Trump Administration Set to Add Another Burden on Immigrants

[Boiler 45,486]

3 minutes ago, jayjayj said:

Why are regressives so fixated on Steve Bannon?

They are in luv

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

On 1/1/2018 at 1:54 AM, jayjayj said:

What issues do you have with Breitbart?

I have a policy of providing substantive replies to questions posed to me in the lower fora only to those with a reputation score of over 2,000. Please repost your request after your reputation score has reached the requisite level.

 

Thank you in advance for your professional courtesy.

 

Sincerely yours,

elmcitymaven

[bcking 3,157]

On 12/30/2017 at 2:57 PM, jg121783 said:

I remember the fear mongering and hysteria on these forums when Trump was first elected that Trump was going to end all immigration and deport all immigrants (I may be exaggerating slightly) and none of the things people were freaking out about actually happened. This is just a repeat of that.

I only started coming to this part of the forum after the election, so I have nothing prior to the election to go off.

 

That being said, I'd say that while yes there were people in public that were in hysterics and quite "emotional" or "freaking out"...the people on these forums were quite reasonable. I don't recall any "sky is falling". 

 

Were people unhappy with the election result? Of course, I was one of them. I think I recall stating within days after the election that I felt in four years Trump may end up good for our economy, but bad for our international reputation and bad for our social progress. After the first year my thoughts are pretty similar. I just don't remember seeing anyone here claiming that Trump was going to "end all immigration" or "deport all immigrants". Were people expecting changes? Of course they were. He campaigned claiming he would make changes so it was reasonable to have questions and this is a pretty reasonable place to go with questions/concerns about immigration. But overall I feel like the response in the forums was fairly reserved (compared to the general public).

 

I don't get the impression that any of the people here are the same people who go out and participate in "screaming parties". Just like I don't get the impression that anyone here are the same groups that go out and chant "death to jews" holding tiki torches. Maybe there are a few on either side, but they are the exception.

 

It's like a microcosm of America in here

Edited January 2, 2018 by bcking

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

1 hour ago, bcking said:

I only started coming to this part of the forum after the election, so I have nothing prior to the election to go off.

 

That being said, I'd say that while yes there were people in public that were in hysterics and quite "emotional" or "freaking out"...the people on these forums were quite reasonable. I don't recall any "sky is falling". 

 

Were people unhappy with the election result? Of course, I was one of them. I think I recall stating within days after the election that I felt in four years Trump may end up good for our economy, but bad for our international reputation and bad for our social progress. After the first year my thoughts are pretty similar. I just don't remember seeing anyone here claiming that Trump was going to "end all immigration" or "deport all immigrants". Were people expecting changes? Of course they were. He campaigned claiming he would make changes so it was reasonable to have questions and this is a pretty reasonable place to go with questions/concerns about immigration. But overall I feel like the response in the forums was fairly reserved (compared to the general public).

 

I don't get the impression that any of the people here are the same people who go out and participate in "screaming parties". Just like I don't get the impression that anyone here are the same groups that go out and chant "death to jews" holding tiki torches. Maybe there are a few on either side, but they are the exception.

 

It's like a microcosm of America in here

This is exactly the point.  Aside from the "Mexico is not sending their best," build the wall and an assault on refugees, there was no comprehensive view toward immigration reform from the Trump Camp.   After the election, the focus is turning toward family and economic migration as well. If you review Bannon and Miller from before the election, their concern has always been legal immigration.

 

 

Steve Bannon in 2016: legal immigration is the real “problem"

By Tara Golshan  Feb 2, 2017, 8:40am EST

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Steve Bannon interviews Trump’s Senior Advisor Stephen Miller in 2016  Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images for SiriusXM

President Donald Trump’s sweeping visa and refugee ban is likely only the beginning.

Already he has signed a variation of a “Muslim ban” — and has suggested expanding it. He has pushed forward on the southern border wall, regardless of Mexico’s refusal to pay for it. And he is reportedly considering moves to overhaul the United States’ legal work visa program (H-1B visas) that many technology companies rely on. To many, it would appear that Trump is doing what he said he would do.

But behind these policy reforms, two longtime immigration skeptics are making a name for themselves: Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon and White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, who is a former staffer for Sen. Jeff Sessions and yet another hard-line immigration restrictionist. (Sessions is waiting for his confirmation vote for attorney general).

Before Bannon and Miller became White House colleagues and began drafting executive orders, however, Bannon was a Breitbart News executive asking Miller, a policy adviser on Trump’s campaign, for Trump’s positions on legal and illegal immigration.

Trump’s public stance has seemingly always been to keep the “bad people” out and let the smart people in. But a conversation between Bannon and Miller from March 2016, on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily first resurfaced by the Washington Post, shows Bannon and Miller may both hold a more conservative view on immigration.

“Isn’t the beating heart of this problem, the real beating heart of it, of what we gotta get sorted here, not illegal immigration?” Bannon asked Miller. “As horrific as that is, and it’s horrific, don’t we have a problem? We’ve looked the other way on this legal immigration that’s kinda overwhelmed the country?”

Bannon goes on to decry the “oligarchs” of Silicon Valley and Washington and call the number of immigrants in the United States “scary.”

Miller’s response is affirmation: “The history of America is that an immigration-on period is followed by an immigration-off period,” he said.

As the power and sway of these two men becomes increasingly apparent, their conversation is worth revisiting. Here is the exchange:

BANNON: Where are we in the Trump campaign with the H-1B visas? Because we got the oligarchs down there, man, and they have got Karl Rove and literally hundreds of millions of dollars, and they are coming with one reason. And they are coming for unlimited ability to go throughout the world and have people come here and compete with kids coming out of engineering schools and IT jobs. If you are in your 40s and 50s right now, people will tell you, they haven’t had a raise in decades in IT. What was supposed to be a great career turned out not to be a great career. It’s because of these visas.

And now you got all the engineering schools full of people from South Asia and East Asia. And it’s not that I have any problem with those folks learning, but they are coming here to take these jobs. You have turned over the entire American education system — we have cut out art, we have cut out history, we have cut out music. Why have we done it? STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math. We have told every minority kid in this country, you got to excel at that. What happens? They get into graduate schools, they can’t get engineering degrees, they can’t get into graduate schools because there are all these foreign students, when they come out, they can’t get a job. And they are looking for these people like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump who talk about immigration and talk about H-1B visas to stand up for them against these oligarchs. So where are we on this?

MILLER: Well, that was brilliantly stated.

[....]

High-skilled immigration and the H-1B visa are just not the same thing. And you’ll notice when you pick up a copy of the newspaper, you will often see the phrase high-skilled immigration — and sometimes it is used by people on our own side, and I just don’t ever use that phrase, because the reality is we are talking about less skilled foreign guest workers that are less educated than Americans, who are paid less than Americans, who know less about the computing industry and about the technology industry than Americans — so I just don’t use that phrase.

BANNON: Is Donald Trump going to stand up to these oligarchs? That are down on this island with Arthur Brooks and all the swells of guys at AEI ... down there with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, who wants unlimited immigration. ... Is Donald Trump going to stand up to those guys, or is he going to kiss their ring?

MILLER: There is zero doubt what Mr. Trump’s position is on H-1Bs. And the statement that went out that evening from Mr. Trump, that he felt very strongly about, made clear that the H-1B program is going to be reformed dramatically to protect American workers. If you go back and look at Mr. Trump’s policy papers —

[...]

The word high-skilled doesn’t even appear in that paper — because again, we don’t use the term to describe high-skilled workers — other people can, that’s their choice, but the system that he wants is that on the permanent immigration that we would switch from a low-skilled to a high-skilled system, on the permanent immigration side. Not talking these guest workers.

BANNON: You saw these guest workers. You saw the CIS report yesterday. You saw that, what is it, 61 million? Isn’t the beating heart of this problem, the real beating heart of it, of what we gotta get sorted here, is not illegal immigration? As horrific as that is, and it’s horrific, don’t we have a problem, we’ve looked the other way on this legal immigration that’s kinda overwhelmed the country? When you look and there’s got 61 million, 20 percent of the country, is immigrants — is that not a massive problem? You were with Jeff Sessions for many, many years. Is that not the beating heart of this problem?

MILLER: Well, yes, it’s mind-boggling, and it is something I have talked about before at some length on your program. It’s important to understand that historically speaking, that immigration is supposed to be interrupted with periods of assimilation and integration. So if you looked at the numerically smaller immigration waves from 1880 to 1920, when the foreign-born population increased from 7 million to 14 million, there was zero immigration growth for the next half-century. In fact, the foreign-born population growth shrank remarkably. So from 1920 to 1970, the foreign-born population shrank from 14 million to about 10 million. The number of immigrants in the country, the total number of immigrants, shrank in 50 years, and the overall American population doubled. Now, to just finish this short history of immigration, from 1970 to today the foreign-born population has quadrupled, more than quadrupled, from less than 10 million to more than 40 million plus the kids that are from the CIS report.

BANNON: It’s scary. It’s scary.

Miller: So there is no precedent for that kind of growth whatsoever. If you were to follow the history of the 20th century — and you want to win an immigration argument with your friends, and they say we should follow America’s history — well, the answer to that is, you’re absolutely right. We should follow America’s history, and the history of America is that an immigration-on period is followed by an immigration-off period.

[Boiler 45,486]

2 hours ago, elmcitymaven said:

I have a policy of providing substantive replies to questions posed to me in the lower fora only to those with a reputation score of over 2,000. Please repost your request after your reputation score has reached the requisite level.

 

Thank you in advance for your professional courtesy.

 

Sincerely yours,

elmcitymaven

I want to know as well.

 

Hopefully my request is courteous enough?

Edited January 2, 2018 by Boiler

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

1 hour ago, Boiler said:

I want to know as well.

 

Hopefully my request is courteous enough?

Your request is not only courteous, you meet the 2018 criteria for responses. Thank you. Your request will be processed in the order it has been received.

[TBoneTX 45,273]

Several female crows perched on a telephone line and started "cawing," one after the other.  Soon, a male crow appeared and announced the following: "Please stay on the line.  Your caw will be answered in the order in which it was received."

[TBoneTX 45,273]

On 12/31/2017 at 1:12 AM, TBoneTX said:

I agree 100% with the observations attributed as quotes from David Leopold.

In the words of one Congressional aide who helped me years ago, "USCIS is our very worst [Federal agency]."

It would seem to me that these proposed regulations would inhibit the right to petition our government for redress of grievances.

Would like to hear what Maven might think.

Do we also meet the criteria, Dear?

[jayjayj 571]

12 hours ago, elmcitymaven said:

I have a policy of providing substantive replies to questions posed to me in the lower fora only to those with a reputation score of over 2,000. Please repost your request after your reputation score has reached the requisite level.

 

Thank you in advance for your professional courtesy.

 

Sincerely yours,

elmcitymaven

[Dashinka 24,492]

14 hours ago, elmcitymaven said:

I have a policy of providing substantive replies to questions posed to me in the lower fora only to those with a reputation score of over 2,000. Please repost your request after your reputation score has reached the requisite level.

 

Thank you in advance for your professional courtesy.

 

Sincerely yours,

elmcitymaven

Isn't that a bit elitist?

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

8 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

Isn't that a bit elitist?

Yes. It is a perk of being a member of the librul elite.

12 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Do we also meet the criteria, Dear?

Yes.

[Italian_in_NYC 259]

I had three H1-Bs before getting a green card, and it's probably the reason why I'm still here.

But if it is abused by US employers to lower wages, then the program should be revised.

Green card lottery: while I always applied when I was on a visa, I always thought it was kind of an odd process and often unfair (I was very qualified and somehow random people would get a green card). Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people who won it and some of them are among my best friends in the US.

[bcking 3,157]

54 minutes ago, Italian_in_NYC said:

I had three H1-Bs before getting a green card, and it's probably the reason why I'm still here.

But if it is abused by US employers to lower wages, then the program should be revised.

Green card lottery: while I always applied when I was on a visa, I always thought it was kind of an odd process and often unfair (I was very qualified and somehow random people would get a green card). Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people who won it and some of them are among my best friends in the US.

When you say you were "very qualified", do you mean education wise? It's pretty clear that the lottery doesn't have a weighted scale or anything. You either meet the qualifications or you don't. So presumably everyone who got a green card was just as qualified as you were (otherwise they wouldn't have met the requirements). It's a lottery system, so the person who wins is always going to be random. I'm not really sure how it can be "unfair" for those qualified to apply (Someone from a country not on the list could argue that, I guess).

 

I get what you mean though - While the idea behind the Diversity part of it works for me (Pick countries that are underrepresented to help keep us diverse, I like that), I wouldn't be opposed to a weighted scale for your educational background, work history etc... Though if we only ever select the most highly educated then we lose out on some types of Diversity as well. Some people may not have as strong of an education but have an amazing work ethic or intelligence, they just didn't have the access they needed to get the education.

[Italian_in_NYC 259]

2 minutes ago, bcking said:

When you say you were "very qualified", do you mean education wise? It's pretty clear that the lottery doesn't have a weighted scale or anything. You either meet the qualifications or you don't. So presumably everyone who got a green card was just as qualified as you were (otherwise they wouldn't have met the requirements). It's a lottery system, so the person who wins is always going to be random. I'm not really sure how it can be "unfair" for those qualified to apply (Someone from a country not on the list could argue that, I guess).

 

I get what you mean though - While the idea behind the Diversity part of it works for me (Pick countries that are underrepresented to help keep us diverse, I like that), I wouldn't be opposed to a weighted scale for your educational background, work history etc... Though if we only ever select the most highly educated then we lose out on some types of Diversity as well. Some people may not have as strong of an education but have an amazing work ethic or intelligence, they just didn't have the access they needed to get the education.

Yes, education and work experience.

It is just my opinion of course, but why would the Govt let in random people with just a high school degree? You could still have diversity and only admit people who can objectively create value for the country.

There is already a ton of immigrants coming in through family.

I always thought the lottery was a weird thing, just odd. One thing the US doesn't lack is diversity.

[bcking 3,157]

11 minutes ago, Italian_in_NYC said:

Yes, education and work experience.

It is just my opinion of course, but why would the Govt let in random people with just a high school degree? You could still have diversity and only admit people who can objectively create value for the country.

There is already a ton of immigrants coming in through family.

I always thought the lottery was a weird thing, just odd. One thing the US doesn't lack is diversity.

That's what I figured.

 

I agree I think you could design a "Diversity Program" that prioritizes education and work experience more. Have a weighted scale so your chances are higher with more education. Perhaps control it for country (So your level of education is compared to other applicants from Italy, while someone from another country would be compared to others from their own country). Obviously people from some countries would be over-represented if you didn't control it by country since access to education may be more limited in certain places. I wouldn't be opposed to that.