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Comment by anon291 | Hacker News Reader

While I personally find no objection to these spouses remaining here, I don't see what is really supposed to concern me from a legal perspective. There is no right to residency of migration in general. I do agree we ought to change the law to be make it easier for spouses of citizens, but if you overstay a visa you should expect detention.

However from a moral standpoint I find the infant child separation abhorrent and think that we should generally defer to American citizen spouses as a pretty good indicator that we should show some mercy in enforcement. Moreover, the law should be changed that foreign spouses without criminal records and not taking public benefit ought to be allowed to stay and work honestly. Make it easy.

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I think this was explained before. But basically the processing takes so long (over a year) that you are guaranteed to overstay most visas and leaving the US is considered as abandoning your petition for a green card.

So you are in this limbo state where you are given some kind of status while the application is pending and you absolutely can’t leave the country.

But that’s not the issue here nor why people are being detained.

People came to the US with intend to marry and apply for a green card on non immigrant visa. For instance British citizens on a visa waiver can just show up and get married. That’s legal.

But it turns into immigration fraud if you always intended to apply for a green card afterwards.

What you are supposed to do is apply for a K1 fiancé visa which takes another year.

Green cards are not rights. If your date is set a year out and you don't have a visa for a year, you got unlucky. This is how migration works.

Yes the point is that sucks. Saying "well that's how it is" is true, but also not useful.

It was a choice to design it this way, and a poor choice. We should demand better. Since when have Americans become so spineless?

>but if you overstay a visa you should expect detention.

I really dont get this view.

Like you could substitute detention with a 1 dollar a day fine, or community service. Why does the punishment for this particular crime, have to be detention. Why is it worse than making your local council mad for not taking out the bins. The severity of the punishment is just ludicrous compared to the crime of participating in a community, and the US isnt the only place with this brainrot.

The community isn't harmed by an overstay as it is with say, shooting people or stabbing people. In fact it seems widely recognised that these people contribute in the net positive.

It also seems like there's an overwhelming consensus that its easier to sort out immigration issues from inside the target country, outside of detention with access to legal representation.

Because this is immigration and there is no right to be in another country. I've been detained for irregularities in other countries while just doing tourism. This is a normal and expected part of travelling to foreign countries.

Theres no right to speed in your car or drop litter on the ground, but they attract less severe penalties.

Immigration is different because it needs to be addressed. For example, a tail light being out shouldn't result in jail time but it does need to result in the light being fixed.

With immigration, the issue that needs fixing is your presence in a country.

Look, I respect people who actually believe in free movement globally but most people claiming there's something wrong here don't believe in open borders.

Why does it need to be addressed? Whats the pressing concern that makes immigration worse than a tail light?

Detaining people based on their skin color is not normal anywhere except US

As an actual brown person, I was concerned about these laws being used to target people by skin color. However if you read the article, it's all about white European migrants being detained, so I think it's pretty clear that the law is not about brown people bad. Nice try though

Americans have the right to marry and thereby grant status to foreigners.

A rational relief for being in the country illegally is a removal of such an individual from the country. Same as if somebody enters your house and you don't want them there, you don't ask for a dollar a day or to clean up the dishes, do you? You ask them to leave and call police if they refuse. This is where detention comes into play: people who don't want to leave the country need to be detained before forcibly transported outside the country's border, maybe in the future, when we invent instant teleportation, we will be able to just send them home without detention but the current realities do not allow for that.

>A rational relief for being in the country illegally is a removal of such an individual from the country.

Right, but immigration detention isnt that.

>Same as if somebody enters your house and you don't want them there, you don't ask for a dollar a day or to clean up the dishes, do you? You ask them to leave and call police if they refuse.

The house analogy is really weird and does not at all fit the realities of a nation.

>This is where detention comes into play: people who don't want to leave the country need to be detained before forcibly transported outside the country's border, maybe in the future, when we invent instant teleportation, we will be able to just send them home without detention but the current realities do not allow for that.

They dont need to be detained. Theres no process that cant be completed before deportation without detention. It is arbitrary punishment. Your own tortured analogy of the house, does not detain prisoners in the basement while awaiting court in the I don't know Laundry to see if their marriage to someone in the master bedroom is valid. Theres no reason someone cant live working in the living room? (who comes up with these terrible seppoisms?) and sleeping in their room that they can somehow afford to pay for in your house somehow while the laundry judge rules on their case before taking them to the roof airport?

Feeling a bit like the house thing is forced to come to some predetermined conclusion but its not as obvious as made out nor is it any good.

Anyway to blow that whole thing open I looked at the silly seppo website and:

"Most aliens ICE arrests are detained and eventually removed. In some cases, these people remain in ICE detention for months while they wait for a final decision from an immigration judge."

https://www.ice.gov/self-deportation

Theres nothing wrong with:

> Complete legal process while living in situ > If determination is, deportation, fine X and escort person to airport/border.

You would probably spend less money giving people 2 further weeks to deal with their affairs beforehand but w/e not required.

Detention, especially before trial, being a necessary component is a ghost that lives entirely in your head that you can evict at any time.

It feels like you have some unique model of detention in your head (or mean something else than the common meaning of the word). The process is very simple - you are detained and then, when enough people are accumulated, they get loaded onto a bus/plane and removed from the country. Even if there was an abundance of buses and planes and every illegal alien would be loaded onto one immediately there would be still a detention to move him or her from the place where they were found to the bus or plane.

What you wrote only makes a faint sense in assumption that detention is given as a punishment for immigration violations as same as prison term. This does not happen in reality, detention is a necessary part of removing an alien who has no right to be in the country and not some kind of punishment, which you could serve and come out as a legal alien.

Detention is literally being used arbitrarily, before the decision is made to even determine the person is an alien. If something is uneccesary its usually being used as punishment.

>there would be still a detention to move him or her from the place where they were found to the bus or plane.

Whats wrong with a court order and a plane ticket? Other than nothing at all. (The usual response from the border brainrot is that either they need to be prevented from escaping, which they could have done earlier instead of choosing to remain a part of society. Then when that ones knocked down its as a "Deterrent" which is where we wrap back around to this being a punishment)

>What you wrote only makes a faint sense in assumption that detention is given as a punishment for immigration violations as same as prison term.

No I have not made that mistake at all.

>detention is a necessary part of removing an alien

Nope. No reason for it at all.

>which you could serve and come out as a legal alien.

Never said that at all. Just that theres no reason for someone to go into arbitrary detention before attending court/airport/border when they pose no risk to society. To do otherwise is a punishment.

>Detention is literally being used arbitrarily, before the decision is made to even determine the person is an alien. If something is uneccesary its usually being used as punishment.

It is not. There has to be a reason to believe the person is an illegal alien. In this article, for example, all detainees presented documentation of their illegal presence and identified themselves with photo ID.

>Whats wrong with a court order and a plane ticket?

Someone already broke the law and is in the country illegally. What are the reasons for them to listen and follow a court order? Also, the immigration being a civil matter, how do you even obtain such an order? Sue them and go through a trial? There are already laws that allow removal of these aliens so this looks just like some redittor's wish-list in lieu of knowing the law.

>Nope. No reason for it at all.

Yeah, it seems that you don't see the reason. Can't explain something to somebody who is unwilling to understand.

>It is not. There has to be a reason to believe the person is an illegal alien. In this article, for example, all detainees presented documentation of their illegal presence and identified themselves with photo ID.

So, give them a court order to board a flight? Like if they are willing to prove their illegal status why is detention needed?

>Someone already broke the law and is in the country illegally. What are the reasons for them to listen and follow a court order? Also, the immigration being a civil matter, how do you even obtain such an order? Sue them and go through a trial? There are already laws that allow removal of these aliens so this looks just like some redittor's wish-list in lieu of knowing the law.

Yeah its a civil matter, so there shouldn't be detention. Great point.

Also, have you considered that the arbitrary detention is the reason someone might refuse to attend?

>how do you even obtain such an order?

Whoever is sending ICE to detain people raises the case on behalf of the government? >What are the reasons for them to listen and follow a court order?

Why are they renting a house, paying taxes and following every other law? Just off the top of my head, criminal contempt, due to violation of the court order, would prevent almost any attempt at legal reentry?

>There are already laws that allow removal of these aliens so this looks just like some redittor's wish-list in lieu of knowing the law.

Invoking reddit is the most reddit thing you can do.

>There are already laws that permit the removal of aliens

Yeah, but the system is clearly deranged and we are discussing that obvious derangement.

>Yeah, it seems that you don't see the reason. Can't explain something to somebody who is unwilling to understand.

You are doing the classic "I will outline the rules as justification for the rules". You have done nothing to establish your position from first principles. What you have written might be enough to convince yourself, but you haven't provided anything like a justification. "Oh they might try and escape" well ignoring a court order is actually justification to lock someone up. There's no justification for the assumption that someone might commit a crime, even if we were to agree that a misdemeanor makes someones soul black and marked as a criminal forever and a day (Which we dont agree, thats another weird seppoism).

>So, give them a court order to board a flight? Like if they are willing to prove their illegal status why is detention needed?

You either don't read what I wrote or it does not get through. These people were already given the order to leave the country by a date and they disobeyed it. Now they are in the removal proceedings, which consists of detaining them and transporting them out of the country. Detention is needed because to remove somebody from the country you need to detain them so you could transport them over the border. As I said, we don't have a teleport ray which we could point and make them to disappear and reappear in their home.

>Yeah its a civil matter, so there shouldn't be detention. Great point.

Why there should not be detention? I don't see how it follows. Are you unaware of civil detention/arrest? Can't you just read the Wikipedia or anything other than reddit/twitter before making absurd statements?

>Also, have you considered that the arbitrary detention is the reason someone might refuse to attend?

Attend what? I am sure they have many reasons to stay in my country so what?

>Whoever is sending ICE to detain people raises the case on behalf of the government?

Case of what? Of applying the existing law? "Your Honor, the law tells us to deport these aliens and we are able to do that but, just for shit and giggles, we want you to give them an order to leave and see what happens. Yes, we do respect the law and the court. No, we are not drunk or high. Just do this, please!"

> Just off the top of my head, criminal contempt, due to violation of the court order, would prevent almost any attempt at legal reentry?

And? There literally tens of millions of illegal immigrants who don't care about any of this.

>Invoking reddit is the most reddit thing you can do.

I trust you, I don't use reddit and can only indirectly observe redditors on HN.

>Yeah, but the system is clearly deranged and we are discussing that obvious derangement.

Okay. Here is my argument: the system is not deranged. I win.

> if you overstay a visa you should expect detention

Again, though, there's a catch-22. Wait times until you're even notified about your interview appointment date are long and unpredictable.

The article strongly misrepresents this, and they were almost certainly not detained for over-staying, but likely for fraudulent entry. See my other comment.

I don't think fraudulent entry makes sense, because that would have to be the case at the time of entry.

Read my other comment. It’s fraudulent based on intent, which they don’t know until you apply for change of status.

I read your other comment; it just doesn't stand muster.

Fraudulent entry can only happen on entry. If they had no intent to be married on entry, then there's no fraud on entry, and therefore it doesn't apply.

"You let me in at the time, therefore you can never deem the past entry fraudulent" is not how the law works. It was fraudulent at the time of entry, but the government doesn't know that until true intent is revealed when the foreigner applies for a change of status.

The timeline is:

1. Foreigner is married to or intends to marry a US citizen and live in the US (they know this; the government doesn't). 2. Foreigner enters the US with the assertion they have no intent to immigrate (they know this is false; US doesn't). 3. Couple applies for change of status to immigrate → This reveals the foreigner's original intent to immigrate even at the time of entry (the US now knows the entry was fraudulent)

I'm not defending the law; I believe it's haphazard and inhumane. Why do you get to apply while together inside the US only if you decided to marry and immigrate after entering the US, but if the foreigner is outside the US at the time you make the decision, you're now locked out for years? But that is what it is, and these people are getting burned trying to skirt the law.

> "You let me in at the time, therefore you can never deem the past entry fraudulent" is not how the law works. It was fraudulent at the time of entry, but the government doesn't know that until true intent is revealed when the foreigner applies for a change of status.

That's not my argument. My argument is that there are cases where the intent literally changes. There was no intent to immigrate when entering, but that intent did change after entry.

> Foreigner is married to

We're talking right now about people met who their spouse after entry.

> or intends to marry a US citizen and live in the US (they know this; the government doesn't).

This requires mens rea and is next to impossible to prove without some documentation.

> 2. Foreigner enters the US with the assertion they have no intent to immigrate (they know this is false; US doesn't).

Or foreigner intends to enter with no intent to immigrate, but that intent changes after entry when they decide to get married to whoever they're dating. This intent change happens after entry.

> 3. Couple applies for change of status to immigrate → This reveals the foreigner's original intent to immigrate even at the time of entry (the US now knows the entry was fraudulent)

The mere change of status request here proves nothing about any intent at entry.

> I'm not defending the law; I believe it's haphazard and inhumane. Why do you get to apply while together inside the US only if you decided to marry and immigrate after entering the US, but if the foreigner is outside the US at the time you make the decision, you're now locked out for years? But that is what it is, and these people are getting burned trying to skirt the law.

It sounds like this is the part that you're salty about.

Except there has been no determination of a fraudulent entry. This is skipping directly from accusation to punishment.

And it is definitely possible to have entered without an intent to marry. The day the woman I married entered the US she did not know of my existence. We met here.

In many cases regarding immigration, any single agent can act as judge, jury, and (deportation) executioner. Again something I learned many years ago and have kept top of mind for my own family.

If you are already married, then you enter the country with an assertion that you have no intent to immigrate, then you soon after apply to immigrate, chances you were not lying are vanishingly slim.

Yes, if you meet after you enter the country, then that doesn't apply to you. That's exactly when it is appropriate to apply from inside the country and stay while your application is pending. That's not what these couples are doing.

A capricious, arbitrary, hard to satisfy legal system that's filled with catch-22s doesn't concern you?

Is it because only immigrants and their families are subjected to an unfair legal system, so it doesn't seem to be your concern? In a democracy, the actions of a government are collective. We all bear responsibility for injustice and a corresponding responsibility to pursue a more just system.

Except it's not an overstay--you're automatically in status while there is an application pending.

I've found that it's quite futile to expect American citizens to actually understand how their own visa and immigration laws work.

Unfortunately it doesn't stop them from having strong opinions about them.

I remember talking to a britisher about the US border situation on a forum that also included yanks. He had asked for advice, and I relayed a bunch that was evergreen, but was passed around during the first trump admin.

The yanks all got confused, like I was making up a problem. And would not stop pretending like there are no border issues even after I presented multiple instances as evidence. Like if you can drive your car to the store and back there must also not be issues at the airport.

I feel like US media must isolate people severely. Whereas, countries that do business with the US, are kept keenly aware of the dangers.

I am intimately familiar with the immigration system as my entire family came to this country by applying for green cards and waiting. Not your average yank lol.

Not even just immigration. The US detains people based on the content of their phones.

Like beloved childrens authors https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/28/in-tha...

Or meme havers

https://hyperallergic.com/us-agencies-say-they-have-no-recor...

The advice is generally, that if you absolutely have to go to the US, that you start a fresh email account, and take an empty/clean phone signed in with your fresh email account through border security, then load a backup to your phone once through.

My understanding is that the validity of the visa has nothing to do with whether you are "in status". The visa is for entry and authorized status allows you to stay in the US. You could be authorized to stay in the US and yet have to petition to get a re entry permit should you choose to leave the US temporarily.

Now I wrote this and even I am not sure if what I wrote is fully correct. I know it is correct for at least one scenario but I anal and I am sure there are scenarios where what I said is not just false but dangerously bad advice.

I'm the US citizen married to a foreign spouse. I'm looking at the rules at the time we went through them--the application invalidated her non-immigrant visa, she could not enter but since she was here she was allowed to remain while the application was pending.

Case in point: public charge and political rhetoric that (at the very least) wildly stretches the truth about immigrants applying for benefits.

My entire family migrated here. No one broke any of these laws. People went home and we figured it out eventually. Spare me. You probably read about this in a book somewhere. I lived it.

Again. I'm sorry for these people. But the law is easy to follow

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