4 ms·

Require immigrants to be self-sustaining at some minimum amount. Have a job ready or otherwise prove the ability to pay for your housing (someone willing to boa

Require immigrants to be self-sustaining at some minimum amount. Have a job ready or otherwise prove the ability to pay for your housing (someone willing to board you). Otherwise, instantly applying government handouts to someone without any skills - language or otherwise - and often with kids and disabled relatives - makes the idea of unlimited open immigration a daunting cost.

vkou 3y ago
Open immigration is obviously incompatible with a society that has open social benefits, but the United States currently has neither.
RajT88 3y ago
> Require immigrants to be self-sustaining at some minimum amount. Have a job ready or otherwise prove the ability to pay for your housing (someone willing to board you). These are the sorts of arguments which get trotted out for only certain kinds of immigrants. Where I live in Chicagoland, Eastern European immigrants (Poles especially) face a lot of the same kinds of issues. Lots of signs and documents are printed in English, Spanish and Polish around here. They just try like hell to get here, however they can (often illegally, via visa overstays, just like immigrants from Latin America). But for reasons I will leave as an exercise for the reader, nobody around here is advocating these sorts of rules to be applied to Poles. I used to live in a town that was 49% Latino (really, Mexican was most of that). You will find that most of those folks would pass this test you suggest. Most people are not moving to a country where they have no job and no place to stay - there's always some community of friends and family they are connected with where they can land and get on their feet. Obviously! You'd have to be mad to move your whole family to a place where you have no job and no place to stay. If that option seems attractive to you, then probably conditions in your country of origin are so bad that you really should be a refugee.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  That’s fine - let’s codify it then. The law says you have to have that situation, or you can’t come to the US. I’d support it.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    Legal work/family visa holders already have this check: https://www.usa.gov/visas https://www.usa.gov/visas Are you suggesting changes to the visitor visas? https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visitor.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-... What you propose doesn't make sense for visitor visas. What exactly are you suggesting, and what problem do you think it is going to solve? Furthermore, if you accept that it's not really that much of a problem and a "Trust but Verify" type of situation, why bother given the risk of unequal/selective enforcement?
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      The problem is we have hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants streaming across the border with no plan, so they sleep in shelters and on the street in NYC. We can’t kick them out because they have the right to see a judge which often takes over 6 months. Who will feed and clothe and shelter and care for them? Taxpayers, which is why NYC is begging for a federal bailout. The legal immigration system should be reformed and made easier. But the illegal system we have is a joke and disaster.
      - RajT88 3y ago
        What you are wanting will not fix that.
        monero-xmr 3y ago
        Having a more organized system, where people can apply and receive residency and the chance for citizenship if they prove various skills and income and housing abilities, seems very reasonable to me. And then the illegal immigrants get deported immediately. This sounds very possible to me, and far more fair to legal immigrants.

vkou 3y ago

Open immigration is obviously incompatible with a society that has open social benefits, but the United States currently has neither.

RajT88 3y ago

> Require immigrants to be self-sustaining at some minimum amount. Have a job ready or otherwise prove the ability to pay for your housing (someone willing to board you). These are the sorts of arguments which get trotted out for only certain kinds of immigrants. Where I live in Chicagoland, Eastern European immigrants (Poles especially) face a lot of the same kinds of issues. Lots of signs and documents are printed in English, Spanish and Polish around here. They just try like hell to get here, however they can (often illegally, via visa overstays, just like immigrants from Latin America). But for reasons I will leave as an exercise for the reader, nobody around here is advocating these sorts of rules to be applied to Poles. I used to live in a town that was 49% Latino (really, Mexican was most of that). You will find that most of those folks would pass this test you suggest. Most people are not moving to a country where they have no job and no place to stay - there's always some community of friends and family they are connected with where they can land and get on their feet. Obviously! You'd have to be mad to move your whole family to a place where you have no job and no place to stay. If that option seems attractive to you, then probably conditions in your country of origin are so bad that you really should be a refugee.

monero-xmr 3y ago
That’s fine - let’s codify it then. The law says you have to have that situation, or you can’t come to the US. I’d support it.
- RajT88 3y ago
  Legal work/family visa holders already have this check: https://www.usa.gov/visas https://www.usa.gov/visas Are you suggesting changes to the visitor visas? https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visitor.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-... What you propose doesn't make sense for visitor visas. What exactly are you suggesting, and what problem do you think it is going to solve? Furthermore, if you accept that it's not really that much of a problem and a "Trust but Verify" type of situation, why bother given the risk of unequal/selective enforcement?
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    The problem is we have hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants streaming across the border with no plan, so they sleep in shelters and on the street in NYC. We can’t kick them out because they have the right to see a judge which often takes over 6 months. Who will feed and clothe and shelter and care for them? Taxpayers, which is why NYC is begging for a federal bailout. The legal immigration system should be reformed and made easier. But the illegal system we have is a joke and disaster.
    - RajT88 3y ago
      What you are wanting will not fix that.
      - monero-xmr 3y ago
        Having a more organized system, where people can apply and receive residency and the chance for citizenship if they prove various skills and income and housing abilities, seems very reasonable to me. And then the illegal immigrants get deported immediately. This sounds very possible to me, and far more fair to legal immigrants.