Forget Immigration Hell; Screw the House, and Screw the Senate, Too!

The BBQ Pit
1

There are certain groups of pigheaded, self-centered, incorrigible people I would like to lock in a room with each other until they can reach a workable compromise that doesn’t drive the rest of us insane.

Right now, it’s entirely selfish on my part; I want to lock up both houses of Congress in a dark, airless room, with no food or water, and not let them out until they come up with a sensible comprehensive immigration reform plan.

Now most of you have probably read about the knock-down, drag-out immigration debate raging in the U.S. Congress right now. I’m about 98% sure there will actually be a serious overhaul of some sort passed this session, and every version I’ve seen so far includes substantial additional green card quota allocations in the employment-based categories, where there are now delays of 5+ years for many nationalities and types of jobs. (What kind of idiotic system allocates a maximum of 7% of the overall quota to any single nationality, without regard to the fucking size of the country of origin or how many of its nationals currently reside in the U.S.? Andorra has the same quota as India; in what alternative dimension does this make any kind of sense?) But what hasn’t been reported at all in the mainstream media: not only would the current Senate compromise bill allow millions of undocumented immigrants to legalize and eventually get green cards, but there are many goodies in there for legal, employment-based immigration. The full text of the bill is here; start reading around Sec. 507, if it doesn’t give you a headache.

Yes, it’s partly about acknowledging that 12 million people who have lived here for years, and many of whom have children and other close family members born here, and most of whom are just trying to survive, are NOT going to disappear overnight. Ain’t gonna happen, folks; Homeland Security can’t even manage to find and remove a couple hundred thousand people who already have deportation orders outstanding against them, including people put in deportation proceedings because of felony convictions; what makes anyone think they can round up and deport orders of magnitude more people, most of whom aren’t even specifically on anyone’s radar screen yet? Likewise, any reform that doesn’t include some sort of path to permanent residence is doomed to failure; people aren’t just going to leave quietly after several years in the U.S., and there will be no significant change in the flow of migration in North America without a significant change in the Mexican economy. Let’s deal in realities, people.

However, part of it is self-interest, because let’s face it, it’s really all about me. I spent most of my waking hours dealing with the U.S. immigration system; God only knows why, but it’s the career I’ve chosen for myself. There are a lot of things I like about it; the chance to do something useful for other human beings, the mastery of an estoteric and ever-changing body of knowledge (every time you think you know what the hell is going on, the law changes), the fascinating people I get to talk to, the challenge of explaining insanely complex concepts to people who have no knowledge of the field, the brain-stretching of explaining to an immigration officer who potentially has only a high school education why my clients, who do hideously complicated things ranging from neuropharmacological research to developing complex financial derivatives, why they are so amazing that they should be allowed to live in the U.S. permanently.

As I write this, our elected representatives have just given up and recessed for Easter to go home and spend time with their families (and hopefully, to get an earful frm their constituents). In the meantime, all my clients are going bonkers trying to come up with contingency plans, but it’s impossible to do halfway decent strategy without knowing what will happen to the quotas, and therefore the backlogs. It’s driving me completely insane trying to do strategy based on multiple hypotheticals; I’m of more than half a mind to just tell all of them to go away and come back when a bill is signed, or when this session of Congress is over, whichever comes first. Basically everything I have done for the past 2 weeks could be completely out the window by the end of the month, not to mention all the years of contingency planning, duplicative work, and thousands upon thousands of dollars my team has wasted trying to compensate for the years of processing delays and idiotic policies various Federal agencies have inflicted upon our clients.

And you, Jim Sensenbrenner? When the revolution comes, you’re the first up against the wall. Or maybe Tom Tancredo; I can’t decide.

Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal

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Aaargh; figures after a week like this I’d make a typo in the thread title. I swear, I previewed! Time for some dinner, possibly with a glass of wine. Or several.

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Excellent rant and well-worded. However, I’m too pessimistic to think that any change will happen for a long time. Congress just seems totally incapable of working.

A little off topic, but do you have the list of quotas allowed from each country?

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Fixed the title. 'Cause I’m wicked powerful like that.

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There’s no specific numerical quota for each country; there is an overall quota for each immigrant category, but in addition (as explained above) there is a limitation of 7% of immigrant visas (green cards) that can go to natives of any single country. Details/numbers are on the State Department website.

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Thanks. Now can you go crack the whip on Congress, please? I’ll bring pie. Homemade, even.

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We usually don’t enforce the law only if it means that the lawbreakers will comply quietly. Why is this different. Are they any other laws that you think should be enforced only if people would comply quietly? Or that should be ignored altogether?

Here’s another question I’d love your answer to: should countries have borders? If so, should they have control of those borders?

Some people think it’s about the country and the rule of law and fairness to those who seek to come here legally. I guess some people are quaint that way.

You’ve got to be kidding. First, please provide a cite for the your claim about the educational accomplishments of immigration officers. Second, what percent of immigrants have the type of credentials you cite? What percent of illegals. (Because theat really is the issue.) Third, would you be willing to make allowance for the highly skilled that you mention and keep everyone else out? Why or why not? If not, why did you bring it up?

Despicable. We agree.

Very interesting conclusion. People sneak into our country illegally, defying our laws: this creates legal problems for them and you want to blame elected officails? Put them up against the wall because they want to secure the borders of their own nation?! The ones who should be shown the wall is anyone who is here illegally. They should see it as they’re ushered to the other side of it.

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Man, you didn’t understand a single word of that post, did you magellan?

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Funny thing, once they are legal those concerns go away.

They do, yes and countries can decide to give illegals a fine and other requirements before changing their status.

Please, many on your side already decided laws are quaint reagarding the humanity of suspected enemies. But once again: the idea is to change the law to make people who many times are more willing to follow american law to become eventually Americans.

Gee, I thought they were human too.

That is not the issue you numnuts. Even I agree the borders need to be better protected, but the reprehensible congressmen that prevented a vote on a sensible solution are NOT securing the borders with their actions today.

And if they are captured they do, but the ones that are already here continuing to help the nation should have a humane answer.

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I understood it perfectly. While I agree with the larger point that congrees is being chickenshit and unhelpful to us yet again, I chose to comment on some of the more specific items mentioned.

If you think I missed something, why don’t you point it out?

More important, if you have a problem with those things that I did choose to respond to, address them. It’s really that simple.

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I’m one of the minority that wants some sort of immigration law reform. Why am I the minority? Because I don’t know what needs to be done. And I don’t think we need to reform the laws. I thought an attempt at enforcing existing law was a good start. But it isn’t.

Face it. There are enough illegal immigrants and sympathetic Congress-critters that enforcing the existing laws isn’t an option. It just isn’t. We’ve seen the demonstrations in the streets of largely illegals that were played as a tug at our hearts. Did it increase sympathy? Doesn’t matter. We saw thousands of openly illegals marching publicly. Telling them we’re getting tough on them is like me telling the Pugs they can’t hope for table scraps.

They’re getting what they want.

We have laws on the books for this. There are legal ways to enter the country, and many immigrants follow them. There are many, however that know it’s illegal to come here, then expect full health care and education. And any mention that they haven’t earned it is met with charges of racism. Doesn’t matter that the person knows they aren’t here legally, they want full benefits that many citizens can’t get.

There are people in this country that are suffering after coming here because they can’t get services and help to get the “leg up” to get going.

There are people in this country born here that can’t get housing because it’s taken by illegals.

I don’t want to ban immigrants, and I sure as shit don’t want to ban social services to those coming here legally that need some help getting established.

But we have rules for coming here. Why we need new rules or qualifications imposed is bullshit.

As with most things, enforce the rules on the books. Making any new rule is redundent and wasteful. Fuck’s sake, Pro-Choice people are OK with what was on the books before the SD vote. Pro-Lifers weren’t rioting in the street.
We have enough rules. Enforce them before coming up with new ones.

1986 showed how an “amnesty” would help the problem. :rolleyes:

We have the laws. Quit fucking dicking around and enforce them. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Then make new laws. But if you’re just going to sit on your asses making up new laws because the previous ones you don’t enforce aren’t working, we’re really not getting anywhere.

I know people are going to call me racist on this. I don’t care, because you’re wrong. We have immigration laws that apply to Europeans as well. Just because they have to sail an ocean doesn’t give them any more right to be here illegaly than someone from Mexico or Central America.

If you want to emmigrate here, come on in. It’s what we’re founded on. Just follow the rules. And if you want to break the rules to get here, don’t come down on me for calling you on it. And don’t look for sympathy if you want to help someone break the law to stay here.

There are laws in place if you want to live and/or work here. If you want to break that law, maybe this isn’t the best place for you to be.

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First of all, you could make this same assertion if the government were to legalize anything. Second, it’s flat wrong. One of the very few good things about the Byzantine immigration laws in the US is that it specifically excludes certain immigrants from being able to become lawful permanent residents or citizens if they have been convicted of certain crimes, particularly “crimes of moral turpitude” and drug or human trafficking. If Congress were to legalize all the undocumented immigrants here in one broad stroke, we would have no idea who they are or what is in their background. Looking into these issues after the fact would be too late. Right now any immigrant who fits these categories is still here, but should they commit any crimes, they are at least deportable.

Many European countries have had several different rounds of amnesties for undocumented immigrants in the past and it certainly hasn’t ebbed the tide of continuing undocumented immigrants attempting to float, swim, crawl, or hop a fence into Europe.

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Really? Iillegal aliens have friends, children, and/ or spouses that are US citizens.

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As they would for any law that would be changed. What’s your point?

Absolutely. And how about the next wave of illegal immigrants, whether they come from the south, the north, or the seas? Of course, we can simpley make everyone legal, but that would be ceding control of our borders, wouldn’t it. The question is: whatever our border policy and immigration laws are, what do we do when people break them? If we giae everyone amnest today and secured the borders the best we could tomorrow, what should we do when we find that someone has snuck in then. make him legal, too?

And their first proof of this is to break our laws? Doesn’t make much sense, does it? And I include those who became illegal at overstaying their visas as well as those who snuck in.

Huh? I don’t see how this tracks from what I wrote.

Look, numnuttier, I agreed, and agree, with that point. 100%. Reread the post.

What percent of those that are here illegally do you think are sent back. You say “captured”, implying that all captured are sent back. Let’s say you’re right, what percent do you think are captured? Would you be in favor of capturing those who hang out at Home Depot and gather on corners looking for day work? If you’re answer is yes, they we agree. If not, the capturing you talk about doesn’t make a dent in the numbers. The only real capturing that occurs is at the border. Police aren’t even able to ask a person’s status. And even if a cop takes it upon himself to arrest someone for beiong in a town illegally (as happened in New Hampshire, I think it was), he is immediatley let go. When one of the DC snipers was caught in Seattle and found to be here illegally, even though the law stated that he should be immediatley deported, they let him out on his own.

And how about those not “helping the nation”? How about an illegal family who can be shown to take much more than they contribute? A family that taps out medical systme to the tune of a hundred thousand dollars, has three kids getting educated (all illegal) and pays just pennies in taxes, in anything. According to your estimation, would it be okay to immediately deport those people?

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duffer, excellent post. You are 100% correct.

Are you claiming that there weren’t thousands marching who were illegal?

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Huh? Illegal aliens. Illegal. Where is the argument? I know some are affected by lawbreakers, but that’s waht lawbreakers do.

I’m sure any one of us could go into any county jail and find someone with a spouse or child. Why deny them a parent or spouse? Doesn’t matter if they broke the law. They have a loved one that wants that person home.

Screw it. You break the law, you get a free pass so long as somebody doesn’t want you taken away from them?

OK. Immigration law doesn’t count. It’s an inconvenient crime so we shouldn’t enforce it.

So instead of repealing the laws, let’s make some new laws. Those laws weaken the existing laws, which basically make the existing laws pointless.

Repeal the laws or enforce the ones in place. That’s all I’m asking for.

Making new law is pointless. The ones in effect aren’t enough to enforce, so repeal them. Or let everyone feel good about making new laws that sound good. Either way it’s the same real-world problem. It’s all shit anyway.
Nothing is going to change no matter what happens to get passed. Even I’m not dumb enough to think otherwise. I just wish people calling for reform of law would realize the law they want reformed isn’t really being enforced to begin with.

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I’m claiming that we sure don’t fucking know what the percentages are. Plenty of people are against this that are US citizens, even if they bear similar physical characteristics of most illegal aliens. And plenty of them marched.

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I am all for realism in public policy. There is no way in Hell that the proposal currently under discussion is going to work, given that much less grandiose ones have never worked. I know what the hell I’m talking about in this regard; before I got disgusted with government stupidity and left for grad school, and eventually ended up as an immigration paralegal, I worked as an interpreter for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, aka Immigration Court - back when it and INS were both part of the Dept. of Justice. Even the INS trial attorneys knew they were beating their heads against the wall, fighting as hard as they did to get people deported; most deportation orders are never enforced because of lack of manpower and detention space, among other things. By orders of magnitude.

So you think increasing the scope of the issue by additional orders of magnitude is magically going to fix everything? I hear there’s a lovely bridge in Brooklyn you might want to consider purchasing.

The main fucking point of my rant has to do with legal immigration of highly skilled people. I work in-house these days for one of the largest companies in the world - we don’t knowingly hire people who are in the U.S. illegally.

The typical person my employer sponsors for immigration purposes has a graduate degree in finance, statistics, operations research, math, economics, IT, or a bachelor’s degree plus several years of specialized experience. Not the profile of the people you see on TV demonstrating. And yet the reforms that would mean they aren’t left dangling for years and years on end until their green cards are approved, green cards on which my employer expends considerable financial and organizational resources, are tied up in the same fucking bill(s) that Congress is blowing off right now to go on vacation.

Illegal immigration is a separate issue, one which you might have more empathy for if you’d ever tried to survive in, say, a village in the Guatemalan highlands. Try it sometime; it might prove educational. Or perhaps you’d prefer somewhere more exciting, like Iraq or Sudan?

Here you go. That’s a listing for the people who adjudicate employment-based petitions, which are on the complicated side; in case you aren’t versed in the joyous bureaucratese of Federal job postings, GS-9 means you have at least a year of experience at the GS-7 level, on down the line. The entry level for most Federal office jobs is GS-4 or maybe GS-5, which means that with a high school diploma and some experience, you, too, can be adjudicating green card applications for cutting-edge research scientists.

(In the vast majority of cases, education can be substituted by related experience in Federal service, except for positions - like attorney positions - that inherently require a degree. Doesn’t mean it happens a lot, but it’s possible. My boss at Immigration Court, the lead interpreter, only had a H.S. diploma. She happened to be damn good at what she did, but still, she didn’t have any college education at all.)

No, it’s not the issue - I’m talking about legal, employment-based immigration. It’s very rare for someone who would qualify for an employment-based immigration category to be here illegally.

I feel like I’m repeating myself - see above. The quotas for legal, employment-based immigration aren’t coming close to meeting the demand; the FY 2006 H-1B work visa quota was met in mid-August, before the fiscal year even began, and green card backlogs for most employment-based categories are 3 - 5 years and up. And that’s AFTER employers have gone through an exhaustive process of documenting the lack of qualified U.S. workers for the position.

You really don’t get it, do you? I almost never deal with people here illegally as part of my job, and yet their lives are being held hostage to the issue of illegal immigration.

And Jesucristo, are you completely incapable of empathy? Why do you think your ancestors came here, because things were just peachy at home?

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Wrongo. All the proposals I’m aware of still involve eligible applicants having to clear background checks before receiving their visas and/or green cards, just as is the case with any applicant now. Background clearances are the most common cause I see for cases being delayed past normal processing times (which stretches into years in many green card cases, anyway). They wouldn’t be skipping any steps.

(And in any case, it’s totally possible to revoke immigration benefits granted erroneously, and it’s even possible to do it decades later, after the person has naturalized, if the benefits were granted as a result of fraud or concealing evidence. Lookee here. I’ve been involved in a few cases like that, and they were pretty hardcore.)

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**Probably so. **

My responces in bold.