Open Border Tragedies Caused by Visa Lottery System

[jayjayj 571]

2 hours ago, bcking said:

I admit at first I didn't go far enough back to read the first use of the phrase "freely leave". I just did.

 

I disagree that it was implied that it was simple. The other poster was merely saying that EU countries are allowed to do that if they choose to, as the UK is demonstrating.

 

The practical realities are that despite every country being allowed to do it, it is incredibly complicated. 

 

The UK is leaving freely. The EU is also free to be unhappy about it, and they are completely free to make the negotiations difficult for the UK so that they end up with a better deal and the UK suffers. At the end of the day the UK is still leaving in 2019 (I forget the exact date/month). What they are discussing is the TERMS of leaving. The leave date is already there and if terms aren't settled then they will just "freely leave" without any negotiations or contracts in place.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.  I'm good with that.

[bcking 3,157]

1 minute ago, jayjayj said:

We'll just have to agree to disagree.  I'm good with that.

Ya that's fine. I can see how you could have interpreted what the other person said as "easy" to leave.

 

I agree with you that it isn't easy. That just seems obvious and hopefully should have been obvious for everyone voting in the referendum (It was to my wife and her family). I feel sorry for people if they thought it would be easy and are now realizing it isn't.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

11 minutes ago, bcking said:

Ya that's fine. I can see how you could have interpreted what the other person said as "easy" to leave.

 

I agree with you that it isn't easy. That just seems obvious and hopefully should have been obvious for everyone voting in the referendum (It was to my wife and her family). I feel sorry for people if they thought it would be easy and are now realizing it isn't.

Promises were made

 

 

[bcking 3,157]

30 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

Promises were made

 

 

My wife still has all of her savings/investments from the UK in pounds sterling. We are trying to patiently wait and hope that it will rebound in the future. 

The longer we wait the less likely it seems. It was horrible timing considering it was right around the time that we started her immigration process. Fortunately we don't need the money right now.

[Pennycat 880]

So I'm coming into this at a weird time but I've never understood all the hate that the parents of citizens visa program gets here, of all places. Maybe I'm picturing the utility of this program MUCH differently than others, but I see it as a way for US citizens to not have to make the decision between caring for their recently-widowed mother and leaving their jobs and uprooting their (American) families to go back to the home country that their American spouses and school aged children may not know much about, or speak the language. Do you think that they should have looked at the 20, 30, 40 year life plan and decide to NOT get married to their American girl/boyfriend just in case things unfold in such a way that maybe their mother will need them in her old age? Do you make major life decisions based on what may or may not happen 40 years from now?

 

I'm just not sure why this is such a sticking point for so many, and especially HERE, where we all have parents or parents-in-law who live overseas. Maybe YOUR parents or parents-in-law will be just fine without you (I personally think that mine WILL). Or maybe not! Life does have a funny way of throwing curveballs at you. And what happens if they're not? Are you really going to think "well that's how the cookie crumbles" and move back to your spouse's home country to care for them because these parents visas are clearly just scam tools? What happens if YOUR parents need help at the same time? Can you bring them to your spouse's country to live with you? Would you want to? Would you then live apart from your spouse? Just ignore them and hope the problem goes away?

 

I'll grant you that siblings doesn't seem to make too much sense (except for that's just how the system works for now but eh). And adult children is more a heartstrings issue than a practical one. But rather than throwing all that out, why not have educational/ professional requirements for these categories? If they can pass muster why not give them preference? 

 

But really, really. Please help me understand all the hate for the concept of the parents visa thing. To me it seems almost life-savingly practical. 

[bcking 3,157]

4 minutes ago, CatherineA said:

So I'm coming into this at a weird time but I've never understood all the hate that the parents of citizens visa program gets here, of all places. Maybe I'm picturing the utility of this program MUCH differently than others, but I see it as a way for US citizens to not have to make the decision between caring for their recently-widowed mother and leaving their jobs and uprooting their (American) families to go back to the home country that their American spouses and school aged children may not know much about, or speak the language. Do you think that they should have looked at the 20, 30, 40 year life plan and decide to NOT get married to their American girl/boyfriend just in case things unfold in such a way that maybe their mother will need them in her old age? Do you make major life decisions based on what may or may not happen 40 years from now?

 

I'm just not sure why this is such a sticking point for so many, and especially HERE, where we all have parents or parents-in-law who live overseas. Maybe YOUR parents or parents-in-law will be just fine without you (I personally think that mine WILL). Or maybe not! Life does have a funny way of throwing curveballs at you. And what happens if they're not? Are you really going to think "well that's how the cookie crumbles" and move back to your spouse's home country to care for them because these parents visas are clearly just scam tools? What happens if YOUR parents need help at the same time? Can you bring them to your spouse's country to live with you? Would you want to? Would you then live apart from your spouse? Just ignore them and hope the problem goes away?

 

I'll grant you that siblings doesn't seem to make too much sense (except for that's just how the system works for now but eh). And adult children is more a heartstrings issue than a practical one. But rather than throwing all that out, why not have educational/ professional requirements for these categories? If they can pass muster why not give them preference? 

 

But really, really. Please help me understand all the hate for the concept of the parents visa thing. To me it seems almost life-savingly practical. 

I think you have a great example of the system working in a way that, I'd hope, most people would be okay with.

 

I think most people have issues because all of these systems create more and more opportunities for fraud, abuse, misuse. How much that happens, I have no idea. I'm also not sure how you would even define "abuse" or "misuse" in this scenario (Parents of an immigrant).

 

I'd like to think most people here would be supportive of a recently windowed parent being brought to the USA to live with his/her child's family when they have no support or family in their home country. Even the most cynical people here must have a heart that the story tugs on.

 

 

[smilesammich 10,727]

2 minutes ago, bcking said:

I think you have a great example of the system working in a way that, I'd hope, most people would be okay with.

 

I think most people have issues because all of these systems create more and more opportunities for fraud, abuse, misuse. How much that happens, I have no idea. I'm also not sure how you would even define "abuse" or "misuse" in this scenario (Parents of an immigrant).

 

I'd like to think most people here would be supportive of a recently windowed parent being brought to the USA to live with his/her child's family when they have no support or family in their home country. Even the most cynical people here must have a heart that the story tugs on.

 

 

i'm not so sure. you see the disgust for daca recipients. 

[bcking 3,157]

1 minute ago, smilesammich said:

i'm not so sure. you see the disgust for daca recipients. 

I try to assume the best in mind, though I realize sometimes I'm wrong.

[smilesammich 10,727]

2 minutes ago, bcking said:

I try to assume the best in mind, though I realize sometimes I'm wrong.

guess i've been hanging around here too long.

[Pennycat 880]

 

14 minutes ago, bcking said:

I think you have a great example of the system working in a way that, I'd hope, most people would be okay with.

 

I think most people have issues because all of these systems create more and more opportunities for fraud, abuse, misuse. How much that happens, I have no idea. I'm also not sure how you would even define "abuse" or "misuse" in this scenario (Parents of an immigrant).

 

I'd like to think most people here would be supportive of a recently windowed parent being brought to the USA to live with his/her child's family when they have no support or family in their home country. Even the most cynical people here must have a heart that the story tugs on.

 

 

 

I had always sort of assumed that that is more-or-less the entire point of the parents being "immediate relatives" and not a family preference category, not just one possible example of the utility of the program. I also sort of doubt that a very measurable segment of American society would give two hoots about the real people involved in this scenario because I don't think that everyone sees naturalized citizens as Americans, no matter what (and no matter how proud we all are of our bootstrapping Ellis Island naturalized citizen ancestors) I think they still see them as "immigrants" and consider the rules to be different. This is all echoed in this forum as well. I think I read something along the lines of "if they are so attached to their families, why move to the US" on this very thread. And this type of attitude is coming from people who actually HAVE foreign parents/ parents-in-law. 

 

And it's not even necessarily about have no support or no family in the home country (although certainly that would make it even more drastic), but about a course of action being best/preferable for the family as a whole. Why begrudge your fellow US citizens the flexibility to make the sort of arrangement that is best or preferable for them? 

 

11 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

i'm not so sure. you see the disgust for daca recipients. 

 

Completely agree, although I still don't see this parent thing as a heartstring issue.

Edited November 17, 2017 by CatherineA

[smilesammich 10,727]

2 minutes ago, CatherineA said:

Completely agree, although I still don't see this parent thing as a heartstring issue.

i don't see it as a heart string issue myself. i can see it that way, but imo allowing more legal avenues of immigration and options to us citizens and their families only makes sound societal and economic sense. some can't get past this idea of 'chain immigration' as if we're in the business of pest control.

[N-o-l-a 7,168]

22 minutes ago, CatherineA said:

 

But really, really. Please help me understand all the hate for the concept of the parents visa thing. To me it seems almost life-savingly practical. 

 

I think that you'll find rather than being a separate far away issue that only Ellis Island immigrants have experienced, that some of us might actually have real world practical experience in this topic enough to dislike it?  I particularly find fault with it because it is really something manufactured by the initial immigrant themselves, and yes, as an adult, I expect them to be able to think about the care of their parents in the future.  We considered things like this before we moved.

 

I'm a natural born US citizen, but also the daughter of an immigrant.  So, up until about a year ago, I still had grandparents living abroad, grandparents my father wouldn't have sponsored and did not sponsor.  Grandparents that were not sponsored by their 3 other children living abroad either.  One of those grandparents was an immigrant herself, who maybe saw her own mother a time or two after immigrating, even though they both lived in Europe.  My husband wouldn't even dream of sponsoring his parents to live here, the thought of it is almost laughable.  They are lovely people, but they belong in their own country and my husband is a grown man.  There is nothing practical about paying for health-care costs in America for those who did work here before retirement.  Even after retirement, it can still be pricey as I'm learning from my own mother as she prepares to transition.  She's still working just to get her very expensive cancer meds paid for... something about a donut hole and medicare prescription costs that I've yet to comprehend.

 

Besides getting off my point, when an adult becomes an adult and then decides to move abroad, they are making a very conscious decision to fly the nest, to cut those close ties with family that had existed before.  Or maybe they weren't so close, because how could someone who was so attached to their parents just up and leave them in the first place?  It just seems short-sided and almost nonsensical.  You are either that attached to your family that you can't live apart from them or you aren't.

[smilesammich 10,727]

13 minutes ago, N-o-l-a said:

 

 You are either that attached to your family that you can't live apart from them or you aren't.

seriously disagree that immigration has anything to do with attachment to family. 

[Boiler 46,172]

16 minutes ago, N-o-l-a said:

 

I think that you'll find rather than being a separate far away issue that only Ellis Island immigrants have experienced, that some of us might actually have real world practical experience in this topic enough to dislike it?  I particularly find fault with it because it is really something manufactured by the initial immigrant themselves, and yes, as an adult, I expect them to be able to think about the care of their parents in the future.  We considered things like this before we moved.

 

I'm a natural born US citizen, but also the daughter of an immigrant.  So, up until about a year ago, I still had grandparents living abroad, grandparents my father wouldn't have sponsored and did not sponsor.  Grandparents that were not sponsored by their 3 other children living abroad either.  One of those grandparents was an immigrant herself, who maybe saw her own mother a time or two after immigrating, even though they both lived in Europe.  My husband wouldn't even dream of sponsoring his parents to live here, the thought of it is almost laughable.  They are lovely people, but they belong in their own country and my husband is a grown man.  There is nothing practical about paying for health-care costs in America for those who did work here before retirement.  Even after retirement, it can still be pricey as I'm learning from my own mother as she prepares to transition.  She's still working just to get her very expensive cancer meds paid for... something about a donut hole and medicare prescription costs that I've yet to comprehend.

 

Besides getting off my point, when an adult becomes an adult and then decides to move abroad, they are making a very conscious decision to fly the nest, to cut those close ties with family that had existed before.  Or maybe they weren't so close, because how could someone who was so attached to their parents just up and leave them in the first place?  It just seems short-sided and almost nonsensical.  You are either that attached to your family that you can't live apart from them or you aren't.

This

[Pennycat 880]

19 minutes ago, N-o-l-a said:

 

I think that you'll find rather than being a separate far away issue that only Ellis Island immigrants have experienced, that some of us might actually have real world practical experience in this topic enough to dislike it?  I particularly find fault with it because it is really something manufactured by the initial immigrant themselves, and yes, as an adult, I expect them to be able to think about the care of their parents in the future.  We considered things like this before we moved.

 

I'm a natural born US citizen, but also the daughter of an immigrant.  So, up until about a year ago, I still had grandparents living abroad, grandparents my father wouldn't have sponsored and did not sponsor.  Grandparents that were not sponsored by their 3 other children living abroad either.  One of those grandparents was an immigrant herself, who maybe saw her own mother a time or two after immigrating, even though they both lived in Europe.  My husband wouldn't even dream of sponsoring his parents to live here, the thought of it is almost laughable.  They are lovely people, but they belong in their own country and my husband is a grown man.  There is nothing practical about paying for health-care costs in America for those who did work here before retirement.  Even after retirement, it can still be pricey as I'm learning from my own mother as she prepares to transition.  She's still working just to get her very expensive cancer meds paid for... something about a donut hole and medicare prescription costs that I've yet to comprehend.

 

Besides getting off my point, when an adult becomes an adult and then decides to move abroad, they are making a very conscious decision to fly the nest, to cut those close ties with family that had existed before.  Or maybe they weren't so close, because how could someone who was so attached to their parents just up and leave them in the first place?  It just seems short-sided and almost nonsensical.  You are either that attached to your family that you can't live apart from them or you aren't.

 

We considered this before my husband moved, too. And continue to think about it as we consider moving to his country ourselves (and what we'd then do with my parents).  I think that there are few people who fail to think about being separated from their families when they get ready to immigrate to a new country.  But life does have a way of changing. You really don't know what the next 10 years will bring, forget the next 40.  Do you honestly think that making anything other than the most conservative possible decision regarding something that may or may not happen four decades in the future is being "short sighted"?  Life has inherent risks and no one can plan for all scenarios and mitigate each and every risk. 

 

This isn't about attachment to family. I haven't lived within a thousand miles of mine since I was 17 and I see them twice a year (and I'm the US citizen and continue to live in the US). That doesn't mean that I won't take one or both of my parents in when they're older and that's how the situation unfolds. It's not about not being able to live without them (I certainly can, and prefer to), it's about being a caring adult child. If, for some reason, I couldn't move my parents to the city I currently live in, does that mean I never should have moved here, JUST IN CASE they'd need me in the future? Was I being short-sighted then? Why is that different for my husband, who will also be a US citizen by the time any worries about his mother arise (which again, I very seriously doubt, but I am also capable of understanding that life sure can change on a dime and that most other people in this country aren't in nearly as fortunate a position as we are). If it's just about Medicare, ok, change that. Make a private insurance policy a requirement for the visa. Problem solved?

Edited November 17, 2017 by CatherineA