immigration reform

[haasd0gg]

Invade Mexico. Annex it. Make it its own state, make them follow our laws. Fix up Mexico so it isn't such a bad place to live.

Boom. Done. Send me money.

Just a thought here; Canada has wayyy better beer than Mexico...

[CommanderOtto]

One thing for sure though, I always hated illegal immigration for one thing: the problems they cause make a negative effect on immigration policy for Legal immigrants. Today legal immigration is almost a barrier in the U.S. The result: smart people abroad just look at other opportunities such as Canada or Australia. Instead of considering coming here, they just look at Canada. Not to mention that the immigration barriers (for legal people) and the excessive screening and questioning and lengthy process in Embassies and airports are severely hurting the image of the United States in the international scene.. making americans look somewhat hostile... I know that is mostly false, but that is what people think out there. I mean, my first language was english and my first memories were growing up in the U.S, so when I was in Venezuela or Brazil people would say I was like an "american" or call me "american ambassador" or stuff like that, because I always spoke well of the U.S. Whenever I talked about the U.S, everyone would say that Canada was a thousand times better (without ever travelling to any of the two). The reason is because they built a "warm welcome" image which the U.S should try to copy. So here's a reform that is doing things upside down: adding incentives to illegals and discouraging worthy people from coming.

a link for some of you to read:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/immigration

[kjeopardy]

One thing for sure though, I always hated illegal immigration for one thing: the problems they cause make a negative effect on immigration policy for Legal immigrants. Today legal immigration is almost a barrier in the U.S. The result: smart people abroad just look at other opportunities such as Canada or Australia. Instead of considering coming here, they just look at Canada. Not to mention that the immigration barriers (for legal people) and the excessive screening and questioning and lengthy process in Embassies and airports are severely hurting the image of the United States in the international scene.. making americans look somewhat hostile... I know that is mostly false, but that is what people think out there. I mean, my first language was english and my first memories were growing up in the U.S, so when I was in Venezuela or Brazil people would say I was like an "american" or call me "american ambassador" or stuff like that, because I always spoke well of the U.S. Whenever I talked about the U.S, everyone would say that Canada was a thousand times better (without ever travelling to any of the two). The reason is because they built a "warm welcome" image which the U.S should try to copy. So here's a reform that is doing things upside down: adding incentives to illegals and discouraging worthy people from coming.

a link for some of you to read:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/immigration

The US and Canada are hardly in the same position. The economic opportunity in Canada isn't quite as abundant as in the US (I think), and Canada HAS many fewer Hispanic immigrants—you can't say Canada is more welcoming because the facade is more pleasant. The US WAAS very welcoming (too welcoming) and now finds itself with 11 million illegals within its borders.

[CommanderOtto]

you didn't understand... i'm explaining how people look at the U.S, which does not mean I think it is true. But believe me, it does look bad, and if I had not come here when I was a kid, I would have probably thought of going to some other country like the others. The reputation of the U.S is seriously hurt by those policies. Too bad if mexico is next to the U.S, that doesn't mean that the U.S should make it hard for smart people to move here. It actually makes things worse. More illegals come and less high level professionals come to balance it off. Or things can continue the same and just let illegals come.. no Masters or Phd's just because some policy makers don't know the difference between a multilingual engineer and some low life drug trafficker crossing the border. Let me show you an example... if you read the comments from the link I posted you will find this one:

I am a pediatric pulmonologist who practiced in the USA for 16 years, mostly on temporary visa for "an alian with extraordinary ability", the kind of visa issued for Nobel prize winners. I held academic ranks with universities, trained physicians, presented and published scientific findings. I was not eligible for US permanent residency because I did not meet the requirement that I spend at least 2 years in my home country after my initial training in the US. I left the US to take a break in Thailand, my home country. Thailand cannot quite utilize my expertise and it's difficult to make ends meet here because my 2 children need to go to international schools (which are very expensive) since they do not know Thai language enough to go to Thai schools. My Thai doctor friends said my problem was my credentials - I knew too much. So now I am looking for a place to immigrate to and stumbling over this post. I like USA but don't know if I want to wait that long to get a green card and citizenship. Holding a Thai passport is really tough going around. I get treated badly because of my passport a lot.

as you can see, I have mixed feelings about this. I know the situation of illegals needs to be fixed somehow, so that good people can have the chance to get better education and homes. On the other hand, I can't understand why the system just favors illegals and not engineers, doctors, architects, economists.. etc.

I personally recommend reading this too:

http://www.soc.duke.edu/GlobalEngineering/pdfs/media/americasloss/bw_whyskilled.pdf

[11_Panama_]

So the Thai professional, with "extraordinary ability"... that got the same visa as a Nobel prize winner, can't spell "alien"? Hogwash.

[CommanderOtto]

So the Thai professional, with "extraordinary ability"... that got the same visa as a Nobel prize winner, can't spell "alien"? Hogwash.

that was a forum post though.. not part of the article, I just thought it was interesting what happened to him.