9 ms·
US freezes visas for 75 nations
- the_mitsuhiko 10mo agoI find it so incredible disappointing that discrimination by citizenship or country of birth is not just alive, but getting worse. I’m afraid if the US is starting with this, it won’t take long for others to catch up.
- throw-the-towel 10mo agoWho doesn't discriminate by citizenship, really?
- elevatortrim 10mo agoThat’s the “is not just alive” part.
- throw-the-towel 10mo agoYeah, but then the "others will catch up" part does not make sense. Other countries don't need the US' example to do that.
- testing22321 10mo agoIf the world learns anything from the celebration of stupidity that has become the US, I very much hope it’s “whatever they’re doing, we absolutely should not.”
- Etheryte 10mo agoLiterally every country worldwide does this. The question is simply to what extent and to what countries. The whole difference between being a native an an alien is the rights you get. It's not a human right to be able to freely go into any country you please.
- lo_zamoyski 10mo agoIt's interesting you got downvoted, perhaps for the sentence > The whole difference between being a native an an alien is the rights you get. A knee jerk and uncharitable reading might make this look bad, but it does require an uncharitable reading. It is clear what you mean. However, the claim > It's not a human right to be able to freely go into any country you please. is not false. The idea that open borders are a good thing is a very odd idea. It seems to grow out of a hyperindividualistic and global capitalist/consumerist culture and mindset that doesn't recognize the reality of societies and cultures. Either that, or it is a rationalization of one's own very domestic and particular choices, for example. In any case, uncontrolled migration is well-understood (and rather obviously!) as something damaging to any society and any culture. In hyperindividualistic countries, this is perhaps less appreciated, because there isn't really an ethnos or cohesive culture or society. In the US, for example, corporate consumerism dominates what passes as "culture" (certainly pop culture), and the culture's liberal individualism is hostile to the formation and persistence of a robust common good as well as a recognition of what constitutes an authentic common good. It is reduced mostly to economic factors, hence globalist capitalism. So, in the extreme, if there are no societies, only atoms and the void, then who cares how to atoms go? The other problem is that public discourse operates almost entirely within the confines of the false dichotomy of jingoist nationalism on the one hand and hyperindividualist globalism on the other (with the respective variants, like the socialist). There is little recognition of so-called postliberal positions, at least some of which draw on the robust traditional understanding of the common good and the human person, one that both jingoist nationalism and hyperindividualist globalism contradict. When postliberalism is mentioned, it is often smeared with false characterization or falsely lumped in with nihilistic positions like the Yarvin variety...which is not traditional! Given the ongoing collapse of the liberal order - a process that will take time - these postliberal positions will need to be examined carefully if we are to avoid the hideous options dominating the public square today.
- omikun 10mo agoPardon me if I’m misreading it but this sounds like disinformation. No examples in your example, a lot of abstract reasoning unmoored from facts. >uncontrolled migration is well-understood (and rather obviously!) as something damaging to any society and any culture. The US was built on unrestricted immigration for a long time. Was that destructive? I guess so if you count native Americans but not to the nation of USA. Capitalism wants closed borders to labor and open borders to capital. Thats how they can squeeze labor costs while maximizing profits. The US is highly individualistic but wants closed borders so how does your reasoning align with the news?
- graemep 10mo agoA lot of countries already do this. You cannot get visas to most developed countries if you are likely to become a "public charge". In general, its a lot easier to get a visa if you are from a rich and stable country (or are rich yourself), and if you look at where countries allow visa free travel to citizens of another country the countries on this list are unlikely to qualify!
- garbawarb 10mo agoIn that case, why not have some measurement of what makes a person likely to be a public charge that applies to every country, rather than a blanket ban on everyone from targeted countries?
- graemep 10mo agoThere are lots of possible reasons. Some good, some bad. A possible good reason might be that there is a higher level of fraud (e.g. faked financial statements), or a higher level of public charge in applications from some countries - especially if it is a pause while procedures are changed. On the other hand the true motive might be something else. That said, I have no idea why its this particular list of countries. Why Thailand or Jamaica or Nepal?
- rayiner 10mo agoH1B processing is hopelessly backed up for the 60-70 thousand visas we give out annually. We would have to massively cut immigration inflow, from the 1-3 million annually we have today, to make those granular determinations feasible. I don't think individualized determination are even possible. Unless you take very few people from each country, they'll inevitably find each other and form communities. And the kinds of communities they form will be driven by their cultures. The question isn't "would this one Bangladeshi be a good immigrant." It is "when 100,000 Bangladeshis inevitably form a cultural enclave in some city, will that be better or worse than what was there before?"
- tshaddox 10mo agoThey already literally review on a case by case basis regardless of country of origin. Providing evidence of financial support is a big part of visa and green card applications.
- shimman 10mo agoYou need to learn your history because one of the first immigration laws this country passed was exclusively banning Chinese people for nearly an entire human lifespan.
- pembrook 10mo agoWhile I don't agree with the haphazard and seemingly random policy changes coming from the US lately -- this is a bad take. You do realize that discrimination by citizenship is conducted by basically every government on earth in the context of visas and tourism and residency? In fact, what made the US so bizarre up until about 1914 was that they were the only major country that effectively had open borders. There was no welfare state to take advantage of back then, and you literally did have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. This only started to shift after the US began constructing its welfare state (welfare state expansion correlates with increasingly closed immigration policy, hence where we find ourselves today).
- rayiner 10mo agoThat's the wrong way of looking at it. We have evidence that national cultures affect prosperity, and that, at scale, immigrants bring their cultures with them: https://www.rorotoko.com/11/20230913-jones-garett-on-book-culture-transplant-how-migrants-make-economies-they-move-to-a-lot-like-the-ones-they-left https://www.rorotoko.com/11/20230913-jones-garett-on-book-cu... ("For the last twenty years I’ve been asking the Adam Smith question: Why are some nations so much more productive than others? I’d found some new answers in my own research, summed up in my earlier book Hive Mind. But at the same time, I kept reading findings by a separate group of researchers, especially three excellent professors at Brown University: David Weil, Louis Putterman, and Oded Galor. Their work on the 'Deep Roots' of economic prosperity suggested that many of the important economic differences across countries began centuries, even millennia ago."). The U.S. takes in millions of immigrants a year. At that scale, it's not a question of the individual merits of a single immigrant from a country. It's about the merits of the community that will be formed when 100,000 immigrants from that country come to the U.S. and settle in the same place and socialize their children into their culture. And the evidence we have is that, when that happens, they'll bring with them a lot of characteristics of their origin countries.
- selimthegrim 10mo agoThis is a gigantic middle finger to pre-1965 South Asian immigrants, which you continue to pretend don't exist.
- LexiMax 10mo agoA few days ago he was claiming that the most orderly societies had the least seasoned food.
- rayiner 10mo agoAm I wrong? You acknowledge that food preferences are cultural, right? Wouldn’t it be weird if culture just affected the kinds of food people like and how they dress, but not the kinds of civic institutions they form?
- 10mo ago
- ReptileMan 10mo agoGood. I like having distinct nation states with different cultures and ethnicity instead of bland homogenized globalized grayness - the thing that could be seen in every mall in a city that has international airport. From Jakarta trough Kenya, Berlin and NY - it is all the same. There should be breaks on the whole immigration and asylum things.
- GrowingSideways 10mo ago[flagged]
- renewiltord 10mo ago[flagged]
- CursedSilicon 10mo agoWhat welfare are immigrants "consuming" exactly? Given the millions of them that pay taxes but are unable to receive benefits especially
- rmah 10mo agoYou are conflating legal and illegal immigrants. The visa restrictions are on legal immigrants. And while, as a legal immigrant myself, I would like to think that the vast majority of legal immigrants work hard and contribute positively to the country, it is a fact that certain groups in certain regions have an extremely high usage of social welfare programs (SNAP, Medicaid, etc), sometimes exceeding 80%. This is cause for some concern, IMO as it suggests problems of one sort or another. All that said, I have doubts that the administration's new visa restrictions will have a meaningful impact. Of course, I've been wrong before :shrug:.
- FuriouslyAdrift 10mo agoLegal immigrants are entitled to social security, etc. if they meet all other qualifications just like a citizen would. Illegal immigrants used to be able to draw if they lived outside the US but the rules just changed so that may not be true anymore.
- tclancy 10mo ago>I doubt the US’s extensive federal welfare state Citation needed.
- renewiltord 10mo agoThe citation is the US federal budget, some 2/3 of which is directly welfare. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... Go knock yourself out: social security, health, Medicare, income security, veterans benefits. If you want to exclude veterans benefits that’s fine too. Still 60%
- QuercusMax 10mo agoHow on EARTH are we going to host the World Cup this year?
- CoastalCoder 10mo agoI'm curious what it would take for FIFA, or one of the teams, to reneg.
- vkou 10mo agoNothing. He could drop a nuclear bomb on Madrid and FIFA would give him a second peace prize.
- drcongo 10mo agoI'm guessing this is only getting downvotes because Americans don't realise quite how corrput and disgusting FIFA are.
- SpicyLemonZest 10mo agoThe prior World Cup was held in stadiums built by slave labor in a country that banned beer. I genuinely don't think there's anything, up to and including visa denials for competing teams, that would get FIFA to give up their chance for bribes.
- lisdexan 10mo agoI don't know, FIFA is a den of villainy, but what happens if I dunno... half the Brazilian team ends up on an ICE camp? It wouldn't be during airport customs, but what if Agent Cletus sees the team bus and thinks that he can get a nice bonus. FIFA will ignore unlimited human suffering but if matches don't happen it might be a problem.
- JumpinJack_Cash 10mo agoFIFA has been doing damage containment (everybody is but especially FIFA) ever since the November election. When the World CUp was assigned to the US during Trump first term one of the implied things was that he'd be long gone in 2026 Nobody could have possibly predicted 12 years of Trumpism and pulling a Grover Clevalend by skipping a term and getting re-elected
- david-gpu 10mo agoI have worked alongside with Iranian and Russian tech workers. I hope they all have a green card by now. Other countries will now benefit from the brain drain instead.
- lbrito 10mo agoWill having a green card or not even matter though? https://metro.co.uk/2025/11/28/full-list-nationalities-lose-us-green-cards-latest-trump-plans-24932070/ https://metro.co.uk/2025/11/28/full-list-nationalities-lose-...
- stantaylor 10mo agoMy son-in-law is from Brazil, came to the US for grad school, has an Ph.D. in ML and a good job in the US. He got his green card via marriage a couple of years ago and was planning on probably getting citizenship in the next year or two. He is very worried about what all this might mean for that plan.
- sirbutters 10mo agoIn his first term, I anticipated that one day he will wake up and say “any body with a green card, get the F out of the country”. I applied for the citizenship as soon as I was eligible to. I know it’s a matter of time until GC holders are somewhat affected.
- nothrowaways 10mo agoThere is denaturalization FYI
- rbanffy 10mo agoThat and the current administration has repeatedly said they’ll do that if citizenship was obtained “fraudulently” without really defining what that would look like.
- 10mo ago
- tehjoker 10mo agoTrump is trashing the economy and the easiest way to pick a scapegoat is to blame foreigners.
- ausbah 10mo agothe great leap backwards bounds another step int the american century of humiliation
- schmuckonwheels 10mo agoI'll save you the click: India is not affected. The list includes Russia, Iran, lots of RU-aligned nations, and a bunch that probably have security issues. The only one that stood out as odd was Thailand.
- msie 10mo agoWeird that India, who does a lot of business with Russia, was not affected.
- dartharva 10mo agoMaybe because the intended target are immigrants who purportedly put a higher load on welfare and public services: > "The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America's immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said. "Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassesses immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits," he said. Since the Indian diaspora is famously known to be the wealthiest on average in the US, they wouldn't be targeted under such reasoning.
- axus 10mo agoI'll save you the downvote; the article title ended with "check whether India is affected".
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- lostmsu 10mo agoSurprised to see Georgia in the list
- throw-the-towel 10mo agoTheir current government is widely considered to be aligned with Russia. (No idea whether it's true.) Also, Georgians are one of the nations with the most asylum claims in Europe, and that's not even per capita.
- redelvis 10mo agoI'm in the process of EB visa prep and spoke with my lawyer today. They told me that it's a temporary pause for immigrations visas only. Most likely will be unfrozen in couple of weeks. The real question is about new rules and how much harder it will be to get in.
- Larrikin 10mo agoThere is no evidence to think it will be unfrozen in a couple weeks.
- wang_li 10mo agoI don't want to make an appeal to authority fallacy, but normal human heuristics would be to think that even a hearsay statement about what an immigration attorney said is more meaningful than a random commentor who claims not to see any evidence of something. Particularly where there is no reason to think said commentor would even see that evidence.
- weatherlight 10mo agoWe have a really talented engineer on our team (in the US), who has a green card and everything. He's taking a job in Brussels, he said very plainly hes not sticking around to find out what happens next. I don't blame him.
- systemtest 10mo agoIf you are able to make it work in Belgium it's a great move. Free education, free healthcare, 20 days PTO minimum, public transport, 15 weeks of maternity leave, labor protections, basically no crime, no guns, no weekly school shootings, total tax rate of at most 60%.
- Thaxll 10mo agoWell Trump said it: "why it is we only take people from s**hole countries," and "why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let's have a few from Denmark."
- Manfred 10mo agoI guess Denmark is going to be out of the question now.
- groby_b 10mo agoPeople from Denmark, Norway, Sweden are smart enough not to come to Trump's America, that'd be the reason, if you're still wondering.
- FeteCommuniste 10mo agoProbably because people from Norway and Sweden aren't interested in moving to a sh...less-developed country.
- graemep 10mo agoWhat sort of visas? Tourism, work, residence? Does the US currently allow immigrants who are likely to become a "public charge"? The UK has not for a very long time (at least a few decades) and many other countries will not either.
- tshaddox 10mo ago> Does the US currently allow immigrants who are likely to become a "public charge"? Providing evidence that the applicant is unlikely to become a public charge is an important part of most visa and green card applications. Form I-864 is an Affidavit of Support where a sponsor (usually the family member or employer sponsoring the visa or green card) promises to financially support the applicant. If the U.S. really does have a problem with lots of visa and green card holders becoming public charges, it's not because their application process doesn't directly address the issue.
- pandaman 10mo agoImmigrant visas. The US does not allow immigrants to be a public charge (at least until they naturalize) but there is no discovery or enforcement.
- Saline9515 10mo agoFor those who didn't read the article, it's supposed to be temporary while they reassess the criterias for immigration[0]. Canada has a similar system, that discriminates disabled people for instance and most people are fine with it.[1] Yes, the inflammatory wording is bad, but a points-based system would be a good improvement over the current situation. [0] https://www.visaverge.com/news/us-suspends-visa-processing-for-75-countries-beginning-january-21-2026/ https://www.visaverge.com/news/us-suspends-visa-processing-f... [1] https://immiquest.ca/how-the-canada-immigration-points-system-works/ https://immiquest.ca/how-the-canada-immigration-points-syste...
- jjk166 10mo agoThere is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- stereo 10mo agotl;dr: The full list of countries comprises of Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Yemen
- yread 10mo agoEven Albania such a US-liking country! or Jordan!
- snovv_crash 10mo agoB and R but not ICS
- poly2it 10mo agoWhy was this flagged? This is important news to the VC and software industry.
- Imustaskforhelp 10mo agoYes! I genuinely don't understand the reason why this got flagged. I also uploaded this news to hackernews (before discovering that this also existed) and the post I did wasn't flagged (atleast not right now) I sincerely hope that healthy disucssions can take place in Hackernews and such articles shouldn't be flagged as they are important. Edit: my post got flagged as well WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS COMMENT THIS IS CRAZY
- lovich 10mo agoThe site is getting inundated with bots. For the past few months everytime I realize some poster I’m replying to is looping in replies or having gaping holes in logic, I check their account and it’s been made in the past few months and the early interactions it had were with other accounts made in the same pattern. Then you also see shit like these posts that touch on the admin in a negative light getting insta flagged and nuked off the front page.
- yuxbs 10mo agoDon’t put blinders on. The problem isn’t new accounts (who can’t even flag). This community has always been subtly in favor of exactly this kind of suppression. Consider the fact that posting anything even slightly critical of YC on the YC subreddit gets one instantly shadowbanned. Then consider that this very community is modded by the same ilk of people. What would you expect? The same kind of censorship, right? This is by design. The design can obviously be changed (e.g. don’t let only echochambery high karma accounts vouch for stuff).
- lovich 10mo agoNot gonna lie, you’re a new account and you ignored the majority of my comment, binning you in the “likely a bot” box as well
- ofcrpls 10mo agoDamn - seeing mathrubhumi.com on HN is quite the surprise, when youre a specific kind of South Indian. For what it's worth, 15 countries have qualified, 10 countries are still in the running for qualification for the FIFAWC26 on that list of 75 countries.
- ajoseps 10mo agowhat’s the context around the website?
- JohnTHaller 10mo agoLink in case flagged: https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/world/us-visa-ban-public-charge-bjbpzu02 https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/world/us-visa-ban-publi...
- Imustaskforhelp 10mo agoI uploaded another link from reuters and while I was seeing this thread, my other link got banned too This is genuinely bugging me right now as to how or even why Hackernews would try to curb this information.
- akmarinov 10mo agoApple should really consider starting to host WWDC outside the US like Canada. This really cuts into who can attend it. Though since they no longer do the 5 days thing and just invite people at the office for a couple of days- might not even make sense.
- garbawarb 10mo agoThe US is no longer the place for anything that's truly worldwide. It's amazing how quickly the country has isolated itself compared to just one year ago.
- quentindanjou 10mo agoExactly, I have multiple relations that are leaders in research of their fields. They all used to work in the US and they have all moved away (except one but in the process).
- timeon 10mo agoAs far as I know Apple is supporting current regime.
- pandaman 10mo agoCan you explain in more detail how suspension of immigrant visas cuts into who can attend WWDC? Do many people immigrate to the US just to attend WWDC? Does anyone at all?
- Zigurd 10mo agoCan you explain in detail how to maintain obdurate blindness to context that's so airtight that it's plausible for a potential WWDC attendee to ignore what's going on in the US? I mean it's not like they're going to get shot in the face.
- pandaman 10mo agoIf they are going to assault people there is a high chance they might get shot in the face in the process, yes. I am sorry, I was not familiar with the WWDC attendants propensity to violence, it now makes more sense.
- fweimer 10mo agoI think visa processing has had serious issues for quite a while: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/global-visa-wait-times.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-inf... This could just be an attempt to frame (what is in effect) a serious customer support failure as a deliberate policy decision.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 10mo agoNo SNI: https://web.archive.org/web/20260114174658if_/https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/world/us-visa-ban-public-charge-bjbpzu02 https://web.archive.org/web/20260114174658if_/https://englis...
- whatamidoingyo 10mo agoMy wife came here on a K1 visa from one of the countries on that list. We have an appointment for interview next month (which determines whether or not she can remain in the country). It's always worrying seeing news like this.
- rbanffy 10mo agoIn the meantime, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/11/onlyfans-influencers-us-o-1-visa https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/11/onlyfans-inf...
- jonehiskey1 10mo ago[flagged]
- 10xDev 10mo agoThis is basically Trump's 'shithole' list. If you even look like you are from one of these places (basically anything other than white) you are probably a potential ICE target.
- bryanrasmussen 10mo agohmm, why is it flagged now? Went to 178 points, lots of engagement, someone must have been mad. wonder why?