5 ms·

Should USCIS have an official badge on social sites and be required to use an account bearing the badge when linking up with petitioners/beneficiaries?

eru 16y ago
They shouldn't use it at all. There should be some proper non-discrimination laws, and you should be able to sue them, if they disrespect them.
- Robin_Message 16y ago
  > They shouldn't use it at all. There should be some proper non-discrimination laws, and you should be able to sue them, if they disrespect them. Why not? What is discriminatory about looking you up on facebook? Is the issue the pretext used to get the information, or getting that information at all, or how the information will be used? Your vehement desire for "proper" laws and the ability to sue "them" lacks detail — do you know what you really want, and if so, what is it?
  - sxdfvgbnhjhgbv 16y ago
    How many degrees of separation are they allowed? Your face book page links to the eff = rejected? A friend of yours links to eff, a friend of a friend ^ 6 links to eff? Also AFAIK you don't put a social security number on facebook. Do they just look up John Doe, assume thats you and base their decision on that person?
  - eru 16y ago
    Why do they have to get those information from facebook at all? Why not reform the process of getting citizenship to something much simpler and saner? Just auction off all the slots for new citizenships each year. (Or get rid of those limits completely, and just let anybody in whose richer or better educated than the average, plus some room for political asylum.)
    - anigbrowl 16y ago
      Those are questions of policy rather than law. What you propose seems very sensible to me from an economic and diplomatic point of view. But as you must have noticed, there are a lot of people who are loudly against more immigration; primarily illegal immigration, but once you get past that the main lobbying groups (CIS, FAIR) would like less of all immigration. Also, such reforms are never popular during periods of high unemployment; and finally, a very small number of people who come to the US are actual crooks fleeing from justice, or involved in the flesh trade, etc..
      - eru 16y ago
        I know. Though limits on immigration don't make auctioning off a bad idea. Quite the opposite, they make it more necessary. Crooks and other nasty people should be dealt with. Whether they are new or old Americans. But we shouldn't make more things criminal than necessary.
Robin_Message 16y ago
There you raise an excellent point which enables us to relate Facebook back to the real world where I think our intuitions and laws are better. Suppose a plain-clothes USCIS agent comes to find you in a place you are likely to be and chats to you - say in a bar, or your place of work. Is anything they discover during that chat admissible, even if they don't admit to being a USCIS agent? Because if that is okay, then why should a social network be any different? On the other hand, if that would be inadmissible, or require some evidence beforehand for them to mount such an undercover operation, then viewing your private online data under the pretext of friendship should be out too.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Is anything they discover during that chat admissible Yes. Once a person has stated or otherwise shown that they are not a US citizen, the burden of proof for eligibility to be present in the US switches to them. A false claim to US citizenship is a felony, though of course exceptions exist. This is quite different from the legal situation of a US person.

eru 16y ago

They shouldn't use it at all. There should be some proper non-discrimination laws, and you should be able to sue them, if they disrespect them.

Robin_Message 16y ago
> They shouldn't use it at all. There should be some proper non-discrimination laws, and you should be able to sue them, if they disrespect them. Why not? What is discriminatory about looking you up on facebook? Is the issue the pretext used to get the information, or getting that information at all, or how the information will be used? Your vehement desire for "proper" laws and the ability to sue "them" lacks detail — do you know what you really want, and if so, what is it?
- sxdfvgbnhjhgbv 16y ago
  How many degrees of separation are they allowed? Your face book page links to the eff = rejected? A friend of yours links to eff, a friend of a friend ^ 6 links to eff? Also AFAIK you don't put a social security number on facebook. Do they just look up John Doe, assume thats you and base their decision on that person?
- eru 16y ago
  Why do they have to get those information from facebook at all? Why not reform the process of getting citizenship to something much simpler and saner? Just auction off all the slots for new citizenships each year. (Or get rid of those limits completely, and just let anybody in whose richer or better educated than the average, plus some room for political asylum.)
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    Those are questions of policy rather than law. What you propose seems very sensible to me from an economic and diplomatic point of view. But as you must have noticed, there are a lot of people who are loudly against more immigration; primarily illegal immigration, but once you get past that the main lobbying groups (CIS, FAIR) would like less of all immigration. Also, such reforms are never popular during periods of high unemployment; and finally, a very small number of people who come to the US are actual crooks fleeing from justice, or involved in the flesh trade, etc..
    - eru 16y ago
      I know. Though limits on immigration don't make auctioning off a bad idea. Quite the opposite, they make it more necessary. Crooks and other nasty people should be dealt with. Whether they are new or old Americans. But we shouldn't make more things criminal than necessary.

Robin_Message 16y ago

There you raise an excellent point which enables us to relate Facebook back to the real world where I think our intuitions and laws are better. Suppose a plain-clothes USCIS agent comes to find you in a place you are likely to be and chats to you - say in a bar, or your place of work. Is anything they discover during that chat admissible, even if they don't admit to being a USCIS agent? Because if that is okay, then why should a social network be any different? On the other hand, if that would be inadmissible, or require some evidence beforehand for them to mount such an undercover operation, then viewing your private online data under the pretext of friendship should be out too.

anigbrowl 16y ago
Is anything they discover during that chat admissible Yes. Once a person has stated or otherwise shown that they are not a US citizen, the burden of proof for eligibility to be present in the US switches to them. A false claim to US citizenship is a felony, though of course exceptions exist. This is quite different from the legal situation of a US person.