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One of my favorite photos…
Off towards the left is San Diego, USA. Right side is Tijuana, Mexico (wiki entry)
Here’s to hoping the next big topic after the health care craze will be immigration reform. I’m pretty excited about a Democratic majority finally having a crack at it.
I support wide open borders, with restrictions solely for known criminals/enemies and those with communicable diseases. Obviously our political system and xenophobic conservatives/southerners won’t stand for borders that open, but any nudge in this direction (including amnesty) will be a useful improvement for the economy, social justice, our fabulous melting pot effect, and general prosperity. As any student of history knows, high immigration rates made the USA what it’s been in years past. We’ve always been a nation of immigrants.
Immigration is enormously wonderful for development. Yet roughly since 1914/WWI, nationalists in more-developed nations have become so obsessed with protecting their relative power over less fortunate people, they’ve lost sight of how labor mobility benefits everyone in the long run.
One thing I also keep hearing from nationalists is that them darn immigrants oughta be required to learn English—that it should be a national language. Um, not really (xkcd). Let immigrants and future generations pick up the dominant language on their own. It’s worked fine in the past, it will work fine in the future.
Besides, English’s role as our globalized world’s lingua franca is only going to increase. Too much intellectual capital has been invested for it to be otherwise: vast amounts of business, information, science, and other research and works of art have been produced in English. What does every odd person in Europe speak? English. On an international flight from China to Japan with a South Korean flight crew, want to guess what language “This is your captain speaking, …” is in? English!
(For a bit more on the inanity of political barriers to labor and trade, a previous post)
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(DOWN THE VINE
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good post, I agree 100%
That really is an amazing photo
Thanks :) Does that include similar reasoning applied to free trade (last link in the post)?
you mean am I pro-free trade? yes I am
awesome post. i must admit that i haven't given the matter as much in-depth thought as i should. i definitely agree with a lot of what you say. thanks for provoking some interesting thought on the issue.
At last something that we can agree on totally. Well done. I have often posted on the insanity of a national religion, a national language, and on the current immigration regulations.
This is earth shattering…everyone is agreeing with Dr. Ghd?!??! I favor sensible intelligent border control, and this seems to be what you're supporting. I also favor increased international cooperation so that we can better and more accurately identify those individuals who are indeed "criminals/enemies". So do you think our government should essentially grant amnesty to the millions already here, as long as they haven't committed violent crimes, and pay some kind of fine for coming here outside the proper channels (illegally)? And for the future, how do we increase the sophistication and effectiveness of our border monitoring systems….more training, more personnel, better data linkages?
Yes, I'm for all of that.
Additionally, in theory I'm also for unlimited immigration of ordinary foreigners—that is, of reasonably healthy non-criminals/enemies.
Now maybe we'd run into some practical problems if it truly were unlimited. Like, lack of food and housing or too many vagrants or whatever. But--at least once we got past the initial stampede (which we could seek to moderate)--I think people hugely overestimate degree to which such things would be a problem.
Anyhow, for practicality's sake I'm ok with turning the spigot up in a more gradual manner. But for me, the higher really is better--so high that I'm guessing less than, say, 30% of Americans would support so much immigration.
I'm under no illusions about its political feasibility…it's just what I'd want in a more ideal world. I.e. if someone made me dictator for a day, allowing vastly higher immigration would be one of my first acts. (right up there with abolishing the drug war as well as agricultural subsidies, and imposing a flat negative income tax to replace all welfare and the minimum wage!)
Very good ivory tower answers and suggestions, and I agree. I also agree that the current political set up would never allow such proposals. It seems that many of us still need people that we can blame and hate for our self inflicted problems.
Thank you so much for bringin up this topic . Only a person who has been through the suffering caused by the sick American immigration system can know what it’s like and I and my family have been suffering since 2003. I am from pakistan .After my brother became an American citizen , he sponsored my parents after which they got their green cards . My mother sponsored me . Our immigration attorney after already having charged us thousands of dollars told us that I will get my green too as soon as my mom gets hers and we believed her because when you are dealing with an issue like immigration you tend to be pretty desperate but the day my mom got her green card , she was directly told by the officer who interviewd her that it’ll take me atleast 4 years to get a green card. I was 20yrs old at that time . So I was given category F2A which is one for unmarried children of green card holders less than 21 years of age . These categories matter because the backlog for different categories is different . It was the best category in terms of the backlog which even at that time was 5yrs which is pathetic but nevertheless we were happy because it had the shortest backlog.
I started medical school and we thought by the time I am done with medical school hopefully my immigration will go through too. During that time my father passed away and my mother and I couldn’t live here alone because in Pakistan women don’t live alone without a man in the house. I know it might be weird for you American people but these are the customs here . It’s too unsafe for women living alone here . Also according to American law , you have to spend 6 months of every year in America if you want to keep your green card . Otherwise you’ll lose it and if she had lost hers , I would’ve lost my chances of getting a green card too because she was the one who sponsored me . So she had to go back to America and live with my brother there and I had to move to hostel which is kind of like America dorms .Of course my family was in America and even hostels aren’t completely safe. We were afraid that after I turned 21 my category will be changed to F2B which is for unmarried children 21 yrs or older of green card holders .
. The problem with that was that the backlog for that category was a lot more than F2A category but our attorney who was different from the first one and also after charging us thousands told us that now the category is finalized and they wont change mine even after I turned 21 and that’s what happened . Even according to the last letter from INS we got which was in the beginning of 2008 when it had already been 3 yrs since I turned 21 , I was in the same category which was for people less than 21 yrs. I had been keeping an eye on the visa bulletin which is on uscis website and the way my category was moving forward I was hopeful that by the time I was done with my degree , within a few months my immigration will go through too but when it had already been a few months and the people who filed their papers months after mine were getting their visa numbers, we again talked to the attorney and he , after contacting INS found out that I was in F2B category which had to cover 4 yrs until it got to the point in time when my petition was filed . So I was told that I had to wait for atleast 2-4 more yrs . Especially at that time the situation was very bad not that it’s any better now.
The economy has crashed , the whole country is fighting talibanisation , there is a situation of civil war in ateast 2 different areas of Pakistan . Some people are saying that the country will break into pieces in 6months and at that time I was told that I’ll have to wait for 2-4more yrs having already waited for 5yrs. You cannot question the INS of course because they are gods and your future lies in their hands . Also there is this another thing that you cannot apply for any other kind of visa (student, visit.etc) while your immigration has been filed because if it is rejected , it shows on your passport and your visa rejections effect your immigration petition . Another thing , I cannot get married because if I get married I will be moved to F3 category in which again the backlog is huge , so I cant even get married . So I am stuck here . One thing we could do was for my mother to file for citizenship after which we were going to apply for my category to be changed to yet another one F1 which is for children of American citizens but even for that I will have to wait for atleast a yr because of the backlog and that is if they do change my category .
So my 65 yr old mother has had to travel back and forth to America all these yrs and even this time to apply for citizenship for the sake of my immigration. I am living here alone which is again an unsafe thing in Pakistan while my mother is there . During all these yrs , we have spent a huge amount of money, time and energy on this process. There are so many flaws in American immigration system . It’s slow , it’s unfair and unpredictable . If you were a person who said well this is my country and I don’t want forigners to come and share my resources . well ok fine but what about the people who cross borders and they don’t have to do anything . Where does me and my family’s suffering stand as compared to the people who just cross the border? And even the Mexicans , I think it is not entirely their fault . here’s an example, I am writing the backlog in one of the categories , F1 which is for children of American citizens . Philipines 15july 93, mexico 08oct 92, India china and rest of the world 08 july 2002.
Correction: I wrote the backlogs incorrectly by mistake and i apologise for that . Here are the correct ones :Philippines 22sep 93, mexico 01 jan91, india , china and rest of the world 15th may03
. This basically means that if u applied for immigration for someone in this category tomorrow , u will have to wait until they move forward from the point in time that I mentioned above to the date when u filed your petition. This is insane . So this is actually facilitating people to make the choice of crossing the border illegally because if you’re the idiot who opted for the legal way you are screwed . I personally believe that the immigration laws should be changed so they make atleast some sense and borders should be protected . so it is easier for people to come to America legally and they don’t have to go for the illegal way of crossing borders. And if there are people who say it is difficult to protect the borders because it will require a lot of troops, well then stop sending your military on idiotic missions like iraq to get your hands on their oil so you have your army to do stuff that they are supposed to do , that is protect your borders.
Vaneeza, what an an amazing and heartbreaking story! My heart goesout to you for fighting through the nightmare that is our immigrationsystem.As a sidenote, would you ever be interested in guest-blogging here? Iread all of your comments with rapt attention because you bring avoice and perspective to issues that we so rarely hear in thiscountry. Send me an email at librarygrape@gmail.com if you'reinterested.Shukriya!
yeah i've been struggling for many years just so me and my future generations dont have to live in a country where women are treated like animals, no freedom of speech , woman are afraid to go to police stations because they fear they will be raped there , healthcare , education all are poor , the inflation is so bad that people cannot even afford basic human necessaties like flour and sugar , there's shortage of everything from food to water to electricity, there's menace of talibanisation, dictatorships , bad law and order situation and when there is always the possibility that the country might no longer be on the world map in a matter of months . i mean where do i start and where do i end . It's said that america is a land of immigrants . So even people who have been living there for generations have atleast that one ancestor to thank for migrating to america and their sacrifices so you can have a good life
Vaneeza please consider accepting a spot as a guest blogger. An outside view of our problems and discussions would be very useful to us, and very refreshing. Living in our own system often blinds us to other view points and we often need to hear an outside voice commenting on a different perspective. And your problems reflect the common problems that our government has made with immigration. Our immigration laws represent a continual US trend to isolationism that started in the early 1900’s. By using illegal immigration as a whipping boy various political figures have been able to avoid facing the real root problems in our society. One of my neighbors was a illegal immigrant from Mexico, but married to a US citizen. He wanted to do the right thing, as an example to his boys, and applied for US citizenship. He had to return to Mexico, apply for citizenship and legal immigration, having been married to a US citizen for ten years. This took him a year and a half. Which meant he was away from his family for a year and a half while jumping threw all the hoops and red tape.
Most of the arguments about illegal immigrations are bogus and pure bigoted lies. While working in the US they either rent or own property, which means that they pay property tax which support schools and hospitals, so they do contribute to the social good. They must pay income tax unless their employer is breaking the law, so they contribute to the social good, even if they are not allowed to use these services. If we could adapt a workers permit somewhat like Germany has we could avoid a lot of these problems.
It's true , the american immigration system is designed in a way to make migrating to usa legally as difficult as possible . As for illegal immigrants , i believe they should take the legal way because if you are using a country's resources you should pay taxes too , in other words give something back to the country also. I believe in doing things the right way and that's why i filed for immigration instead of crossing the border but yeah as you can see , i didnt get much reward for being the nice guy :p____As for guest blogging , thank you metavirus and schu for asking me . It is an honour but i dont think i'll be able to do it . I mean i dont think people will be interested in what i have to say or the topics i bring forward and also i make mistakes with my english . So my blogs will sound stupid among the people of such high intellect but i love to comment on other people's blogs and will continue to do so
Correction: At the end of my comment #5 I wrote the backlogs in F1 category incorrectly by mistake , for which i apologise. The correct ones are philippines 22sep 93, mexico 01 jan 91, india china and rest of the world 15th may 2003. It still proves my point though about the backlogs being too long .
I understand you have your reasons and wouldn't want to pressure youin any way to guestblog. However, I must say that your english isabsolutely excellent and you usually put way more thought into yourcomments than I do into my blog posts! I can guarantee you that anyreasonable reader of this blog would be enthralled by your writing andperspective if you ever chose to write a guest blog post. In themeanwhile, I will continue to enjoy your excellent comments and lookforward to more!
I would not want to pressure you into doing anything that you would not want to do. However I think that you are underestimating yourself and over estimating us. My back ground does not emphasize a intellectual aspect, but rather a factory worker warehouse blue collar aspect. What most non Americans have trouble understanding is the typical American idea that we all are equal. That my thoughts and opinions are equal to a lawyer, teacher, politician, or anyone else’s, and that a person’s economical position does not care ant special weight. As a person who is outside of out system, looking in, you have a special perspective that is useful in our discussions.
Guest posts don't need to be regular. You can do a one-time post, or rarely (like once a month). For this you wouldn't need direct posting access.
You could just take your time coming up with a mini essay about your experiences that you think would be interesting to share, and submit it to LibraryGrape via email. He could then edit/polish it up a bit (if you want) and post it himself with "Guest Post: …." in the title and "by Vaneeza" at the top.
Just a quick drive-by comment. Was just looking in on the blog tonight, your great pic of SD/Tijuana caught my eye (what an amazing picture, and I used to live in SD), and I just finished reading vaneeza's several posts and like Metavirus, my heart goes out to you.
I dealt with immigration once for a period of 3 years trying to straighten out a hassle that involved my partner, our baby, and her kept out of the country separated from her child who I raised as a single parent for those years (I'm gay; at the time our relationship was even more invisible than it would be in today's era of domestic partnerships). My attorney was appalled to discover INS was "more difficult to deal with than the Social Security Administration", and this was back many, many years ago when we had a "kinder, gentler" immigration service. What a nightmare.
Every immigrant of good will has my utmost sympathy, empathy, and support. I myself am only second generation American, and am an Arab American at that (which has been, um, entertaining, at times, socially at least, since 9/11). I agree with Gherald that I hope (or actually I rather *expect*) that immigration will be the next large can of worms to be dealt with by the administration after the health care debacle resolves however it resolves. I also support a policy of open borders. Our nativism and innate isolationism (and now, our post-9/11 paranoia) make this a difficult stance for the larger public mind to grasp, much less embrace, but I think it will eventually happen if for no other reason than the tides of globalization will eventually push us (and other nations) in that direction anyway. I'd rather go there along a planned path, than be swept there in consequence of a breakdown of systems, which I see as a distinct possibility in the future.
OK, not such a quick comment, but there you have it.
While we agree that the change will be necessary and beneficial odds are that the wingnuts will require that it be done with a lot of screaming, yelling, name calling and a few shootings before it is completed.
I say we should go to war with Mexico.__The the Mexican Drug Cartell has already declared war on America.__Sending their gangs to infiltrated our comunitys and infest it with drugs and gang violance.__They're not looking to coexist with others.__Their looking to take over!__They are a very Threat to the Freedom and liberty s of all the decent people.__They have given cause for more law enforcement.__Turning our country into a police state with their gang violence and vandelism..__And lets talk about Immigration laws. Have you read Mexicos Immigration laws.__Come on! where do they gett off saying our laws are unfair.__I think if there is gonna be a open door policey.the door should swing both ways.__Where Americans wanting to go live in Mexico will be treated with the same fairness as Mexicans exspect to be treated in America.__I'm not against the honest decent people coming over here to make a better living for themselves and their familys__It is the gangbangers that are making it hard for them.__If anyone ever watched GANGLAND on the history channel glorifying these punks.__You would understand why some people are concerned about immigration.________
Um, no. We should legalize all drugs.
Lets see if I understand you correctly coolray. You want us to invade a legal government and impose martial law because an illegal cartel, that the legal government is currently fighting, is doing business in the USA. Because our short sighted and poorly designed anti-drug policy is not working we should invade a neighboring country. The only way to shut down the USA’s appetite for illegal drugs is to legalize everything and provide the drugs for those who choose to use. Hard drugs kill, and within 10 years the users will be dead. With no demand for product the cartels will dry up, the weapons not needed, and the violence ended. The low end users, like the pot heads will be around, but they are basically harmless.
You don't understand.
These people don't want to coexist peacefully.
They want to take over our country and run it.
Some of them have openly declared it.
They have invade and taking over neighborhoods and destroyed it with their crime activity's
They are slowly turning our country into a police controled society because of it.
Although our government and some people in this counrty that may not mind.
They're are some Americans that cherish their Libertys and freedoms that do. mind.
I say we should kick their ass for bringing that shit over here.
You think legalizing drugs is gonna get rid of the Drug Cartel.
It will just make them Legalized businessmen, is all, like it did the Mafia.
Its not about the drugs.
Its about their movement that its financing.
They want to bring down America.
:@
it's funny, as i was reading your comment, i thought you were talking about michele bachmann, rush limbaugh and the teabaggers.
p.s. one other thing, if you seriously think the drug cartels are in some kind of secret conspiracy to "bring down America", you're nuts. all those guys care about is MONEY. if america were to be "brought down", there would be many BILLIONS of dollars that they wouldn't be getting paid from their favorite customers (i.e., Americans)
if you weren't saying that, then forgive me. your comment wasn't very cogent.
You are still way out in loony toon land if you think that invading as sovereign nation because of the drug trade is a credible idea. Especially since the government there is locked in a major shooting war with the drug cartels. As with the Colombians, Cubans, Jamaicans, and others that have been involved in the drug trade the Mexican gangs will be shut down. But the problem will not go away until we can curb the American illegal drug appetite. As Bush learned in Iraq, and invasion does not make the problem go away.
No I wasn't talking about Rush Limaugh,Michele Bachmann or the tea baggers.
Usless they were also involved with the selling crack and fire arms to school children ,recruting them into gangs or gunning them down in playyards.
Yea, because street thugs are primarily concerned with bringing downamerica. Riiiiiiight.Street thugs selling crack are just like big pharma — out to maketons of Benjamins off of peddling drugs.
Then they can join the Bloods and Crips, Aryan Nations, Hells Angles, Outlaws, and the CIA in celling the rock. Maybe we can get them all to getter and hold a shot out. By the way Rush is a certified drug user.