector, legally stay in US while their GC is being processed. They have kids born in the USA. If such people were to leave USA to seek green card:

- the kids must first get visas to their parent's countries

- once reaching the other country, consular offices now have multi year wait lines for getting an appointment with a office to even hear your case.

- parents may stay in that country but what if kids run out of their visa? A number of countries offer citizenship via parents e.g. Indian parents can obtain Indian citizenship for their kids but it also means letting go of the kids' US citizenship. And what if the parent's country does not have such mechanism?

It's completely illogical that a person must first stay in a country for 5 years to become eligible for a green card and then leave for x years to get a green card to come back !! this is just a tactic to get non-immigrant visa holders out of the country.

thesmtsolver24• 2 months ago

It's completely illogical that a person must first stay in a country for 5 years to become eligible

This is wrong. There is no minimum time in the country for a green card. You are thinking of citizenship. That is different.

thesmtsolver24• 2 months ago

Wow. Downvotes for stating an obviously verifiable fact.

HN is now filled with agenda pushers peddling obvious fake information about the US.

chimeracoder3• 2 months ago

This is wrong. There is no minimum time in the country for a green card. You are thinking of citizenship. That is different.

You are incorrect. What you said is technically true in that there is no statute that requires it, but in practice, OP is correct.

It varies depending on the country of origin, but in the case of immigrants who hold citizenship from India, which is the country OP mentioned, you can likely expect to have to wait that period or even much longer before becoming eligible, unless you have a way to otherwise jump the queue.

airstrike27• 2 months ago

While you are correct, that's a minor issue in an otherwise cogent post by the parent, so addressing those other more substantial points first would have made the debate better.

nairboon• 2 months ago

the kids must first get visas to their parent's countries

In this situation, wouldn't the kids already have citizenship of their parents countries?

seanmcdirmid5• 2 months ago

A lot of countries don’t provide citizenship automatically without condition by blood. China for example, a kid only inherits citizenship if one parent is a chinese citizen and not a PR of any other country (so kids born to Chinese parents with green cards don’t count, which doesn’t really matter in this case).

Also the USA used to have weird rules about young mothers not transferring citizenship automatically (which the whole Obama birther myth relied on).

array_key_first18• 2 months ago

No? If you're born in the US you have US citizenship, you're American. You don't just magically get citizenship for your parents home country, at least not for most countries.

tetromino_• 2 months ago

Sometimes. In many/most countries, it requires at minimum that both parents be citizens of the same country. In a few countries, dual citizenship is banned completely, so if the kid is a US citizen they cannot be the country's citizen.

robofanatic• 2 months ago

e.g. Indian parents can obtain Indian citizenship for their kids but it also means letting go of the kids' US citizenship

This is not true, India has something called “Overseas Citizenship of India” which is technically not a citizenship even though the name says, but its a life time visa available for US citizens of Indian origin. And you don’t have to give up US citizenship

Aniket-N4• 2 months ago

It’s a visa that you do need to apply for. And it’s not a guaranteed thing. If it doesn’t work out. Kids stay in the US and parents get kicked out?

chimeracoder3• 2 months ago

This is not true, India has something called “Overseas Citizenship of India” which is technically not a citizenship even though the name says, but its a life time visa available for US citizens of Indian origin. And you don’t have to give up US citizenship

The OCI card is better thought of as a green card that you have to reapply for once at the age of 65.

It provides the ability to live and work, with some minor restrictions, but none of the typical benefits of citizenship that wouldn't come with permanent residency in the US.

qurren4• 2 months ago

the kids must first get visas to their parent's countries

The bigger issue honestly is that the kids may already have grown up in the American culture and fluent in English and it could massively disrupt their education and well-being to throw them into another system somewhere else, depending on how they were raised and whether they are fluent in the language of the country of their parents. In many cases they are not.

AlecSchueler2• 2 months ago

it could massively disrupt their education and well-being to throw them into another system

I'm curious: If these changes aren't designed to be harmful in these ways, then what do we imagine is the intention?

cybercatgurrl3• 2 months ago

cruelty is the point in case it wasn’t obvious

portly2• 2 months ago

Yes and one step further: it is attention, ultimately to extract wealth.

Trump is a distractor and can make a whole country forget about <insert recent insanity>. Passing a judge is a minor detail here.

Of course it is stupid to talent-leak your country but he just needs you to forget about $LATEST_SCANDAL. That's the value for him. Trump doesn't care about the future of US.

And distracting does not take skill. It only takes a mind poisoned to the core. He will throw anything in his chaos machine to extract wealth. And US has an endless supply of those juicy valuables and values that you can sacrifice and shed.

Let's see what next week has in store!

johndevor• 2 months ago

How is it logical that their kids get birth right citizenship when their parents don't have it?

godelski4• 2 months ago

This is over a hundred year old rule and common in "the new world". You can guess why it is common if you think about the phrase I put in quotes. All these countries are composed of immigrants...

Here's a short and incomplete list: USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile.

The logic is that the culture is what makes you part of the country, not the blood in your veins.

The other side of that logic is that you're not guaranteed citizenship to the country of your parents. It certainly isn't automatic.

throw-the-towel10• 2 months ago

Children integrate into the country so much more easily.

fuddle• 2 months ago

It's only logical if you are anti-immigration, which is what the US is now.

throwaway858256• 2 months ago

The population has always been anti immigration. But what the population wants is barely considered.

culopatin4• 2 months ago

Look, I’m an immigrant. You know the risks you take when you come to the US on a non immigrant visa. We all choose to play the game and nothing is guaranteed. I would’ve considered reckless to have a kid in the US knowing that my status is not stable without having an alternative plan. We need to face the facts and stop acting like we immigrants were victims of some bait and switch and must be protected from any fallout of this process. The rules of the game are transparent.

9999000009994• 2 months ago

But Republicans also don’t believe in abortion and have made it illegal in half the country.

So what’s a pregnant immigrant to do ?

randyrand2• 2 months ago

Birthright citizenship is on the chopping block too. It’s only a matter of time.

JuniperMesos13• 2 months ago

The most important immigration reform that the US ought to do is a constitutional amendment eliminating the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th amendment. The children of people who are not citizens or even permanent residents of the US should not be allowed to become US citizens just because they were born on US soil. Foreigners should not be able to reside in the US for so long that they have kids, and then use those kids as a justification for why the US is obliged to let them become citizens too.

HPMOR• 2 months ago

Holy shit, I cannot believe this is an actual belief people currently hold. We fought a war for this amendment.

asterix276• 2 months ago

So throw the baby out with the boat. I'd say no matter how you do the numbers nowadays the number of people unknown to the government applying for a green card legally would be in the minority. So is this really a matter of national security that this needs to be done this way who knows. Given that most people have been here forever paid taxes paid Medicaid social security are being treated like fugitives. I am certain at some point the world will reject the choice of coming to the USA over other choices they have.

This government has a really bad reputation for taking one or two cases and making an example of them and then telling the other 98% they deserve it. I hope at some point this stops and someone rationalizes whatever is going on in my country

pstuart• 2 months ago

The base of the issue is weaponizing fear and anger in the citizenry to better control them. Immigration has been an evergreen topic for that for the entire history of the US.

In recent years, they've combined yet another favorite, racism, to get that tasty peanut butter chocolatey goodness to get the base angry enough to go to the polls to vote based on that.

I hold on to hope that somehow, someday, we can overcome this nonsense. I have nothing to support this so I get in this sense it makes me a man of faith.

techteach002• 2 months ago

I support this. The United States is too crowded. I don't want to compete with all these new people for housing. American citizens really need to begin advocating for themselves. For their material interests.

declan_roberts9• 2 months ago

I don't think we're too crowded, but it definitely doesn't make sense in the era of AI and tech layoffs to continue the H1B/green card status quo.

skybrian• 2 months ago

Apparently you haven't travelled much in the US. Outside the major cities it can be pretty desolate.

guywithahat2• 2 months ago

I don't want every square inch of my country to be city; and if you look on google maps, most of the land in the US is already either used for farming, cities, or not suitable for either.

grassfedgeek• 2 months ago

Guess what? America's homebuilding is powered by immigrant workers.

https://www.businessinsider.com/immigration-crackdown-housin...

jsadfsdafh5• 2 months ago

Ah, the argument, "who will clean our toilets and make our tacos?"

akkartik5• 2 months ago

That's a reasonable opinion for one to have, but it can coexist with humane timeframes for changing laws over time. Not grandfathering people already here for a change in policy of this magnitude -- this is inhumane.

purerandomness• 2 months ago

As a European, I also support this. Natives should not have to compete with all these new people for housing. Real Americans really need to begin advocating for themselves. For their material interests.

Come back where you belong.

array_key_first18• 2 months ago

Also consider that these "new people" are assets to our economy. They're tax payers, many are highly educated, and their presence over the last hundred years is the exact reason you have the privilege of being in a wealthy country. Seriously, how do people think the US became what it is?

Will sending these people away improve our economy? Because I doubt it. I mean, we've been doing mass deportations right?

Well... has the economy improved for you? Has your life gotten better after we dumped a few tens of billions into ICE? Because I'm still waiting.

When will that chicken come home to roost, do you think? I'd like to know so I can make a note of it and inevitably tell you "I told you so" when that day rolls around.

Maybe it'll be around the same time we get those tax refund checks from all the money DOGE saved.

techteach002• 2 months ago

"They're tax payers, many are highly educated," yes they have more purchasing power the day they arrive than I do after 4 generations.

That's not right and toxic for social cohesion. Your immigrant class should not be wealthier or have superior earning power to the native population. That's like a sociological time bomb.

leokennis2• 2 months ago

May the world extend Americans the hospitality that the US has extended to the world in the last year.

throwawa14223• 2 months ago

That would be amazing.

akkartik5• 2 months ago

As a naturalized American citizen, I hope the world extends Americans who leave the same hospitality the US extended for decades before the last year.

fooker2• 2 months ago

When you say world, do you also include the Middle East and South America and various Asian countries that were invaded, bombed, or couped by America?

eigenspace2• 2 months ago

As a non-American who has to live in a world that's deeply affected by the schizophrenic convulsions of your current government, I hope you stay in the USA and work on fixing your mess.

jsadfsdafh5• 2 months ago

The US is an extreme outlier in accepting migrants. The current situation is effectively what the vast majority of countries already do. Some go beyond that, and gun down people with machine guns at their border.

The idea that the US is not a country that belongs to its citizens, but some sort of abstract global entity that everyone in the world is entitled to is farcical, and it's coming to an end. The US owes absolutely nothing to non-US people.

If people don't like it that can go anywhere else (keeping in mind that other Western countries are starting to do the same) or, you know, stay in their own country? (Crazy, I know)

defrost5• 2 months ago

The US is an extreme outlier in accepting migrants.

The US is currently at a recent peak of approx 15% immigrants, much as it was in the 1860-1920 period.

This is less extreme than, say, Australia at 25% population born overseas.

leokennis2• 2 months ago

I’d be fine with America not wanting the world to feel “entitled to” it, if at the same time they’d stop feeling entitled to the rest of the world themselves.

Vietnam. Middle America. Afghanistan. Iraq. Greenland. Venezuela. Iran. Now Cuba.

Stop it.

didgetmaster3• 2 months ago

The whole immigration argument basically boils down to two schools of thought.

1) Those who believe that every human born on this planet has a basic right to move to and live in, any country that they want.

2) Those who believe that the people who are currently citizens of countries around the world, have the right to set strict restrictions on who is allowed to move there.

These two schools are fundamentally at odds with each other. Some members of both camps will go to the extreme to enforce their position and demonize anyone in the other camp.

convolvatron4• 2 months ago

the reality is that there a very wide spectrum of opinions about what immigration policy should like, and really not so many people in the (1) category

lugu2• 2 months ago

I am genuenly curious what do you think would happen if every country were to apply 1.

didgetmaster3• 2 months ago

There are apparently 20+ million of them who entered the U.S. illegally, along with millions more who think it is a crime to deport them (even the criminals).

GeneralMayhem• 2 months ago

Accepting your dichotomy for the sake of argument, I'm in camp 1, but camp 2 could still be humane and comprehensible. Many countries have strict immigration rules, and while I disagree with that philosophy, it's not necessarily objectionable in the same way.

The Trump administration is not in camp 2.

The Trump administration, as this rule clearly illustrates, is in camp 3: Those who believe that the people who are not currently citizens of your country should never be able to become so, and should be punished for even trying.

The problem is not that the system is "strict" in the sense of holding an incredibly high bar. The problem is that the system is arbitrary - there is no process you can follow that will give you a high degree of confidence that you'll be allowed to enter, or even that a decision _will be made at all_ in a fair manner, no matter who you are (unless you're a personal friend of the administration) - as opposed to you being randomly arrested by ICE halfway through waiting for a decision. And even if there were such a process, you would have no confidence that it wouldn't change retroactively in another week.

It is laughably naive to believe that they are doing this in good faith out of any sense of strictly filtering immigrants. There's exactly one explanation that isn't transparently pretextual, and you and I both know what it is.

TFNA4• 2 months ago

Those who believe that the people who are not currently citizens of your country should never be able to become so.

This is basically the longtime practice of countries like UAE, and historically it is categorized under camp 2; no need to create a third camp here. It’s not as if no foreigners ever in such countries become citizens – while most immigrants are meant to be guestworkers who eventually return to their own countries, there are still laws to confer citizenship on exemplary foreigners.

ianm2182• 2 months ago

This simplification is very small. #2 is almost literally self evidently true.

Most of the disagreement is where a given country should be on the spectrum of zero immigration and fully open immigration.

You can know we have the right to set strict regulations, and also object to driving smart hardworking people away from your country for no reason.

elil172• 2 months ago

I would say that #1 is almost self evidently true (I mean, obviously it's not because so many people disagree).

It seems obvious to me that there is no moral reason that some people should only be allowed to live in certain places.

Longlius3• 2 months ago

You can know we have the right to set strict regulations, and also object to driving smart hardworking people away from your country for no reason.

But the crux of the problem is this - many of the immigrants we've been sold on as being "smart hardworking people" have not been that and often been the opposite. Your side seems incapable of grappling with the fact that it has fundamentally lost the trust of the electorate on this issue and seems entirely uninterested in doing anything to regain this trust by overhauling the way we filter prospective immigrants.

ergocoder2• 2 months ago

1) Those who believe that every human born on this planet has a basic right to move to and live in, any country that they want.

This is an extremely small group of people.

Most of them pretend to be in the group to virtue-signal.

Same with homeless problem. We must not move/clear homeless camps (as long as those camps aren't next to my house, of course).

toilet2• 2 months ago

Everybody who has a different moral opinion than yours holds that opinion for the sole reason that they believe it will make them look better to their peers.

hardbass2• 2 months ago

I don't see why someone should have say what happens on others land. If I want to allow someone in my land or kick someone out of my land it should be, within some restrictions completely my own decision. Do you have legal ownership deeds over all the land in your entire country? I just think it's very strange.

aranelsurion• 2 months ago

That's a huge oversimplification though. Group 1 would mostly consist of some of the most ardent social progressives and some hippies, and the Group 2 is most everyone else and basically the policy in every country currently in existence.

In reality most people are somewhere in the spectrum of group 2:

* There are those who believe everyone economically net positive should be allowed.

* There are those who believe everyone who are a good cultural fit (for their personal criteria and biases) should be allowed.

* There are those who believe only exceptional people with rare talents should be allowed.

* There are those who believe people should only be allowed if they meet some definition of greater good.

* There are those who believe partner visas should be allowed/disallowed.

* There are those who believe only the wealthy people who'll spend or invest their wealth in the country should be allowed. (=various kinds of golden visas)

* There are those who believe no one except for certain race(s), nationality(es) or religion(s) should be allowed.

* There are those who believe no one should be allowed.

* ..Different combinations of above options..

* ?? (Many other possibilities)

knickish• 2 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

5701652400• 2 months ago

it is way easier to immigrate to China, no kidding.

Hong Kong introduced new self-sponsored visas, Mainland introduced new high-tech visas couple months ago

toephu2• 2 months ago

Easier to get a temporary talent visa? Maybe, for some profiles. Easier to get permanent residence? Almost certainly not. The U.S. green card system is backlogged and maddening, but it is still a mass immigration system. China’s green card is closer to an exceptional-status program (it's 100x harder to get a green card in China than a green card in USA).

Also if you really want to immigrate to a country you eventually probably want to become a citizen of said country right? USA has pathways for this (albeit getting harder with this new admin). However in China it's nearly impossible.

itkovian_2• 2 months ago

The US isn’t what it used to be. It’s definitely not the best place in the world to live for quality of life, on basically any metric.

The requirement of being permanently obligated to pay us taxes on global income, if you have any kind of global mobility, is not worth it when you look at the situation objectively. The US is the only country that requires this, and signing up is voluntarily.

So while US immigration continues to act as though people will jump through any hoop they put up in order to be granted the extreme privilege of being able to live in the country indefinitely, it’s worth realising it’s not the 70s anymore and thats a goal many people are no longer optimizing for. In fact the opposite - the most talented people I know are all planning their lives to not settle long term in the US.

itkovian_2• 2 months ago

The extreme privilege of being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it, to the us gov indefinitely. And they make it hard for you to apply to do this. Crazy.

paulddraper2• 2 months ago

And yet why do people want this?

vel0city3• 2 months ago

being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it

If you're a US citizen living abroad you get a Foreign Earned Income Exclusion of $130,000 for 2025 taxes. So if your income was $130k you'd pay zero in US taxes. You potentially also get to deduct housing costs and get a credit for foreign taxes you already paid among other things.

If you're paying a "major portion of your income" as a US citizen living overseas you're probably pretty dang wealthy. Go wipe your tears with your bands of $100 bills.

parineum4• 2 months ago

It’s definitely not the best place in the world to live for quality of life, on basically any metric.

I guess these immigrants must be stupid.

markdown3• 2 months ago

The President confirmed this. They're not sending their best.

testing223217• 2 months ago

To be perfectly clear. The US has a much higher standard of living than the vast majority of countries in the world and people from those countries hope to improve their lives by moving there.

The US has a lower standard of living than basically all OECD countries.

To use a sports analogy, the US is last place on the pro league ladder, while also being first place on the “everyone else” ladder.

vel0city3• 2 months ago

That the US is a better place to live than Venezuela or Guatemala or Haiti isn't crossing a very high bar of well developed countries.

wg0• 2 months ago

There's a term called "US Person". Many European banks will refuse to open your bank account if you're a "US Person" and require upfront declaration that I'm not a "US Person."

Reason? Because banks don't want to deal with the mandatory annual reporting of the "US Persons" to US government on regular basis.

Their solution? Don't have a "US Person" as your client.

zeafoamrun2• 2 months ago

This appears to have been downvoted but everything is completely factual in what the parent poster said. I have literally been told by many banks they can't help me due to this.

MikeNotThePope• 2 months ago

I’m an American living abroad. I know a bit about this. Here’s my experience:

- The USA passed a law called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which mandates that any bank doing business with Americans overseas must report certain information to the USA: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/foreign-account-...

- When anyone anywhere in the world opens a bank account, the bank asks if you have ever been a “US Person,” and if you have been, then you need to provide documentation about whether you currently are or aren’t (typically showing a USA passport or proof of having renounced USA citizenship)

- For banks that will work with Americans, they have to report basic information back to the USA every year, which includes highlights like your contact information, tax ID, account numbers, end-of-year balance, etc.

- Americans also must self-report this kind of information via the FBAR (Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, technically FinCEN Form 114), which isn’t too horrible to fill out other than the fact that you file it through FinCEN’s clunky BSA E-Filing system, which still wants you to install Adobe Acrobat Reader like it’s 2010.

- FATCA is primarily annoying to banks because they already have to comply with CRS, the Common Reporting Standard, which is basically an international standard developed by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) where participating countries automatically report each other’s residents’ financial information. The kicker is that the USA never actually joined CRS, so banks have to run a whole separate FATCA process just for a relatively small number of Americans living abroad, which is a big duplication of effort.

gpt52• 2 months ago

People said the same when the $100K fee for H1b was introduced, and said that the US won't be able to fill the 85,000 spots. But there were 211,600 applications in the last cycle.

Also, your other 'facts' are incorrect. The US for example has the highest amount of disposable income per family, has a lower tax burden (despite your complaint about it) then almost all developed countries, and there is one more (small) country with global taxation.

zeafoamrun2• 2 months ago

USA joins the esteemed nation of Liberia in having global taxation.

QGQBGdeZREunxLe5• 2 months ago

They're not collecting 85,000 * $100k. I'd guess the majority will be adjustments and therefore circumvent the fee.

freediver• 2 months ago

The US isn’t what it used to be. It’s definitely not the best place in the world to live for quality of life, on basically any metric.

There is actually a list with metrics https://greatcountry.org (disclaimer: my pet project)

#27th

SCdF• 2 months ago

Interesting project!

I would say some of the indicators are a little odd.

Some of them are questionable in terms of capturing the spirit of the idea ("violent crime" being the same in the UK and the US is a surprising one to me for example. It's capturing serious assault per 100k, but is then not considering murder as violent crime. You have murder later, but maybe combine / group them?).

Some are confusing because they are not clear politically: everyone wants less violent crime, but I don't know your politics and so have no idea which direction you have weighted net migration and asylum/capita.

matwood9• 2 months ago

The requirement of being permanently obligated to pay us taxes on global income

Many countries have higher rates than the US and have reciprocal treaties to avoid double taxation. In practice it means many people end up paying zero taxes to the US. Of course it will depend on the country you want to reside in, but then what's the point of seeking out a US passport?

amir734jj2• 2 months ago

What about a spouse visa? It's insane. I just got married to my girlfriend, and she needs to go back to her home country and wait for years before getting a green card? It's crazy.

kylehotchkiss6• 2 months ago

Yes, and if you move there, you lose “domicile” and no longer qualify to sponsor her but if you don’t visit her regularly, she’ll get RFE’d for “bonafide relationship proof” (since your name appears Indian just be aware they’re very quick to RFE at Mumbai immigrant dept)

ViktorRay6• 2 months ago

This is going to worsen healthcare in the United States.

Many critical roles are filled with doctors who are here on visas because there simply aren’t American graduates who want those jobs. I’m talking about jobs being doctors in hospitals and towns and cities that are not the most desirable.

Many of those doctors filling these positions today are immigrants who are on visas. They want to get green cards and stay here. They end up living long term in those communities caring for patients in them over the years.

If this policy goes into effect it will hurt all of that. And actually many of these hospitals and less desirable areas are placed with lots of Trump voters too.

In general if someone has spent years working hard with a visa and is law abiding and contributes to the community I don’t understand the purpose of making immigration harder. And I especially don’t understand why you would make it harder for doctors and engineers and other educated people who are here on visas to get a green card.

Can someone explain the rationale?

querulous• 2 months ago

the number of doctors on j1 extensions the us is going to lose over this is going to seriously impact us healthcare. it's also not uncommon for doctors to practice on an o1 and they'll be impacted also

nceqs33• 2 months ago

because there simply aren’t American graduates who want those jobs.

Facts are just invented in these debates. Here is an actual fact: in the 2026 residency match cycle, about 6.5% of U.S. MD seniors went unmatched, resulting in approximately 1,300 to 1,400 U.S. MD students failing to secure a position initially.

ViktorRay6• 2 months ago

No need to say “ Facts are just invented in these debates.” Especially when what you are talking about is different from what I’m talking about.

I’m not talking about residency. I’m talking about jobs post residency. There are hospitalist jobs in areas that are in desperate need of doctors. And these jobs are staffed with doctors who are on visas. Outpatient jobs too. These jobs are in locations or hospital systems that are important and that American graduates do not want to go to.

abalashov13• 2 months ago

This is insane. I cannot fathom how I, nor educated and talented people I know, could have possibly stayed in the US back in the day if this requirement had been in place then. Applying for a greencard while working on an H, J or O-class visa is extremely common.

Far from a loophole, applying from inside the US is the only reasonable way to apply for a greencard. Depending on the country of origin, there may not even _be_ a US consulate, and where it exists, the wait can stretch into years, and the odds of approval much lower. You can't reasonably get a job at a US firm while being physically located somewhere else and on the other side of an uncertain and greatly attenuated greencard application process. That's just not how this works.

Whoever thought of this is either intentionally malevolent or inexcusably incomprehending of the immigration process.

hibgymnb2• 2 months ago

It’s intentional malevolence that’s a given from this admin

abalashov13• 2 months ago

I take that as a given, too, especially considering the diabolical architecture of Miller Thought.

Gibbon1• 2 months ago

The secret sauce is bad faith and crime.

hvb25• 2 months ago

When you're in your visa or green card process it's not uncommon to be advised not to travel out of the country...

Yep. You're kind of in jail.

It doesn't mean that you cannot, it just means that it might complicate your already complicated application. So if a family member dies, maybe... But that's it

abalashov13• 2 months ago

This is true. But you might be conflating two different issues: having to apply for a greencard from outside the country, and being restricted in traveling outside the US during the (potentially very lengthy) pendency of that application.

qingcharles2• 2 months ago

I've known people who left for a brief period during the GC process on emergency basis and then were put into a literal jail on their return to the USA.

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

Far from a loophole, applying from inside the US is the only reasonable way to apply for a greencard.

So that's kind of the point, to make the system arbitrary and capricious. It's to make the lives of immigrants more difficult.

For example, when one applies for adjustment of status ("AoS", meaning the I485), there are several things you can also apply for, most notably an Employment Authorization Document ("EAD", I765) and/or Advance Parole ("AP", I131) to allow you to travel.

In years gone by, you'd get the temporary documents in 3-4 months typically and your green card in under a year (after filing the I485, not for the entire process, which can be substantially longer).

So this administration has seemingly started a process for marriage cases where you file an I130 and I485 concurrently (the I130 is to prove you're free to marry and you have legally married, the I485 is to adjust status) where USCIS will approve the I130 but then just sit on the I485, not approving or denying the case, and never issue the EAD or AP so you can't work. Lots of people can't afford to not work for 1-2 years while this all plays out.

But that's the point.

Also, there are rumors that Palantir is getting invovled here. Rumor is that USCIS is sitting on I485 approvals while they wait for a new system to come online that will let USCIS look at way more data, likely including social media data, to find reasons to deny cases, so they don't want to approve cases before it's available. This is uncofirmed but there's a lot of anecodtal data for approved I130, no decision on the I485.

For marriage cases, this administraiton clearly wants people to consular process instead because the administration has broad powers that can't be challenged to simply withhold visas to nationals of certain countries and those bans can't be challenged in court, as per Trump v. Hawaii [1].

This is a problem for people who have made asylum claims because they realistically can't use the passport from whcih they've claimed asylum (if they even have it) and they certainly couldn't or shouldn't go back to their home country. A separate rule generally requires people to use the embassy of their country of birth. Again, that's to make life difficult.

It's not clear to me yet how this rule change affects those on H1Bs that want to adjust. Is the Trump admin going to require H1B holders to leave the country to adjust? That's going to create problems if so. The asylum case and the home country embassy rule mentioned above are two big reasons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._Hawaii

confuseddesi4• 2 months ago

These are all non-immigrant visa classes. The understanding is that you are temporarily immigrating to the United States. Why should it be surprising then that it is hard to become a permanent resident/immigrant if you explicitly came on a non-immigrant visa?

MagicMoonlight• 2 months ago

There is no immigrant visa by that logic. Unless you count the one that costs a million dollars.

05• 2 months ago

H1B and O1 are dual intent..

feelingsonice• 2 months ago

Because coming to the United States on a non-immigrant visa is pretty much the only way that a person can hope to become a US citizen (or green card holder) eventually.

abalashov13• 2 months ago

There isn't really such a thing as an immigrant visa. These non-immigrant visas are the only legal route to come here, by and large, excluding a few obvious exceptions like marriage to an American.

Also, it's quite hard to become a permanent resident/immigrant even without the obstacle of this being categorically prohibited. My family, for instance, overcame some very low odds of success to make this happen (highly educated, both PhDs, for what it's worth).

I have learned that most Americans, probably through no fault of their own, have absolutely no understanding of how their own immigration system works. The options for legal immigration were _extremely_ limited and byzantine, and have been for decades, long before Trump.

nextaccountic• 2 months ago

All I hear is that there's a subset of people that don't want immigrants at all. And for some godforsaken reason they got hold of the executive, legislative and supreme court

lovich4• 2 months ago

I don’t see a carve out for spousal or family reunification applications.

Those weren’t services for the benefit of the immigrant. Those were a service to the US citizen who sponsored them and had to sign up to be on the hook to take care of their welfare.

The government was very clear to my spouse that she could divorce me the second her application was granted and I was still on the hook for any welfare she may end up needing.

This is just being anti immigrant. The same way they talk about illegal aliens and then you find out they really mean legal asylum seekers because they don’t like the process.

Or when they use the phrase Heritage Americans to discount recent immigrants.

Or when they just straight up say we have too much legal immigration.

The only surprising thing about this change in policy to me is that they are still keeping a veneer of not being racist on it, instead of just being as open as they have in other cases.

skeeter20208• 2 months ago

because the government realize more than 75 years ago that conditions change and "adjustment of status" can be in everyone's best interest. People get married, students graduate and get jobs or start companies, and so on. It was never about rubber-stamping greencards; they're still tough to get. It was about making it more efficient and keeping strong players in the US. If you send 100 students back to their home country after they graduate, more than 50 of them won't come back.

saberience• 2 months ago

This seems like one of the most obtuse or bad faith comments I’ve ever seen.

Practically every country has pathways to permanent residence or citizenship via non immigrant visas, including the US.

Why? Because it makes practical sense. You can be living in the US on a H1 visa for 6 years, and at this point you could have a wife, kids etc, so it makes sense to have a pathway to residency where you don’t have to leave the country at that point.

susiecambria• 2 months ago

This.

I cannot be this calm about the administration that is all about the chaos and harm. Thank you for writing what I can't.

plombe• 2 months ago

Not surprised. There are worse things in the works.

Arete314159• 2 months ago

Intentionally malevolent.

cloche3• 2 months ago

Unfortunately, I think this is the point. They want to push the needle so that even legal immigration is restricted or difficult (unless you happen to pay them directly)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/23/us/politics/trump-legal-i...

Fnoord• 2 months ago

[flagged]

tardedmeme• 2 months ago

Why don't they just say what they mean, and ban immigration completely? Are they trying to trick most immigrants into leaving voluntarily so they can deny re-entry?

risyachka• 2 months ago

> so that even legal immigration is restricted or difficult

like it was simple and easy before that. Now it becomes borderline impossible

runjake• 2 months ago

Whoever thought of this is either intentionally malevolent or inexcusably incomprehending of the immigration process.

It’s the former: intentionally malevolent. Trump cabinet members, including Stephen Miller have said this is exactly why.

radsj• 2 months ago

I don't think it applies to folks on H or L visas. Wording from the site:

"Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process. "

abalashov13• 2 months ago

I'm not sure I share your optimism. What is a worker on an H-class visa, if not a "temporary worker"?

I read this with the assumption that "nonimmigrant visa" applies to every category of visa listed here under "Nonimmigrant Visa Categories":

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-inf...

nnutter• 2 months ago

Looks like it applies to all visitors.

From https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-pr...,

Adjustment of status is the process that you can use to apply for lawful permanent resident status (also known as applying for a Green Card) when you are present in the United States. This means that you may get a Green Card without having to return to your home country to complete visa processing.

ventana• 2 months ago

I originally thought that this new regulation would only apply to, say, B-1/B-2 visitors applying to adjust their status (which is how some immigrants bring their parents, for example), but nowhere in the policy it explicitly excludes so called “dual intent” visas (H or L), so given the whole anti-immigration approach of the current administration, I won't be surprised if it turns out that the regular work visa pathway to green card is affected by that too.

Edit: the policy actually indeed mentions dual intent categories:

USCIS reminds its officers that applying for adjustment of status is not inconsistent with simultaneously maintaining nonimmigrant status in a category with dual intent.

It does it in a way that will, for sure, cause confusion though.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...

kelnos3• 2 months ago

"Non-immigrants" is a legal term that means surprisingly more than you think. People on H visas, for example, are "non-immigrants" and would fall under this.

rajup• 2 months ago

"intentionally malevolent" -> Stephen Miller's second name. The cruelty is and always was the point.

tahoemph999• 2 months ago

I thought his second name was Goebbles?

abalashov13• 2 months ago

This is true. I resisted this conclusion for a long time, imagining it was tendentious, but there is really no other way to understand his rhetoric and his actions.

mycall• 2 months ago

You should double check Project 2025 before solely blaming Miller.

KennyBlanken• 2 months ago

Yup, he's not minced words in all the interviews he's done and he's happy to label US citizens "terrorists" if he thinks they're in his way or 'race traitors'.

All because he was a massive loser in middle/high school, and like most bigots, his hatred is rooted in needing to have someone "beneath" him. So he based his entire personality and life around hating anyone not straight, white, male, and "American" so he could feel better about himself.

It is amazing how many people have been killed from all the policies he's been ramming through, simply because of a huge inferiority complex.

It's also a bit sad how every generation of immigrants turn around and pull the ladder up behind them.

thallium205• 2 months ago

The UK, the EU, Japan, and Australia all have identical rules to this policy.

cinntaile2• 2 months ago

In the EU you can apply for a permanent residency card when you're in the country. One of the prerequisites is how long you have been in the country where you're applying. It seems unlikely the other countries have the same policy as the US has now.

sigmar• 2 months ago

UK's 'indefinite leave to remain' (closest thing to a green card) requires that you apply from within the UK. https://www.gov.uk/long-residence/apply-to-settle

brandelune• 2 months ago

You apply for permanent residency in Japan from Japan.

sega_sai2• 2 months ago

It is false for the UK.

The whole system of US of needing to leave the country to even renew visas is absolutely bizarre and does not have analogues in most other countries (at least EU/UK)

fooker2• 2 months ago

Whenever I see something this obviously false on a forum, it’s always a head scratcher.

Perpetrator of misinformation or victim? Ignorant or malevolent?

defrost5• 2 months ago

Nonsense.

MandieD2• 2 months ago

All of my interactions with German immigration have not only happened in Germany, but at an office in the town I was living in at the time: the initial residence permit application, the first renewal, and the renewal where the Beamterin (government employee) helpfully pointed out that as the spouse of a German citizen, I had been resident long enough to go ahead and apply for a Niederlassungserlaubnis (permanent residence; aka, German equivalent of a Green Card).

Six weeks and 255 Euro later, it was in my hand. I have to “renew” it every ten years, but that’s only because the card needs to match my US passport number (and means I don’t have to carry that book around); there’s no interview or document gathering.

angry_octet4• 2 months ago

Australian immigration rules are definitely not like this.

xxs• 2 months ago

Posting comments in bad faith is not funny, e.g. EU permanent residency requires 5 (or 7) years to have been resident already.

dalyons• 2 months ago

Completely false for Australia.

ourmandave• 2 months ago

intentionally malevolent

Everything anti-immigration under both Trump terms comes directly from the fascist Stephen Miller. From blocking Muslim countries to trying to end birth right citizenship.

Of course he has full support from Trump who usually lies about knowing fascists he's had lunch with or tells to "stand back and stand by."

And endlessly lies to demonize immigrants. "They're not sending their best." "They're eating the cats and dogs."

SPLC has an article on Miller if you want to waste your time.

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/stephen-...

ycui7• 2 months ago

I think what this actually means is that you can apply permanent residency in the US, but you can only get the physical green card outside of the US when the case is approved. So, the last step to get the card need to from outside the country.

robotresearcher2• 2 months ago

What is the point of that?

They might as well mail it to your home. That’s what happens today.

nielsbot• 2 months ago

Don't assume incompetence at this point--Miller (and Trump) are anti-immigrant, full stop.

TehCorwiz• 2 months ago

The cruelty is the point. They want people to leave so they can refuse to allow them back in. That's the goal. It's not more complicated than that.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

If you come to the U.S. on a visa that’s explicitly labeled a “nonimmigrant” visa for people who are “coming temporarily to the United States to perform services,” then it’s not “cruel” to actually enforce that. Those words are literally in the law.

AmazingEveryDay• 2 months ago

The cruelty is the point.

This phrase is one of those viral ear worm kinda things tossed into so many conversations, it doesn't actually mean anything at this point it's so overused.

thehappypm• 2 months ago

That isn’t cruelty. It’s immigration policy that the rest of the world already has

rayiner34• 2 months ago

Applying for a greencard while working on an H, J or O-class visa is extremely common.

But it’s not supposed to be extremely common to apply for a green card on an H or J visa. Those visas are explicitly “nonimmigrant” visas for people “temporarily” in the U.S. who have “no intention of abandoning” their foreign residence. Read the statute: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:8%20section:1.... It’s subsections (a)(15), (a)(15)(H)(i)(b) and (a)(15)(J).

The people who thought of this are trying to return the practice to the actual intent of the law. The law was sold to the American public as a temporary worker program. It was not billed as a pathway for permanent residency.

beering2• 2 months ago

Sure, it’s temporary. But what if you’ve been working in the US for a while, like your job, and want to go permanent? Does it make sense to have to give up your job, move back home where there may not be a US consulate, and then apply from there? Or just apply for permanent residency? Why does your physical location matter if you’re in the country legally already?

If the intention was to limit the number of people becoming permanent residents, then they could have done that explicitly. But by doing it this way, they are just fucking with people. And the talent that built our tech will take all their knowledge and skills back to their home country.

If the intention is to strengthen other countries by stopping their brain drain, then this would be a good move.

jltsiren• 2 months ago

The US is a common law system, where the law is a combination of statutes and precedent. The statutes alone are insufficient for interpreting the law.

Your approach would be more correct in a civil law system, but there are no pure civil law systems anywhere in the world. In actual civil law countries, once there is an established interpretation of the law, it usually cannot be changed without legislative action.

dwa35924• 2 months ago

BS!! H is a dual intent visa. Do you have any idea how the law works?

lefra• 2 months ago

People change their minds. Is that illegal? Maybe they had the intention to only be in the US temporarily at first, but now they'd like to get permanent residence. Why shouldn't they be able to apply for it, from the US, while still on the temporary visa?

Then the administration can say yes or no, in the same way that they can say yes or no to someone applying from abroad.

vkou• 2 months ago

They are intentionally malevolent, and at this point, it's safe to assume that anyone making excuses for it is as well.

pea• 2 months ago

I agree with mostly everything you’re saying; but it’s not uncommon to be processed via your local consulate, even if you are already living in the US.

This is usually just for the final issuing of the GC, and where USCIS approval has already happened (for instance, on an EB1A).

People frequently do this so they don’t have the travel restriction. Source: I just did it.

khuey5• 2 months ago

but it’s not uncommon to be processed via your local consulate, even if you are already living in the US.

It's relatively unusual. 84% of EB1s adjusted rather than apply at consulates in the last quarter USCIS released data for. Maybe it made sense for your circumstances.

https://ohss.dhs.gov/system/files/2025-07/2025_0725_ohss_leg...

2muchcoffeeman• 2 months ago

This is the point. Welcome to America.

skeeter20208• 2 months ago

GC issuances were already way down because DHS has basically stopped working on processing them. Now they're taking the next step and saying the ability to apply for a GC while in the US was a "loophole" which is utter horse shit; "adjustment of status" has been part of immigration since the 50's, and was expanded in the 90's and 2000 with support from all parties to increase efficiency, reduce the backlog and keep strong economic players in the US. You may notice that this adminstration has figured out they could weaponize inefficiency and a huge backlog if you don;t give a shit about the economic health of the country.

This is a long winded way of saying you're right with "intentionally malevolent"; this is the next step in a pretty transparent plan.

LeoPanthera• 2 months ago

Whoever thought of this is either intentionally malevolent or inexcusably incomprehending of the immigration process.

Have you not been paying attention?

mathfailure• 2 months ago

You can't reasonably get a job at a US firm while being physically located somewhere else and on the other side of an uncertain and greatly attenuated greencard application process. That's just not how this works.

For IT jobs - why can't you?

antiframe• 2 months ago

I believe there are tax/nation border issues. Can a Polish citizen work for a US company while in Poland. They need to pay Polish income tax. Does the company need to withhold their taxes. Usually companies will have a Polish subsidiary so the employee is working for a Polish company in Poland.

Not to mention what does the company do for the I-9. The emploee has no authorization to work for a US company.

spl757• 2 months ago

There are people with billions of dollars that want the population of the US to drop significantly. It's hard to control 300+ million people, and that many people can just remove unpopular governments by marching in the millions. Also, I believe the "Georgia Guidestones" if I'm not mistaken, that have writing about reducing the population of the USA to 500,000. I much more manageable number. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into things.

rossjudson• 2 months ago

Yes, you are reading too much into things. The ultrawealthy are supporting the current MAGA nonsense because they wish to permanently lock up the massive wealth transfer they've engineered over the past two decades, and the only way to do that is through a combination of nationalism, populism, and fascism.

Every part of the MAGA platform is a smokescreen of outrage, intended as cover for policies that favor the ultrawealthy.

An aware and motivated population legislates and taxes their way out of the establishment and perpetuation of dynasties; this has been done in the past.

whattheheckheck• 2 months ago

After 10 years of his bs I can't imagine anyone not realizing trump, maga, and heritage foundation people aren't intentionally malevolent

MPSimmons• 2 months ago

Intentionally malevolent is kind of their thing in this administration

kelnos3• 2 months ago

Whoever thought of this is either intentionally malevolent or inexcusably incomprehending of the immigration process.

It's always weird to me to see confusion/uncertainty such as this.

It's intentionally malevolent. Obviously. MAGA types hate immigration. They make a lot of noise about illegal immigration, but the fact is that they hate all kinds of immigration (unless you're white-looking and conservative enough). Anything they can do to make it harder for non-citizens to stay in the US is exactly the point for them.

And more the better if they can sow fear and threat of cruelty while doing it. That's their playbook. It's MAGA 101.

abalashov13• 2 months ago

It was more a bit of rhetorical flourish than serious doubt as to which motivation is the true explanation. :-)

ordu• 2 months ago

Whoever thought of this is either intentionally malevolent or inexcusably incomprehending of the immigration process.

It surprises me a lot. You can be a politician making a career on a hatred of immigrants, but your prosperity is bound to the prosperity of USA, so why to destroy it? It cannot be just malevolent, it is plain sheer stupidity. It seems to me even worse than roman elites fighting their civil wars while Rome itself was crumbling. They were in a situation of a tragedy of commons, stupid but understandable. But USA politicians really going against immigration is just something else. You can always look tough on immigrants while not hurting brain drain from all over the world.

There were dumb rumors that Trump is a Kremlin agent, but now I don't think they are so dumb. It is not enough to be a fool to inflict so much damage to USA.

cjfd• 2 months ago

Well, the short summary of it all is that the US is the very curious case of a superpower attempting to become a third world country.

refurb6• 2 months ago

I’d encourage you to read the policy before you get too upset.

The policy specifically calls out immigration violations as the problem. It doesn’t seem crazy to me to restrict the benefit of AOS in the US to people who have NOT committed immigration violations.

In addition, the policy specifically calls out that AOS in country is entirely appropriate where immigrants hold dual intent visas. This would include H1-B (skilled workers and family), L1 (corporate transfer) and K1/3 (spouses of citizens).

gdubs• 2 months ago

As an American, I just want to say that I'm very dismayed by the discourse around this topic over the past 24 hours in particular. The polarization of politics has become so intense, that the bipartisan mainstream position of just a couple of decades ago – that immigrants are a net positive to this country – feels like a distant dream.

We've gone from perpetually punting the football on comprehensive immigration reform, to people saying, "Good, go back home, we don't want you here."

The same people who want to paint the Statue of Liberty gold seem to have no clue what it represents.

solid_fuel2• 2 months ago

The same people who want to paint the Statue of Liberty gold seem to have no clue what it represents.

Well, yes. The current administration and the republican party as a whole are composed of fascists and thieves who steal from hardworking citizens like you and I to fund vanity projects like a ballroom and "Arc de Triomphe but bigger and gold".

They're shitting on the history of our country and all the people who have sacrificed to make this place what it is today, and they're doing it just to enrich themselves.

Frankly they are traitors and I hope that in time the wheel of history will deal with them as traitors deserve.

alterom4• 2 months ago

Oh they have a clue. They just want to rub it in.

"Look how prosperous we got off your backs, suckers!" is the intended message.

It's taunting.

tamimio• 2 months ago

Immigrants are the low hanging fruit to attack, and the best to blame all your suffering on, meanwhile, the real issue is wealth distribution. Since covid, the very few people got mega wealthier while the majority suffered, do you just leave it as is for people to find out? No, you push other distractions like immigrants, race rage baits, and other nonsense to keep people busy fighting each other.

RoadieRoller2• 2 months ago

This ^ If it is secularism and religion in some countries, it is language and ethinicity in some other, and immigration and racism in America. Depends on the timing, and the need for it, politicians use it to their advantage.

stdatomic2• 2 months ago

meanwhile, the real issue is wealth distribution

This is so mind-boggling to me. Why do the poor keep defending the billionaires?

biddit2• 2 months ago

The polarization of politics has become so intense
The same people who want to paint the Statue of Liberty gold seem to have no clue what it represents

You seem to be lamenting political polarization and in the same breath making character attacks on one side of the isle. Pick one.

yacin• 2 months ago

can we not call a spade a spade anymore? what part of cruelly cancelling green card applications fits with “give me your tired, your poor?”

horns4lyfe2• 2 months ago

Ya, because we never got immigration reform

array_key_first18• 2 months ago

The evidence for the need of immigration reform was always weak and, frankly, basically non-existent.

What happened was white people saw brown people coming in and got uncomfortable. That's it. The rest was just "fill in the blank" reasoning. Something something medicare, something something housing... eh yeah that's good enough we need immigration reform!

But that's been happening in the US for many generations now. That's just how the US works; we get a lot of immigrants and they become US citizens. If not them, then their kids. Yeah, welcome to America.

blindriver5• 2 months ago

You can apply for GC from within the US. The only time you need to leave for Consular Processing is for the interview, after which you immediately receive your GC. Everyone is saying that the entire GC process needs to be done outside the US but that's wrong. You can have an H1B and apply for GC from within the US without leaving and you only need to leave for the CP interview which is a couple of days max.

0xbadcafebee• 2 months ago

This is them working their way up through "purges" of undesireables. Remember it first started with illegal immigrants. Now it's expanding the classes of who counts as illegal. First forcing green card holders to become illegal. Next they'll make it illegal to speak out against the government, be a union organizer, trans person, non-Christian, anyone who gets or helps someone get an abortion (actually that's already illegal), socialists/social democrats, anyone who supports Palestine.

By 2029 the gloves will come off. The internment camps of today will be dwarfed by what comes next. If you think I'm crazy, look at what they've already said in the past. They are not kidding anymore.

1984throwaway2• 2 months ago

Typing this from behind a VPN proxy, just in case but...

Does anyone know if this mean that I as a US citizen, who has a spouse who has already applied/submitted their application (but has been waiting while the government drags its feet on it for over half a year), will now need to say goodbye? Things were already getting blurry when we moved quickly to get things in when we saw the winds in 24....

This is all so terrifying.

RoadieRoller2• 2 months ago

Looks like it. And if you are from one of those 75+ countries, whose consulates have already stopped processing GC applications, you are cooked.

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

IANAL. Seek legal advice. I hope you have an immigration attorney. I honestly think that in this administration, no case should be submitted without an attorney. DIY filing is incredibly risky.

What matters here is how your spouse entered the country, what visa they are on, how soon you got married after they entered the country, their entire immigration history and whether or not they've accured any unlawful presence.

It seems like people who are on so-called "immigrant intent" visas (eg L1, H1b) might still be able to ordinarily adjust in the US. What this will affect (if it isn't struck down) is people who entered on a visitor's visa or a student visa (both of which are not dual-intent) and then got married and filed for adjustment. Those people might be forced to consular process if this stands. People who have already filed when this memo was released might still be able to adjust. We really don't know until this gets tested in court.

But interestingly there are work visas that aren't dual-intent (eg TN, E3). Those people may not be able to adjust with consular processing if this stands. That's a big change. It may force them to adjust to an H1B first.

1984throwaway2• 2 months ago

That is batshit insane. Thank you for the insight and messages from people. (almost posted this on my main, scary times)

xp845• 2 months ago

This is confusing. If someone is already here on a valid visa, it's stupid that they should have to go anywhere else.

If they simply showed up or overstayed a visa illegally, then it's actually totally reasonable that before they can be given permanent resident status, they should be demonstrating compliance with immigration laws by not being here illegally.

Yet again with Trump's bizarre mixture of a nugget of a reasonable (and popular) idea with a barrel of nonsense and chaos. It's the same as with tariffs. Tariff things produced by adversaries, that we are well-positioned to make here ourselves and stimulate a good domestic industry with good-paying jobs? Yeah, but also let's tariff a ton of things we need that we don't even freaking make or grow here, and against our geopolitical allies to boot.

shevy-java• 2 months ago

Trump is still trying to distract from the magnitude of the Epstein network.

Not long ago, new accusations came about, involving more superrich - see here https://wsvn.com/news/us-world/former-miami-beach-mayor-accu... and elsewhere, really just a few hours ago; and from the last few days. So here I am wondering ... how can there be an investigation in the USA, but even many weeks afterwards, they keep on finding more and more people that MAY have been involved here? Of course it is guilty-unless-proven-otherwise-in-court, but the key question here is why the investigation "reveals" more and more victims? Should this not already be revealed? Or is the investigation deliberately crippled?

Something no longer works in the USA here. The "we are against immigration" is just the carrot on the stick before the donkey. Or the "let's bomb Iran ... oh wait, inflation now goes up". This is literally an administration that worships chaos and executes pillaging while implementing chaos.

ciconia• 2 months ago

I think it is hard for citizens to understand how precarious it feels to be an immigrant in the present political climate in the US and Europe. I'm a permanent resident in France, I'm white, I have a EU passport, I have a job, I'm OK. But, my naturalization request has already been denied twice, because I couldn't provide some arbitrary document the government demands, and they keep changing the rules, just for the fun of it or so it seems, it's quite insulting.

I really feel for immigrants that are less fortunate than me. we all just want to have dignity, find a job (anyway the low-paying jobs are done by immigrants) and provide for our kids. What's wrong with that? How is this taking advantage of our host country?

Frankly, the present discourse around African/Arab immigration seems to me to resemble a lot the kind of rhetoric around the millions of Jewish Russian immigrants who fled pogroms to Poland and western Europe a 120 years ago. I find the similarities quite striking. The blatant racism, the conspiracy theories, the fascist propaganda, all in order to whitewash (pun intended) a corrupt regime of thieves and sycophants. Absolutely disgusting!

tegiddrone• 2 months ago

My H1B coworker has paid $180k more in taxes than I have. We are the same age. He has fewer years working in USA than I have as a citizen. We calculated this by the data exposed by the mySocialSecurity website.

I get to vote and he does not.

Edit: s/green card/H1B/

margorczynski• 2 months ago

Well the fundamental question is does one see the US as a nation or some economic zone/factory where your worth is determined by how much you produce.

In the first case the paid taxes argument is pointless.

adi_kurian2• 2 months ago

Uncle Sam likes tax payers.

I believe the current administration, in general, appreciates those with $$.

https://www.trumpcard.gov/

mktk10012• 2 months ago

Is that the same line you take with people who argue that immigrants are a net drain on society and live off welfare?

horns4lyfe2• 2 months ago

So you want voting status to be determined by how much you pay in taxes? Fascinating, surely that would go well

wiseowise2• 2 months ago

Well, that’s the main talking point when it comes to immigrants, isn’t it?

SomaticPirate• 2 months ago

Not to speak on the anguish that this would undoubtedly cause but economically? This is like shooting yourself in the kneecap. America doesn’t nearly have the social security net of European countries and ours is already overburdened. Without younger, immigrant workers paying into our social security net the US govt will either need to print money (double digit inflation) or start raiding the evil tech bros RSUs for Medicare money.

Being a natvist is an expensive proposition. Expect your retirement to decrease in real value and struggle to find acceptable healthcare as you age (healthcare in the US is increasingly staffed by immigrants, especially nursing).

jezzamon2• 2 months ago

Wow. As someone who just went through this process myself (leaving the US to get a green card via consular processing), I can only hope they hire more people to handle the increased case load. You need a medical exam and there were only 2 people available in my country to do that, which added 2 months to my application time (where I could not return to the US)

kylehotchkiss6• 2 months ago

If anything they are reducing staffing for these posts. Last I heard foreign service staff morale was at an all time low

davidmurphy• 2 months ago

What the Trump administration has done, and is doing, to people wildly obscene — and I think evil.

Let's not mince words. My heart goes out to everyone impacted by all this.

confuseddesi4• 2 months ago

As a US citizen I am confused. H1-B and similar are supposed to be non-immigrant visas for temporary workers. Why was it allowed to permanently immigrate under those visas to begin with? We have immigrant visas like the E-1 for routes to permanent immigration.

mtremsal• 2 months ago

H1B is considered “dual intent”

varenc2• 2 months ago

The internal memo on this is interesting: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...

Essentially they're trying to change the rules by aggressive re-interpretation of the existing legal framework, and not actually changing any laws or regulations.

I don't follow all of it, but it seems to be arguing that the "ordinary consular process", leaving the country and applying for a visa from abroad, is the long-established default, and that "adjustment of status", where your immigration/green card status changes while you're already in the US, is merely an extraordinary exception and "a matter of discretion and administrative grace." Even though applying for a green card while in-country (an "adjustment") seems like the only sane and reasonable process.

It feels goofy watching them marshal decades of prior case law to try to frame this as just a "reminder" rather than admitting this is a real change. (Since changing laws is harder I assume)

skeeter20208• 2 months ago

Adjustment of Status has been on the books since the start in the 1950's, and was greatly expanded leading into what might turn out to be the high point of the country in the late 90's and early 2000's.

drstewart4• 2 months ago

Deregulation and union busting greatly expanded in the 80s leading to the high point of the country in the 90s as well.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

What “the books” say is that H1B is a “nonimmigrant” visa for people “temporarily” in the U.S. It’s right there in 8 USC 1101(a)(15)(H).

“Adjustment of status” is an option at the discretion of the administration (8 USC 1255(a)):

The status of an alien who was inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States … may be adjusted by the Attorney General, in his discretion and under such regulations as he may prescribe, to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence

Note the “may” and the “in his discretion.” Basically, if the government really likes you, it can change your status. But that doesn’t change the primary purpose of the H1 visa from a temporary worker program into a permanent residency program.

testing223217• 2 months ago

I don’t want to defend the cure administration, but it’s very common and normal for a country to require a person to leave to change status.

Every time my Canadian work visa expired I had to drive over the border, enter the US, turn around and drive back to start the new one. The border guards call it “flag-poling” because you do a U turn around the flag pole.

When I went from work visa to permanent resident I had to do it, in January, in Alaska, at -44 degrees and nasty ice on the roads. That border required 30km of driving through no man’s land before I got into Alaska. I asked the Canadian as I was leaving if I could just u turn his building and come back right now, and he was very firm I had to enter the US, even if for just 20 seconds. Nasty drive, but all ok

array_key_first18• 2 months ago

Okay but this has not been the case in the US and everyone knows that. We can try to make things up to rationalize why this being done.

Or, we can be honest, and acknowledge these actors have proven themselves to be irrational. What is happening is that an end-goal is desired, and then the trump administration is working backwards to make it happen.

freetonik• 2 months ago

That’s strange. I was able to renew a work permit in Canada while staying (and continuing work) in Canada. Same for study permit. This was over a decade ago, so perhaps things have changed.

They also were not called visas, but permits. Visa is for entering the country, permit is for staying.

rplnt2• 2 months ago

You say "normal" and then add the other paragraphs, which are very clearly not normal. Common maybe.

zaptheimpaler8• 2 months ago

Even if it is common (i don't think this is required any more anyways), just why? Why do we need to make someone run back and forth across the border for the immigration department to do some paperwork? It seems purely designed to inconvenience people for absolutely no gain to anyone.

infamia• 2 months ago

I don’t want to defend the cure administration, but it’s very common and normal for a country to require a person to leave to change status.

This new policy is different than the "flag poling" you've described. The new guidance requires immigrants to return to their country of origin, then apply for the change in status, and wait in their country of origin while the change in status is being processed/considered which can take many years. If the status changed is approved, they can move back to the US.

timr12• 2 months ago

It’s a shame that I had to scroll past pages of invective and name-calling to get to your comment, which is the first one to substantively deal with the policy change.

Like you, I tend to think this is a ham-handed move, but like one of the sibling comments, I also have to acknowledge that it’s common for other nations to require change-of-status applications happen outside the country. For example, Japan requires this for some (but not all!) visa modifications.

Also, I’ve seen otherwise reliable sources making unsupported claims about this (e.g. “Existing applicants will lose their ability to apply again if they leave the country”) that aren’t clear from the minuscule amount of information that has been released so far.

As usual with these debates, the content is far more heat than light.

declan_roberts9• 2 months ago

I think one of the primary divergences of thought happening here is whether H1B is indeed a temporary visa or whether it was meant to be a stepping stone to a green card.

H1B is only 36 years old. The Immigration Act of 1990 always meant it to be a temporary status, which is why it is so easily imperiled.

cyberrock• 2 months ago

Japan only requires leaving for converting a tourist/digital nomad visa and some Working Holiday Visas to a normal working/spouse visa. And WHV to normal status is really dependent on the partner country. For example Australians don't need to leave, but Canadians and Brits do, and I've heard that immigration will sometimes just grant the change of status anyways. So that seems to indicate that Japan doesn't really care.

Needing to leave to convert a normal working/spouse status to PR is not the norm anywhere.

airstrike27• 2 months ago

It's a shame you scrolled past pages of comments and missed the point entirely.

The fact that it's "common in other countries" is entirely irrelevant to what the United States does.

It's not even clear it's common in other countries. Japan is notorious for being insular.

This is a garbage move by this administration that flies in the face of decades of precedents _in the United States_.

tootie2• 2 months ago

They have repeatedly taken incredibly broad if not downright delusional interpretations of legal precedent and used them to set policy. They literally tried to override a constitutional amendment (birthright citizenship) with an executive order. They have been laughed out of court many times but have won a shocking number of these ridiculous cases. This is just another one. Set the maximal policy that they want and make their opponents challenge it in court. It's legal until someone (with standing) stops them.

declan_roberts9• 2 months ago

H1b (the visa status of nearly everyone here affected by this change) is only 36 years old. We're not talking about ancient case law here.

hax0ron33• 2 months ago

Trying to follow the Constitution literally is hard and in practice, it's not done. The political system just interprets the Constitution in whatever way the consensus of the given moment wants to interpret it. The 14th Amendment is clear that all persons born in the US are citizens of the US. However, if you follow the 2nd Amendment just as literally, it means that the Federal government, at least, cannot make any laws restricting us from owning nuclear weapons.

jmyeet12• 2 months ago

So this is an example of being careful what you wish for.

Neil Gorsuch's mother had to resign in disgrace as the EPA administrator under Reagan in a case that ultimately became what was called "Chevron deference" [1]. Chevron deference meant that when Congress wrote ambiguous statutes, courts would defer to the interpretation of the agencies responsible for enforcing them. Almost 40 years of laws were written with this standard in mind. Critics claimed Congress should be explicit but they know this is bullshit. Congress simply doesn't have the bandwidth to pass a law every time an agency wants to change a regulation and they know it. This is all about deregulation so companies are free to poison the air and water without fear of prosecution or lawsuits. It would allow, for example, a Federal circuit judge in Amarillo, Texas to issue a nationawide injunction on pretty much anything where before Federal judges had to defer to agencies.

It has been Gorsuch's life mission to avenge his mother's humiliation. Overturning Chevron became a mission of the conservative movement and they finally succeeded in a case called Loper Bright [2]. As an aside, Gorsuch really should've recused himself from the case. A consequence of that was that the Supreme Court accepted an interpretation that executive agencies should be government by the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA") instead. So that's been the law of the land since Loper Bright. That creates a number of problems:

1. To change an agency rule now requires a complicated process unde rthe APA of proposing a rule change, getting public comment and generally following a statutory procedure. This administration that wanted Chevron overturned never does that. So under Chevron they probably could've done that. Now? Any memo like this can be challenged for failing to follow procedure. There have been cases where USCIS has had temporary injunctions imposed on them for this reason: the judges are saying USCIS is likely to lose; and

2. This memo is relying on a Supreme Court case that considered adjustment-of-status ("AoS") an act of "grace". Well, that precedent was set under Chevron. Chevron no longer applies. So which is it? Do you want Chevron deference or don't you? You can't have it both ways;

3. Millions of people have open cases under the previous rules and interpretations. Courts are likely to take a dim view of a retroactive rule change like this. New cases filed after this memo was released may not enjoy the same protections; and

4. There are people who cannot or should not leave the US to consular process. They may have incurred unlawful presence that will then get them a 3 or 10 year bar from returning. This bar may well apply if they have to consular process instead of do an AoS. Some people may not be able to leave (eg asylees). The wait time to get an interview at a local embassy or consulate varies wildly. In some cases it's already more than 12 months. If you add over a million current AoS cases to that, the wait times are going to explode. But the cruelty is the point.

Also, decisions by consular officials have very limited ability to be challenged in court. That's also the point.

This will be challenged in court. I think it will make it up to the Supreme Court as early as the next term and this court more than any probably in history bends over backwards to let the president do whatever he wants.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Ra...

xg15• 2 months ago

There are people who cannot or should not leave the US to consular process. They may have incurred unlawful presence that will then get them a 3 or 10 year bar from returning. This bar may well apply if they have to consular process instead of do an AoS. Some people may not be able to leave (eg asylees).

This feels like it might be the actual motivation of the Trump admin to do this change. The cruelty is indeed the point.

59percentmore• 2 months ago

It is actually remarkable how much of the bullshit we have to put up with comes down to our giving power to craven or unscrupulous men with a chip on their shoulder.

Bush W. and his father's single term.

Biden and his family's troubles with the federal government.

Musk and gestures broadly at South Africa

Trump

I'm sure the list goes on.

airstrike27• 2 months ago

Thank you for this fantastically informative comment.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

Your comment is completely wrong:

For example:

Overturning Chevron became a mission of the conservative movement

Chevron’s biggest proponent was Justice Scalia!

A consequence of that was that the Supreme Court accepted an interpretation that executive agencies should be government by the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA") instead. So that's been the law of the land since Loper Bright.

Executive agencies have always been governed by the APA. That’s why it’s called the “Administrative” Procedures Act.

To change an agency rule now requires a complicated process unde rthe APA of proposing a rule change, getting public comment and generally following a statutory procedure

That’s been true since 1946. That was the whole point of the APA. Chevron itself arose out of an EPA rule making under the APA.

You’re completely mistaken about what Chevron was about. It was just about whether courts must defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, or whether they get to decide the interpretation themselves.

dr_dshiv• 2 months ago

Don’t you technically leave the nation when you enter an embassy?

pseingatl• 2 months ago

No. This is a popular myth.

stephen_g• 2 months ago

Not at all, no - embassies are granted special privileges but are still the territory of the country they are in.

justanotherjoe• 2 months ago

Gives them the freedom to interpret it 'case by case' which is to mean punishing businesses and states not aligned with Trump with a million inconveniences, while leaving his base unmolested. The most divisive and punitive president ever.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

Essentially they're trying to change the rules by aggressive re-interpretation of the existing legal framework, and not actually changing any laws or regulations.

If you want to make that argument, you have to confront the fact that H1 is by its terms a “nonimmigrant” visa for people who are “temporarily” in the U.S. 8 USC 1101(a)(15)&(a)(15)(H). While adjustment of status was possible, it was never intended to be a de facto immigrant visa that typically leads to permanent residency.

Note the law does also have immigrant visas which are designed to lead to permanent residency, such as E1 visas: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-inf...

canyp• 2 months ago

H1-B (I think H1 generally) is dual intent. https://fam.state.gov/FAM/09FAM/09FAM040210.html

softwaredoug3• 2 months ago

Not only is changing laws harder. Changing regulations requires following the Administrative Procedure Act. They might also be short circuiting APA - as in typical for this admin to attempt.

rayiner34• 2 months ago

What part of this memo changes the regulations? The punchline is this: “Where adjustment of status is in the discretion of USCIS, officers are reminded that they are to consider all relevant factors and information in the totality of the circumstances in exercising that discretion.”

All the memo is saying is reminding USCIS officers that adjustment of status is an act of administrative grace and applicants aren’t entitled to have their status adjusted. That’s always been true.

motbus32• 2 months ago

I wonder why all of this

Aniket-N4• 2 months ago

The number of people commenting who are grossly misinformed yet feel very confident is very very high.

Many comments are calling legitimate facts as “wrong”.

People don’t event know the difference between a visa and a permanent resident status and yet feel compelled to talk about foreign born people coming to America, “non- western” or “non-European” immigrants.

Do better HN audience. This is very disappointing.

_doctor_love9• 2 months ago

Hey friend, you don't come here for reasoned discussion, do ya? On a Saturday?

squibonpig• 2 months ago

I don't feel scared of or concerned about immigration. That's it. I don't know where that's coming from.

EasyMark• 2 months ago

There really is no rhyme or reason to this insanity. Even someone who wants less immigration shouldn't be able to see this as anything other than insanity. The current administration is pathetic beyond belief.

Chinjut• 2 months ago

Silicon Valley bigwigs supported this administration vocally. I am starting to doubt that their interests and morality align with mine.

notnullorvoid• 2 months ago

Their interests and morality have been evident for a long time.

lowbloodsugar• 2 months ago

Companies don’t want their H1s getting a green card and the freedom that comes with it.

letsberealman• 2 months ago

On a related topic, the number of H1Bs brought in by big tech has been insane. Have you seen mtn view castro lately?

_doctor_love9• 2 months ago

Lately as compared to when? Mountain View is in the heart of the tech world, it's right next door to Palo Alto and Menlo Park.

henry20232• 2 months ago

The biggest industry in the world is importing top talent from around the world? Who’d have guessed?

shell0x2• 2 months ago

That makes sense to me. If you come on a non-immigrant visa, you can’t become a permanent resident easily. it’s a privilege, not a right. Other countries like the UAE also take a lot of foreign workers but do not want them become PRs or citizens and there are tons of people moving there for opportunities. The labor is needed but they don’t want these people permanently. You made your money, now leave

dboreham• 2 months ago

Nice way to destroy the US economy over the next few decades, if you consider who made the country rich since WW2.

nceqs33• 2 months ago

H1-B wasn't invented until 1990...

jsadfsdafh5• 2 months ago

European scientists?

Longlius3• 2 months ago

The US had one of the most restrictive immigration systems in the world up until 1965 and it did not see significant immigration until the 1980s.

skupig2• 2 months ago

That doesn't make any sense. The US enjoys its position of economic power because it has the reputation and wealth to attract skilled people and keep them here.

shell0x2• 2 months ago

Skilled people have O visas. The H1Bs are the ones you don’t want long-term.

guywithahat2• 2 months ago

This is my thought too. The intent of the law is for it to be temporary, and creating the citizenship loophole has caused a lot of issues. I think the expectation H1B may lead to citizenship causes a lot of disress and forces people into roles that take advantage of them, and closing the loophole seems strictly good.

colechristensen• 2 months ago

The president isn't a king. If Congress weren't cowards this would be trivially preventable.

Forget the French, the new meme for cowards who retreat at the first opportunity should be the American Congress.

geertj• 2 months ago

There does appear to be a limited walk back for dual intent visa holders (H1B and L1)

“A spokesperson for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, however, told Semafor that H1-B visa holders and high-skilled workers might not be affected in the near term.”

Source: https://www.semafor.com/article/05/22/2026/trump-orders-gree...

nonfamous• 2 months ago

That “might” is rather load-bearing for something you are literally staking your future on, though.

leptons2• 2 months ago

They "might" also end up in an ICE facility and then deported to somewhere like the Congo or an El Salvadoran prison.

FarmerPotato• 2 months ago

I see the article argues that this new policy is NOT following the law ("faithfully executing Congress' intent".)

So any further spokes-person-ment is just more of the same -- no rule of law, just what we decide today or tomorrow.

Everything set by precedent from 1952-present is out the window.

mehulashah2• 2 months ago

This administration has made it clear in no uncertain words or actions. They don’t want immigrants. And if you think this is bad policy, please stop voting for them. Please vote for the alternative candidates. This is the easiest way to fix this nonsense.

amir734jj2• 2 months ago

I will vote in midterms. Enough is enough.

_doctor_love9• 2 months ago

I don't think voting is going to make a very meaningful dent in the issue.

ashley952• 2 months ago

For those not very familiar with the US immigration system: it can be very confusing and the naming of things is rarely related to their function due to a very thick layer of legal fiction in how it works.

The system sorely lacks reform to align the legal fiction with reality, which is precisely why this news release may sound entirely sensible for the uninitiated.

yongjik2• 2 months ago

[flagged]

amazingamazing6• 2 months ago

Police have been killing Americans since at least the 1900s

bigyabai2• 2 months ago

ICE aren't police.

_doctor_love9• 2 months ago

Much longer ago than that.

sneak• 2 months ago

Not on high res, widely distributed video. Not, immediately after that video, telling us we didn’t see what we saw.

The game has changed.

thrance• 2 months ago

What's new is that we have the deeds captured under multiple angles in full HD, and still around 30% of the country believes the victims were actually the aggressors and deserved to die. They're so indoctrinated that they're able to rationalize away their own eyes' evidence. And they feel comfortable enough in the current environment to try and gaslight you about it.

refurb6• 2 months ago

I don’t see this as that significant of a change.

The way I read the new policy is that it will be applied to people who have violated immigration law in some way.

An alien’s failure to comply with the conditions of their nonimmigrant admission or parole and an alien’s failure to depart as expected are highly relevant to this analysis

And those on dual-intent visa are fine…

USCIS reminds its officers that applying for adjustment of status is not inconsistent with simultaneously maintaining nonimmigrant status in a category with dual intent.

It’s basically adhering to the laws on the books. If you’ve violated immigration law a high hurdle will be in place to use this special pathway.

However, if you’re in the US on a dual-intent visa (e.g. H1-B) then you can continue to use the AOS pathway. This includes temporary works on L or H visas. And includes those sponsoring their spouses on K visas.

_heimdall• 2 months ago

Sure seems like we as a country are heading further down the isolationist, nationalist road. I expect we won't be the last western country to batten down the hatches as it were, for better or worse it seems like most countries are preparing for something much larger.

gcanyon• 2 months ago

   1. They desperately want to end all immigration.
   2. They are too stupid to enact reasonable policies to achieve that end.
   3. Therefore they resort to the blunt force tool of cruelty.

Either that or they're racist sadists, one of the two.

bobjordan• 2 months ago

Legal immigration was already hard. Just went through that green card process with my wife from China, glad we already got it done. But, even before Trump admin 2nd term, it's been difficult. Further, even my wife has the green card, my Chinese mother-in-law has been rejected twice for a simple visitors visa, and I'm an American that has been with my wife for 16 years. She was rejected before Trumps latest term while Democrats were in power. She owns like 3 houses in China and has plenty of assets and would not move here permanently even if there were zero friction. We just want her to be able to visit us a few months per year instead of me being forced to fly my entire family of four back to China each year just to visit my wife's mother. These stupid barriers are totally ridiculous. I promise, Grandma from China isn't taking anyone's job and she has plenty of money to spend while she's here to help the economy and then she wants to return home.

All that said, as a data point, when I got my working permit and working visa to legally work in China, I first had to fly back to America and get a "landing" visa issued, then fly back to China, where they then finally issued me the China working visa and China resident permit. So, I think globally, this is pretty common for process.

Padriac• 2 months ago

Makes sense and this is how we do it in Australia.

whatever1• 2 months ago

Is there now a path to retain a fresh PhD / postDoc in the US?

If all of these folks are pushed out of the country right after their student visa expires, likely they are not coming back.

booleandilemma• 2 months ago

Well, I for one hope we can send all the foreigners home.

gigatexal• 2 months ago

This must be rolled back this is so hella disruptive. But it’s very much in line with this administration. One part stupid another part callous and 3 parts bad for the economy.

aabajian• 2 months ago

Devil's advocate: My wife thankfully just got her green card three months ago. She first came on a J-1 and then an F-1. She knows many, many people who come with the intent of staying either without status or via questionable marriage licenses. The vast majority of her acquaintances in the J-1 visa program were young (<25 year old) au pairs with no intention of learning English (they had 'mandatory' English language cultural lessons per J-1). My wife is an extreme outlier in that she learned English in 5 years and just got accepted to veterinary school in USA.

The bottom-line is that she thinks the J-1 / au pair program should be discontinued.

iLoveOncall• 2 months ago

When I studied in the US, a lot of our friends were au-pairs, and they all spoke perfect English.

Your wife's experience is an outlier, not the fact that she speaks English.

bubblethink9• 2 months ago

That is completely orthogonal. Whether any non-immigrant visa program should or should not be continued is immaterial. The topic at hand is about adjusting status to permanent residency, for which you need to independently satisfy the criteria for permanent residency. The admin is proposing asking people to go out of the US for their interviews as opposed to an interview in the US. The admin can just as easily deny AOS in the US, but people have more rights in the US and can seek legal recourse. They cannot outside the US.

jmward01• 2 months ago

I personally can't understand anyone wanting to move to the US anymore except for extreme reasons. And, yes, I have actually lived in several other countries so I know how green the grass can be in different places. So with how ugly the US is being right now, what is holding back the remote worker from turning truly remote, at least in tech?

For clarity here, I don't think this is a great direction. A massive strength of America has always been its ability to draw immigrants. People that are willing to leave their families, cultures, etc behind are generally a cut above the average and it shows. The US is being, in a word, stupid and we are already paying the price for it and will for generations to come.

drstewart4• 2 months ago

So with how ugly the US is being right now, what is holding back the remote worker from turning truly remote, at least in tech?

Because money and taxes, both of which are unchanged due to this policy

And boy wait til you find out how other countries treat immigration and visas. You'll be shocked to learn they're also super racist and don't give everyone citizenship at birth just because of being there!

They are, in your words, very stupid countries

Calavar2• 2 months ago

If you're looking for international precedent, this is an old vs. new world issue. Birthright citizenship is rare in the old world, but it is the default for the Americas. Canada, most of Latin America, and a decent part of the Caribbean have birthright citizenship.

protortyp• 2 months ago

I personally can't understand anyone wanting to move to the US anymore except for extreme reasons.

I am German and honestly can't wait to move to the US once I get a suitable H-1B offer. I already spent 8 months in Boston for a research stay, and back then the doomer mentality among natives was wild to me. From an outsider's perspective it’s crazy to watch. Life, and especially the ceiling for what you can achieve, is still 10x higher in the US than anywhere else.

I think people in the US severely underestimate how stagnant it feels in Europe and other continents right now. We are basically just stumbling from one crisis to the next, without any strong leadership (the US two-party system definitely has its advantages here, as you're able to charge fullspeed into one direction instead of not moving at all).

If you actually want to build ambitious things, the friction here is exhausting. And instead of being rewarded for high output you get taxed to death to prop up a system favored towards an aging/declining population. It's essentially a massive boomer tax. Younger workers have zero political leverage to change it because our demographic is just too small to matter at the ballot box.

Sure, the US definitely has its ugly sides, but if you want to work hard and actually capture the upside of what you build, it's still the only game in town. Even if that means jumping through all the hoops the current gov throws in your way.

I hope I can call myself an American one day.

gmerc• 2 months ago

Some people see fascism as a ply. It’s a thing

triceratops2• 2 months ago

if you want to work hard and actually capture the upside of what you build

But not if you want to build solar or wind energy. Then you get rekt, no matter what the law says.

stdatomic2• 2 months ago

So many words just to say you want more money.

Younger workers have zero political leverage to change it because our demographic is just too small to matter at the ballot box.

Because:

can't wait to move to the US once I get a suitable H-1B offer.

bean469• 2 months ago

if you want to work hard and actually capture the upside of what you build, it's still the only game in town

I think that this is only true to some extent. There are many successful engineers and scientists who work in Europe that earn good money and live well. Especially if you're a researcher, Horizon grants provide really good opportunities to collaborate with people from different countries

throw-the-towel10• 2 months ago

So with how ugly the US is being right now, what is holding back the remote worker from turning truly remote, at least in tech?

I think you haven't applied to remote jobs. Almost all of them only hire within $country.

martin-t• 2 months ago

My colleague organizes workshops for gifted teenagers interested in tech/science in Europe. He often asks them if they want to go study abroad. A few years back, most of them would say they want to go to the US. Now none of them do. This is not hyperbole - he said literally 0 wanted to go to the US.

Maybe that country still has some prestige somewhere else and people still want to apply but definitely not here. We've been watching the country sabotage itself and take a nosedive for a while now. The latest president is just the cherry on top.

I hope the rest of the world learns from this but I doubt it actually will.

KnuthIsGod• 2 months ago

"The Cruelty Is the Point President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear"

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt...

moomoo11• 2 months ago

Is America an economic zone for people (who might be highly educated) to just come and make money, or is it a place for them to call home and be American?

I'll be honest as a naturalized citizen, I am shocked at how many people treat America as just a economic zone. They don't really consider this country to be their roots and don't assimilate into the broader culture. And I'm not talking about H1b, I'm talking about the O1s and L1s. They are so entitled and they are usually super well off in whatever country they come from.

It doesn't matter if they're a PhD or whatever, they might contribute via their employer or their own startup on a monetary basis, but I have also dealt with enough people who try to maintain one foot here and another foot wherever they're from.

We moved to the USA because the system of governance here and all the things it stood for were what motivated us to become Americans. It is our home and we have only our American passport.

Most of the so-called "highly educated" immigrant workers I meet have a spouse who won't become a US citizen so they can double dip in their origin country's low cost of living. It is kind of gross.

Just food for thought. I don't really like people who only seek to extract, if that makes sense. Doesn't matter if your TC is 1.2M or you raised 40M.

squarefoot• 2 months ago

This swill split entire families, more likely forcing those in the US to follow those who need to leave. Of course this has nothing to do with immigration. They're indeed feeding their racist voters some candy, but the goal is rather to reduce population among the poor to counter the inevitable unrest that is happening soon, when tens millions of families will be left with nothing to put on the table because of recent technological advancements that happened too fast before society could adapt.

khriss• 2 months ago

The performative cruelty is the intent, I guess. At this point, seems like the only practical thing to do is to wait the lunatic out.

However, the big question this will leave for future immigrants is 'What if this current administration is the prototype for future Republican administrations?'

splittydev• 2 months ago

This is common practice in many countries, although I don't quite understand why

whiddershins• 2 months ago

I am under the impression this does not apply to for example o-1 visas. Possibly not for h1-b. Is everyone clear about what they are commenting on here? Is the news coverage clear?

zkmon• 2 months ago

I do not endorse this change in anyway, as it means breaking promises and assumptions which drove thousands to the shores of USA in the recent past.

Having said that, most commentators here, including me, might not have the full picture of the situation - the scale of influx of current immigration, quality, tactics and loopholes used, and goals (universities as visa machines) etc. USCIS might have a different picture they are looking at, than most of us here. They also might have better visibility of the future needs of the businesses here.

sagarm2• 2 months ago

You're in the minority if you still assume that anything out of this administration is driven by competence rather than malevolence.

thenoblesunfish• 2 months ago

To make sure this opinion is here:

The fact that they get to make this announcement is probably the biggest upside. Their base loves it. It makes people think they are doing something. There is an asymmetry in that if they quietly roll this back or it's blocked in court, it will generate only a tiny fraction of the publicity.

Probably not too controversial here to say that the economy wants these immigrants so good bet they'll keep getting hired.

It's a cruel strategy, but I think it's fair to say that it's far from certain it'll be a consistent one.

Don't let them troll you too much, stay strong.

warumdarum2• 2 months ago

Its the same model china has? Was one of the reasons the enclaves flourished (like hong kong).

And i dont get it, no actually i get cognitive dissonance whiplashfrom all that contradicting messaging. Millions of jobs will go due to AI, but millions of those unemployed must stay in addition?

In a country thats constantly portrayed as the worst on earth but constantly attracts the wretched of the earth. Who want the opportunities but not the melting pot. The recipe that produced the economy that allowed such luxuries must go, but those who detest that system must stay. If a set of opinions has no intersect why does it make a sound ?

koe123• 2 months ago

The most insane thing to me is that legal (non-asylum) immigration is somehow framed as a “moral” thing that nations do out of charity.

Its not: you get to directly address a shortage in your country without the burden of raising and training the person. Arguably, if you don’t mind morality, the immigrants are also easier to exploit. And all that + you get a free tax payer!

My reading is that Americans (but also other parts of the world) are 1) uneducated on this topic 2) racist and or xenophobic to the point of self sabotage.

Quite literally if county building was a video game where the xenophobia of the masses could be ignored, I would brain drain the shit out of every country, leaving myself stronger and the rest weaker.

0xDEAFBEAD11• 2 months ago

Switzerland does this well. In Switzerland, immigrants are mostly permanent residents. Achieving Swiss citizenship is very difficult. They have a bunch of immigrants in their country, yet immigration is much less divisive than in other countries, since they have such a well-designed system.

The US has a naturalization-driven model of immigration, which is being tested by fast jet travel. It worked OK in the days when you had to pay a bunch to cross the Atlantic and you couldn't easily communicate with your relatives back home. But things are different now.

The citizenship model or naturalization model creates policy implications for accepting immigrants. New voters, new policies. Of course the people on the losing end of this policy shift become upset: https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/increasing-skilled-immig...

noobermin3• 2 months ago

I will say, there are a non-zero number of people who were rooting for Trump and the American right wing in general who are now surprised the fascists are turning on them. I don't know, it's hard to have sympathy for some of you.

Did you really think the whites saw you as one of them? Were you so naive? Because you were "educated"? Because you worked in Silicon Valley or SF (you know California, the same places that Trump ranted against for years because they never voted for him)?

debarshri• 2 months ago

It is just ironic - there are other countries who want talent that goes to US but does not have industry to support them. I guess this is how monopoly looks like.

tao_oat2• 2 months ago

I love the US; I’ve lived there and held an H-1B visa. Moving there permanently was a teenage dream of mine.

Unfortunately the country in that dream no longer exists. I now avoid jobs that require travel to the US. As a non-American it makes a lot more sense to focus on building up the tech centres closer to home.

stinkbeetle3• 2 months ago

Not American here, what did you like about it that is no longer?

tao_oat2• 2 months ago

A lot of the good is still there -- e.g. the nature, the unusually high level of drive/determination/spirit/openness. At least compared to northern Europe where I'm from.

Unfortunately tilting towards fascism outweighs those.

atoav4• 2 months ago

It was once an open, free country that fought fascism and respected the rule of law?

Arguably it was never perfect and the ugly bits where there, so a lot of that is about an image it projected to the outside world.

You know it is the land of the free when you have to give them access to all your social media accounts at the border. I have heard stories of fellow countrymen being held for weeks without hearing any cause. So yeah, no thanks.

Maybe if you restore the rule of law and have the current, president, supreme court justices and representatives removed in 20 years or so.

Bigotry and xenophobia has brought the downfall of the US empire, for real. It was always more about who believed in it than it was for real. The US had an ugly history that it tried to ignore for the passt hundred years and at some point unsurprisingly it comes back to haunt you.

thih9• 2 months ago

Looks like a recipe for a brain drain, but out of US for a change.

wesleywt• 2 months ago

Does the American Dream myth still exist?

andyjohnson0• 2 months ago

I see lots of comments about the legal minutiae around this -- but as a non-US person I'd like to understand the motivation.

Straight-up nativist discrimination? This kind of technical measure would seem to be hard to sell to the MAGA base, compared to something more blatant? Or is this somehow a favour for their corporate clients?

bubblethink9• 2 months ago

Whenever stuff like this happens, the chuds, both inside and outside the WH, start searching for ancient texts that would support their positions. Invariably, there will be the "actually, the INA says ..." crowd in the comments. To these people, I would like to point out laws that have been passed in this century that speak precisely to this issue. The law is appropriately called "American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000", for which USCIS maintains this page https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-7-part-e-chapter-....

hdivider• 2 months ago

The strategy for many folks will likely be to wait it out until the next administration when hopefully some amount of sanity returns.

The question buried in much of the detail: there is an indication this doesn't apply for H1B's and similar who work in the national interest or provide economic benefit (presumably substantial). Perhaps this allows an opening for at least some people.

Perhaps the people initiating this -- that is to say, almost universally either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants to the US -- would prefer something like the following version:

With silent lips. "Keep your poor, your tired, your teeming masses, too!

We’ve rewritten the laws, reframed the view,

To raise a middle finger straight at you.

Send your huddled refuse back to your own shore,

I lift my lamp beside the dead-bolted door!"

thelastgallon4• 2 months ago

This is the will of people who voted the current administration into power. Its a democratic country, politicians have to respect what the people want, a recent video which reflects the thoughts of majority: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FcCTXRiKo

tibbydudeza• 2 months ago

They don't want legal immigration except in cases where it is in the national interest i.e a Deepseek AI researcher wanting to move to the US - bet your bottom that person ain't waiting for a green card.

softwaredoug3• 2 months ago

The will of the country is also expressed in who is elected to Congress. And they make laws, the President implements them.

So yes what you say is true, if what the President is doing actually is within the legal authority set out by the law.

softwaredoug3• 2 months ago

One thing with this policy, its not all green card seekers, its those deemed to be under temporary visas (student, tourist, etc). Apparently these comprise the majority of applicants, but not nesc. the majority of those granted green cards (family, longer term workers, etc).

I'm not defending the policy, but I think that's one nuance being lost.

xyst• 2 months ago

your life in your home country must be really terrible to decide to come to the USA to jump through all of these hoops now.

commandersaki2• 2 months ago

I'm dumb, can someone give me an objective take as to why leaving the country is a good thing for applying a green card? In Australia usually you apply when you already have an existing visa, and if that's going to expire you usually apply for what is known as a bridging visa while your PR application is being processed.

troad3• 2 months ago

It's not. The US green card process takes years, and being forced to be outside the country while the process is ongoing makes it very hard to continue working for a US employer, which is how most people are actually sponsored for a GC in the first place.

If you're looking for some objective rationale for this change, you're not going to find one. This is simply designed to make GCs much, much harder to get and dissuade prospective immigrants. That's the only goal.

commandersaki2• 2 months ago

I think others are saying you just need to apply outside the country but you can return while the process is ongoing. So it seems to be some kind of clerical thing.

Havoc• 2 months ago

This definitely has "cruelty is the point" vibes

terrycody• 2 months ago

A very good deep analysis of this:

https://x.com/providence_eye0/status/2058577102321131755

throw092• 2 months ago

A lot of immigrant doctors and nurses have to go. Natives should get those jobs first

CommenterPerson• 2 months ago

I've read through many comments. Like true HN-ers, they are trying to understand this change in terms of logic, reasoning, cost / benefit, and so on.

This is missing the point. The arbitrariness, cruelty, racism, xenophobia, etc. is A DESIGN FEATURE, NOT A BUG.

I hope this may help youngsters in this terrible situation understand what is happening. Since at least the 1980's, if not earlier, one American political party has been using racism as a part of their platform. They used to do this in coded "dog whistles" before. The earlier targets were mostly Black Americans (they still are, if you look at what the Supreme Court just did with their voting rights).

Now it is all out in the open. The racist beast needs to be fed continually with fresh targets. Gay Americans were another target group. More recently it is undocumented South Americans. The most recent target is .. foreigners (especially non-white non- Christian).

Don't look for logic and reasoning in all this, in the abominations. Take a deep breath, and a long walk. Evaluate if it is worth dedicating your life and career contributing to the beast, and living in constant uncertainty of your legal status, unable to travel, and so on. You are worth way way more than that.

nikolay• 2 months ago

That's right. Many people obtain visas with the clear intention of changing their status, which is illegal, and so far, authorities have turned a blind eye to it. The typical progression is: people come on a J-1 visa, join a language cours to get an F1 visa, then drag it for as long as possible, graduate, which gives them the opportunity to work on campus for a short period of time, meanwhile, try to get married, or pay somebody to marry them fictitiously, or try to get an H-1B, which is almost impossible, or, in most cases, stay illegally, but now they have an SSN, and a driver's license, which nobody checks if they are authorized to work, so, there millions of people with SSNs and DLs, whose stay is completely illegal, and it's not too hard to identify them, but so far this illegal situation has been silently tolerated. Okay, if you knowingly allow violation of the law, then change the law so that people don't live with the sense of being unlawful residents! Oh, I forgot that illegal residents can have legal children and later on get green cards as parents of U.S. Citizens. All these scenarios are well known, including the abuse of L-1 visas by outsourcing companies, but, as I said, it's been tolerated.

Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says

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