Legal Immigration? Anyone?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

New York Times Editorial - Oct. 4, 2008

One of the false pieties uttered by anti-immigration politicians is that they love immigrants. If that were true, Congress would not be having so much trouble passing a simple law to smooth out a serious kink in the legal immigration pipeline.

Every year Congress authorizes a certain number of permanent-resident visas, or green cards, for immigrants to come to work in the United States or to rejoin their families. And every year bureaucratic delays prevent a certain portion of those visas from being claimed.

The result? Every year thousands of potential green cards vanish, like unused cellphone minutes. The huge backlogs in legal immigration, which span years or even decades for applicants from some countries, continue to fester. The myth of Ellis Island becomes more mythical.

Teachers, nurses, engineers, researchers and other aspiring immigrants who follow the rules, file their paperwork, pay their fees and wait — and wait — get the chilly message that they are not wanted. Some of them feel great pressure to go illegally around the immigration system, instead of through it, as their wait to rejoin their loved ones becomes intolerable.

A House bill that could recapture an estimated 550,000 lost visas, sponsored by Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, has been moving slowly through the committee process despite the best efforts of members like Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, to sabotage it with ridiculously restrictive amendments. One would have granted green cards only to people younger than 40 with college degrees. Another would have eliminated an entire category of family visas, for siblings of citizens.

In the Senate, Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, is insisting that a visa-recapturing amendment be added to a bill reauthorizing E-Verify, the federal database program to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants. For this, he has endured an onslaught of criticism from nativist groups and colleagues, like Jeff Sessions of Alabama. They all have been raising an outcry about a coming flood of new foreigners.

That's a false alarm. Congress has already authorized these green cards, and many would go to highly skilled workers who have already lived here for years on temporary visas. The bill is as much about keeping workers as gaining them.

It seems unlikely that a visa-recapture bill would make it through this year. But don't blame Congress's focus on the economic mess for that. Recapturing visas is a modest fix that should have been made a long time ago. The country needs to build a smoother path to legal entry and citizenship. The blame for its failure to do that lies squarely with the hard-liners who rage against illegal immigrants, but are strangely uninterested in helping people who "play by the rules" and "wait in line."

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/101602...gration_anyone/

[Sofiyya 1,687]

BOO HOO!!! People can't come here fast enough to take jobs away from Americans! WAAAHHHH!

[Otto 83]

Need Rollover Visas...

[mawilson 2,133]

Need Rollover Visas...

Do they work like Rollover Minutes?

[peejay 327]

Clearly Steven loves immigrants (legal and illegal) more than his fellow countrymen. Even as the economy in the USA tanks he can't get enough immigrants into the USA fast enough. He has a lot in common with the US Chamber of Commerce and the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal.

[mawilson 2,133]

Clearly Steven loves immigrants (legal and illegal) more than his fellow countrymen. Even as the economy in the USA tanks he can't get enough immigrants into the USA fast enough. He has a lot in common with the US Chamber of Commerce and the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal.

I heard that illegal immigration numbers are on the decline.

The economy is doing so well that even the most destitute Mexicans don't want to come here anymore.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Clearly Steven loves immigrants (legal and illegal) more than his fellow countrymen. Even as the economy in the USA tanks he can't get enough immigrants into the USA fast enough. He has a lot in common with the US Chamber of Commerce and the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal.

If only he loved this country that much.

[peejay 327]

Clearly Steven loves immigrants (legal and illegal) more than his fellow countrymen. Even as the economy in the USA tanks he can't get enough immigrants into the USA fast enough. He has a lot in common with the US Chamber of Commerce and the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal.

I heard that illegal immigration numbers are on the decline.

The economy is doing so well that even the most destitute Mexicans don't want to come here anymore.

Actually, I believe that is attributable to well publicized large scale federal ICE raids on workplaces that employ illegal aliens and local anti-illegal alien ordinances such as in Oklahoma, etc.

Once the elections are over and the politicians feel safe enough from the wrath of the American public to try to shove illegal alien amnesty up our arses, the illegal aliens will resume jumping across the Mexican border in large numbers again. They will all want to get on the illegal alien amnesty gravy train. The stampede will really get rolling when snObama suspends all workplace employment laws ahead of the amnesty.

What idiots!

[spookyturtle 9,466]

I heard that illegal immigration numbers are on the decline.

The economy is doing so well that even the most destitute Mexicans don't want to come here anymore.

See, Bush isn't all bad.

[IAMX 3,055]

Ok, firstly, they need to focus most or all of their time adjudicating foreigners who are coming here to work, and making sure people who are visiting get the f-out after a period of time.

As I'm sure most of us know, they spend WAY too much time adjudicating people here who simply want to be with their LOVER.

At very least it's easy to document the people who come here by legal means, which is how government appropriates correct amounts of money to fund social programs, like education, or health care, or public works or public staffing.. practically everything.

The immigration priorities are screwed up to begin with. There's too much focus on relationship visas (spouse, child, or relative), too much time, while not enough on workers. This giving amnesty to illegal immigrants flies in the face of immigration laws that already exist, which is something Democrats in California especially want to do and it makes no fvcking sense at all. You can't appropriately fund social programs (good luck ever getting a universal health care system the way things are) and keep a check on the budget when there are so many undocumented and unaccounted for.

Of course, I also don't listen to idiots like Jeff Sessions who is a little redneck dumbass who simply hates the fact that he's seeing people other than his own skin color.

Edited October 5, 2008 by SRVT

[sereia 0]

BOO HOO!!! People can't come here fast enough to take jobs away from Americans! WAAAHHHH!

[jundp 191]

BOO HOO!!! People can't come here fast enough to take jobs away from Americans! WAAAHHHH!

I never understood why people use this argument....

How many of our jobs are truly being taken by immigrants? I mean, jobs that red-blooded 'Merickans really want anyway?

I also think it's HILARIOUS that on an IMMIGRATION website people would be whining about LEGAL immigration.

[Ban Hammer 13,356]

Need Rollover Visas...

[mawilson 2,133]

Once the elections are over and the politicians feel safe enough from the wrath of the American public to try to shove illegal alien amnesty up our arses, the illegal aliens will resume jumping across the Mexican border in large numbers again. They will all want to get on the illegal alien amnesty gravy train. The stampede will really get rolling when snObama suspends all workplace employment laws ahead of the amnesty.

Well, both Obama and McCain are pro-illegal immigration.

Notice how immigration wasn't mentioned even once during the debates?

[peejay 327]

BOO HOO!!! People can't come here fast enough to take jobs away from Americans! WAAAHHHH!

I never understood why people use this argument....

How many of our jobs are truly being taken by immigrants? I mean, jobs that red-blooded 'Merickans really want anyway?

I also think it's HILARIOUS that on an IMMIGRATION website people would be whining about LEGAL immigration.

As I have said many times...there is a huge difference between bringing a foreign spouse to live in your own home country vs. supporting uncontrolled immigration (legal & illegal) in unlimited numbers. At present trends, the USA is projected to hit 420+ million by 2050 and immigration is the primary cause of this huge increase in our population. Many people in the USA do not believe this is desirable for numerous reasons. While I'm not against immigration per se...present numbers are way too high and need to be cut.

Anyway, why should we be adding 500,000 new green cards just as the USA has shed 500,000 jobs? Apparently Senator Menendez doesn't get it either.