Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible
cato.org
cato.org
the current system works pretty well. the us doesn't deport most illegals. their children will all be citizens, allowing for a de facto backdoor immigration system (if you're never deported, it doesn't matter as much you don't have citizenship)
borders are important so cities aren't completely overrun with immigrants - like texas has been dealing with for years, and just now the libs are starting to realize doesn't work in cities like NY and Chicago (wrt budgeted services, housing etc, spare me the nyc was built by immigrants spiel)
It seems awfully dysfunctional for a country which would like to portray itself as subject to the rule of law (although dysfunction may count as a feature, depending upon one's politics?).
Luckily, legal emigration is still possible (or at least was, back when I did).
> "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" — EL
You can legally leave the US, but only with the permission of the US government. They can deny you a passport, or revoke the one you have, for any reason and at that point you are not allowed to leave. It's kind of weird to think about how we didn't ask to be born here, but we're expected to follow the laws and if we don't like it we can't even leave and go where the rules are more favorable to us without permission from the government we're born under. I'll always poke fun at the crazy sovereign citizen crowd, but on a certain level I can sympathize with the feeling that there's a certain type of injustice being born under the rule of someone else.
I strongly disagree. I think it's disgusting that the US encourages and even prefers to have a massive underclass of easily and very often exploited people without the rights and protections everyone else has.
The current system enables human rights abuses so that businesses can have the next best thing to slaves. It would be a massive improvement if we actually regulated immigration properly, enforced the laws, and made sure that workers in America were typically Americans who earned a decent wage and had equal rights under the law.
Just because people are here illegally it doesn't make it acceptable to beat, rape, or steal from them and the companies who do should be punished the same as if they'd treated an American worker that way. The right thing to do would be to make sure that no company can hire someone who can't legally work in the US and to severely punish any company that does.
I personally know someone who has been in the US for more than 10 years, highly educated (with a PhD in engineering), employed in healthcare research, pay more taxes than most American, never break a law, etc. Basically the ideal citizen. Except he isn't a US citizen and according to him, unless he marry a citizen, it isn't likely for him to be one anytime soon.
The USA doesn’t r have many ways to let people stay that long legally without getting a green card. Which, but the way, if you mary a us citizen, that’s also all you can get (citizenship comes later after holding a green card for N years, where I think N is 3?).
— CrimethInc, No Wall They Can Build[0]
Unconditional residence. Green card holders have to spend most of their time in the US or lose their permanent resident status.
No time out. Green cards have to be renewed.
I agree with you on the other two, though I certainly see a legitimate purpose in green cards having a renewal process. But you can get a re-entry permit and be outside of the US for up to 2 years and retain your green card status, it doesn't seem particularly onerous.
* as a side note: I disagree with some false propaganda that tries to portrait Jewish people in Israel as settler colonists - you can't be a colonist on your own land - that would be absurd.
And legitimately, I’ve had people crash on my couch when they were in a rough spot for weeks and weeks. Literally all of them wanted their own space and as soon as they were on their feet, they left. If you’re in trouble, you’re more than welcome here. Happy to help, though I don’t know what I can do.
There are borders you are not willing to cross.
It is not different with countries. I think that immigration is perfectly fine until a country can absorb new people but too many people too fast is going to create troubles.
I think that you can imagine very well a situation when you are kind and let somebody into your home but they now start to make their own rules - in your home. If it gets unbearable for you in your home then perhaps you can call police, but if you make such a mistake on the country level then there is less remedies - so you have to be considerably more careful.
Let's imagine that four hundred million Chinese would move into US in the world without borders and now they vote into power a new political party that will prohibit all the other political parties. Why? Perhaps only because this is the only way they know about and they didn't have the time to gradually learn other political possibilities or worse they are instructed to do so by their leaders.
Destruction of democratic system using democratic means is not rare. Perhaps the most known one is rise of Nazis in Germany. Most obvious recent example is rise of Putin in Russia but it also happened for example in Egypt, where Muslim Brotherhood won elections and then attempted to destroy the democratic system of Egypt to enforce sharia, and this was preempted by the events in Gaza where Muslim Brotherhood offshoot Hamas did exactly the same, but successfully.
The world without borders will also mean that a malicious and well organized political force can move around the globe and take over local power using seemingly benign methods instead of military power.
So while your idea sounds something to root for, it is also incredibly naive and dangerous in the real world we live in.
We have open borders between 50 different countries and people seem to like it.
While I am supportive toward freedom of movement, I also believe that there should be certain control to limit over exploitation. The example with the home was perfectly fine to illustrate that there are always limits as the resources are not unbounded.
It looks like you try to project it like it would be like visiting, nope, no such luck, I will come forever and take all my relatives with me and we'll do what ever we want. Of course you would have the right for your own opinion but as you are now just a minority then that would be just that - an opinion.
I really do not care about what skin color people have if they share the same general values I have like the right for freedom of speech and right for religious freedom (that includes absence of religion).
Like I explained in another post, these fundamental values can be threatened by a seemingly demographic process. One such very clear example is how Nazis rose to power through democratic process. More recent examples are how Putin usurped power in Russia or how Muslim Brotherhood attempted to do the same in Egypt to enforce sharia (after its offshoot Hamas did it successfully in Gaza a half a decade earlier).
In another comment I gave an example how four hundred million of Chinese could overtake and destroy democracy in US by democratic means but yes, it can happen with any politically motivated group of people. It can be also of course people with Muslim background who believe in Islamic supremacy or other such racist nonsense.
It is completely possible and has happened already in US once. Ask about this from Native Americans.
I do not know what this replacement theory is about but such processes I described here are completely possible and can be exploited by foreign political powers.
But my previous comment was more general. The main idea that you intentionally ignore and try to neglect with hostile comments like the previous one is that every person has some limit they can tolerate. It would be unfair if you accepted somebody into your home and they start to make demands instead and dictate what you can and can't do.
In the home example the undesired outcome will manifest itself rapidly but in the case of larger system the effect will take some time to appear until large enough change has happened.
For example it is happening in SF where newcomers are demanding that the people who have lived there for multiple generations should destroy their homes to make place for them instead - fortunately it is something benign like this and not a demand to establish one party system or install sharia.