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Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says

• bokchoi 5mo ago
  Got this email (!) from an immigration attorney friend that basically says green card applicants need to leave the country in order to file. From: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services uscis@messages.dhs.gov Sent: Friday, May 22, 2026 6:59 AM Subject: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Will Grant ‘Adjustment of Status’ Only in Extraordinary Circumstances WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced a new policy memo reiterating the fact that, consistent with long-standing immigration law and immigration court decisions, aliens seeking adjustment of status must do so through consular processing via the Department of State outside of the country. Officers are directed to consider all relevant factors and information on a case-by-case basis when determining whether an alien warrants this extraordinary form of relief. “We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly. From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances. This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes. When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency,” said USCIS Spokesman Zach Kahler. “Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process. Following the law allows the majority of these cases to be handled by the State Department at U.S. consular offices abroad and frees up limited USCIS resources to focus on processing other cases that fall under its purview, including visas for victims of violent crime and human trafficking, naturalization applications, and other priorities. The law was written this way for a reason, and despite the fact that it has been ignored for years, following it will help make our system fairer and more efficient.”
  • SilverElfin 5mo ago
    That’s really unfair, sorry this is happening to you. > Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process. Do they consider H1B workers to be “temporary” for this purpose? It seems broken and cruel to force them to go back to apply when they’re here legally and could easily just apply here (assuming their visa is still valid).
    • bokchoi 5mo ago
      Yes, it looks like H1B workers will have to do this as well. It sounds like it applies to "dreamers" as well even if they have never visited their "home" country before.
    • ericjmorey 4mo ago
      Xenophobia driven policies are intentionally cruel.
• s03nk3 5mo ago
  TBH I think that is fair.
  • cloche 5mo ago
    Have you been through an immigration process?
    • chrinic6391 5mo ago
      [dead]
  • archagon 5mo ago
    Who are you?
    • chrinic6391 5mo ago
      [dead]
• SilverElfin 5mo ago
  That’s crazy. If someone is already living and working here, and is legally here (like on a work visa), why shouldn’t they be allowed to apply here? Why require them to lose time and money by traveling somewhere else?
  • toomuchtodo 5mo ago
    It is to disincentive those on a temporary visa to apply for permanent residency, without eliminating the visa path entirely. What your mental model is optimizing for (easy, efficient) is different than what they are optimizing for (hard, inefficient). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-22/trump-to-force-foreigners-seeking-green-cards-to-go-home-first https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-22/trump-to-... > The policy change could impact hundreds of thousands of people a year and potentially reduce legal immigration further amid a sweeping government crackdown, according to immigration-law experts. President Donald Trump’s administration has introduced a series of restrictions affecting everyone from asylum seekers to students and highly skilled workers. > The new rules generally apply to any foreigner who came to the US on a temporary non-immigrant visa, including students, employees on H-1B or L visas and visitors. The US awards about 1 million green cards a year, though roughly half of those are for foreign relatives being sponsored by an American citizen. Those applications are generally already processed outside of the US. (POSIWID [The Purpose of a System Is What It Does])
    • SilverElfin 5mo ago
      [dead]
• panny 5mo ago
  That's how it works for legal immigrants, yes.
  • 8note 5mo ago
    [dead]
• kylehotchkiss 5mo ago
  This seems like it could have some ramifications. Let's saying you're dating somebody on a work visa, if you wanted to marry and sponsor their residency, would they now need to return to their home country to wait for the embassy? The embassies reviewing applications put a LOT of weight on time spent in person, BUT they also require the US applicant to have domicile. So effectively, the only way to proceed is a long-distance marriage that could take years to process a visa for (remember: move abroad, and you could lose the domicile required to sponsor the green card). So with our shrinking birthrates, our regularly documented & growing "will never marry" population, immigration effectively cut off, what does the future of this country even look like anymore?
  • cybercatgurrl 5mo ago
    yea, i’d say this is rather ridiculous. it places an undue financial burden on someone to uproot their life after they’ve already made community connections just to stay permanently. this seems very much obviously designed to discourage and halt immigration by making it more painful
    • ericjmorey 4mo ago
      I think you articulated the administration's intentions well.
• enraged_camel 5mo ago
  This is an absurd change that will have catastrophic consequences in both academia and the private sector. Even if you're a US citizen who is "America First", you will feel the impact, and it will be net negative.
  • commandlinefan 5mo ago
    I doubt it. We've seen time and time again that what the USCIS considers "extraordinary" are actually very, very ordinary circumstances. Anybody with proof of employment will qualify.
    • arrowleaf 5mo ago
      Only after losing in court, time and time again. This will take expensive lawyers and a lot of heartache to get any clear answers.
  • freediddy 5mo ago
    You don't know what you're talking about. This is the very last stage of the GC process. Before everyone had the choice to do AOS or CP. I personally chose CP. Now there's only the choice of CP. But nothing else has changed. It means you need to fly back to your home country for a few days for the interview and then you get your GC on the spot.
    • lelandbatey 5mo ago
      This is only true in the cases for folks on longer visas. If you meet the love of your life and marry them on a tourist visa, you'll be forced to leave your spouse and head back to your country of origin for probably about a year while you wait for USCIS to process I-130.
      • TMWNN 5mo ago
        >If you meet the love of your life and marry them on a tourist visa As others have said, someone entering the US on a tourist or other nonimmigrant visa, then marrying a US citizen, is inherently committing fraud because the marriage demonstrates intent to stay. In the past, the US was nice about it and let people apply to adjust their status without leaving. This loophole is now closed.
• bradreaves2 5mo ago
  Is this intended to ensure that students and H1-Bs will not have a path to residency unless they disrupt their lives here?
  • hgoel 5mo ago
    Isn't this about applying for a green card directly from a non-immigrant visa, e.g. student? H1-B is an immigrant visa.
    • bradreaves2 5mo ago
      H1-B is defined as “non-immigrant.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa
    • sokoloff 5mo ago
      > H1-B is an immigrant visa. I don't believe that's correct. H1-B is formally a temporary, nonimmigrant work visa/status which permits "dual-intent" (meaning a holder can be openly seeking permanent residence when applying for [or when on] such a visa without that dual intent being immigration fraud).
      • hgoel 5mo ago
        Ah you're right, I mixed up immigrant and dual intent.
  • outside1234 5mo ago
    It is intended to disrupt immigration full stop and especially brown immigration.
    • hobonation 5mo ago
      [flagged]
    • y-curious 5mo ago
      I notice India being omitted from the list of affected countries though. That’s the major contributor to “brown immigration”
• gbraad 5mo ago
  This is how it works for legal immigrants for many countries.
  • throw-the-towel 4mo ago
    Can you name some of these countries please?
    • declan_roberts 4mo ago
      Almost every single European country requires you to leave the country in order to apply for a new visa status, which is what is happening here in the USA. In SE Asia there's a whole cottage travel industry taking business and tourist visa holders on a quick trip out of the border in order to return to renew their visa (of course you can also pay for this service under the table).
      • TFNA 4mo ago
        > Almost every single European country requires you to leave the country in order to apply for a new visa status. This is not the case for transitioning from a temporary residence permit to a permanent residence permit, which is the best analogue to the USA’s Green Card. In most European countries, one does that within the country (and often within the same province one lives, at a regional office).
      • throw-the-towel 4mo ago
        Your second paragraph is about visa runs, which are a totally different beast. These don't involve any changes of status, it's simply resetting your tourist stay.
• mothballed 5mo ago
  This appears to close off the method by which all the "dreamers" I'm familiar with got GC/citizenship, which is by marriage.
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
• boredatoms 5mo ago
  Is this just for when applying for I-485 that you have to make a quick entry/exit trip, or is it effective all the way back at I-140 time where people would then need to spend years away from the US?
  • airstrike 5mo ago
    Quick exit/entry trip unless you're from one of 75 countries in which the US consulate is literally not hearing cases.
    • garbawarb 4mo ago
      Doesn't it take a few months to process a green card application?
      • airstrike 4mo ago
        There are many different kinds of green card and many can take much longer. Moreover, US consulates currently aren't processing them in 75 countries.
• 0xy 5mo ago
  This is to close the common loophole where people would fly into the US on an ESTA, B-2 or another temporary visa "without immigration intent" (fraud) and then marry a US Citizen and adjust status. On visa forums this method is commonly discussed. By entering on an ESTA/B-2 with the intent to marry a US Citizen, they're committing immigration fraud, inherently. You would be denied entry at the border if you admitted to your plans. The correct way to do this is to file a K-1 visa outside the United States, or marry outside then file a IR-1/CR-1.
  • rafram 5mo ago
    Maybe it does close that loophole, but the effects are much, much broader and more harmful: https://www.cato.org/blog/dhs-quits-granting-green-cards-almost-entirely https://www.cato.org/blog/dhs-quits-granting-green-cards-alm...
    • 0xy 5mo ago
      The article you linked is patently incorrect. It claims "Now, every legal immigrant must leave the country—that is, self-deport—even if they are qualified for a green card and even if leaving would disqualify them.". This is false according to USCIS' memo. It very specifically lays out common exceptions to this, including for legal immigrants on dual intent visas and those whose only pathway to permanent residency is via adjustment of status. It also wildly misinterprets the news to claim that the K-1 visa has been effectively ended, even though the memo specifically excludes it. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-602-0199-AdjustmentOfStatusAndDiscretion-20260521.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...
      • throwaway_62022 5mo ago
        No the memo specifically says: > However, maintaining lawful status in a dual intent nonimmigrant category is not sufficient, on its own, to warrant a favorable exercise of discretion. Which basically means that, applying AOS while being in dual-intent category is not favorable and you will have to prove extraordinary circumstance for a simple i-485 AOS on H1B. Lacking the extraordinary circumstance, your application may be denied. What this basically means for millions of people on H1B (especially from countries like India is), they have to go for consular processing. And given the lack of appointments in India and delays they are facing - you could be stuck for months to years and no company is going to wait for you while you go through the process. So leaving would definitely disqualify them.
• wesleyd 5mo ago
  When I renewed my H1B visa (I think after three years), I had to leave the US to do it. I couldn't renew it from inside. The permission to work got renewed just fine - I could just keep on working for another three years - but if I left after the first visa expired, and wanted to come back, I would need a new _visa_ (thing stuck into my passport) to come back, and I could only apply for that while outside the country. I read that it used to not be like this, that it used to be possible to renew the _visa_ itself from inside the US, but that got changed before my time. I can only imagine that the reason for that was that non-citizens inside the US are entitled to due process, but non-citizens outside the US are not. And denying a visa to somebody outside the US is therefore a lot easier than denying it to somebody inside the US, and essentially cannot be appealed. When I applied for AOS form H1B to Green Card, I didn't have to leave the US. With this change, I would have had to. The only reason I can think for this change is that denials of AOS would now become unappealable. I hate this.
  • nutjob2 5mo ago
    This is just Trump trying to torture immigrants likely due to the psychopath Steven Miller. In general the law applies equally to everyone associated with the US in any respect so you get due process (in theory) regardless. Specific laws may apply to different classes of people though (see 'enemy combatants').
  • ivewonyoung 5mo ago
    > I read that it used to not be like this, that it used to be possible to renew the _visa_ itself from inside the US, but that got changed before my time. I can only imagine that the reason for that was that non-citizens inside the US are entitled to due process, but non-citizens outside the US are not. And denying a visa to somebody outside the US is therefore a lot easier than denying it to somebody inside the US, and essentially cannot be appealed No, after 9/11 they passed a rule to always collect biometrics before issuing visas and validating them at border entry. The DoS facilities in the US did not have fingerprinting facilities but the consulates and embassies did, so they forced the change. Recently there was a pilot to allow it in the US itself.
    • 4mo ago
• grahamgooch 5mo ago
  This is a good thing. Adjustment of status for those within the USA is backlogged- by years for people from certain countries. Going to the home consulate for the final stamp will save years for many people. F1 and h1 are non-immigrant visa. American law only allows a person to reside in the country with one Visa type. The green card is an immigrant visa - and the new visa is issued through an adjustment of status for those inside the USA (backlogged) or by consulates (nearly immediately). So this is a good thing. It’s easy to get alarmed.
  • ceejayoz 5mo ago
    Why is it "nearly immediately" at a consulate but "backlogged" in the US? Why can't that be fixed?
    • freediddy 5mo ago
      USCIS serializes it and they have a limited number of workers. CP shards it based on country so it will be much faster for many people.
      • ceejayoz 5mo ago
        That's a what, not a why. Why can't USCIS shard it based on country within the US in a similar fashion?
        • grahamgooch 5mo ago
          Because it’s literally not better than the DmV
          • ceejayoz 5mo ago
            My county's DMV is fast and helpful. Demand better from your government. (And this still raises the question of why the consulates supposedly don't have this issue.)
          • 5mo ago
• ryandrake 5mo ago
  Looks like this means if a US Citizen marries someone who visited on a non-immigrant visa without the intention of getting married, the US government will now force the family apart for an unknown amount of time, potentially forever, instead of allowing the spouse to stay while the I-485 is processed. I wonder how this would work with a K-1 "Fiancé" Visa. Typically a K-1 holder can enter the country as long as they get married within 90 days, and then the family stays together while the I-485 is processed. Now what? Come to the USA, marry the US Citizen, and then you're banished back to your home country? There's also the K-3 which lets the foreign spouse enter as a non-immigrant to keep the family together while the I-485 is processed. Are they getting rid of that entirely? This is all totally bonkers, likely not well thought out, and pretty cruel to families, which is completely on-point for this Administration.
  • mothballed 5mo ago
    The reason why you allow married people to adjust status is because it's absurd to actually expect a spouse not to just break the law and harbor their illegal immigrant spouse. They are going to choose to break the law rather than kick their spouse out and have them apply from overseas. Maybe they deserve to be punished when inevitably that happens en masse, but one has to consider the societal effects of creating a bunch of criminals over what amounts to an administrative fuck-fuck game over a spouse who was already determined to be admissible to the US.
    • charcircuit 5mo ago
      >who was already determined to be admissible to the US If that was true why even go through a whole process. To me it sounds like there is still an approval required meaning the person is not determined to be admissible yet.
      • mothballed 5mo ago
        If they were here on a non-immigrant visa then they were already found admissible to the US. Some of them were just straight up illegals (like dreamers). I've met dreamers from time to time and all of them regularized their status after marrying (I assume the ones that didn't though weren't eager to tell me about their status so I simply never found out). One interesting note here is the case of DACA recipients. If they leave the country to adjust status it should triggers a re-entry ban unless they're granted parole (DACA are quasi-illegal but granted a form of amnesty as long as they remain in US). AFAIK parole isn't granted for US consular visits, so it's effectively banishment as punishment for trying to adjust their status to reflect their marriage.
• arrowleaf 5mo ago
  Curious to know how this will affect immigrants who arrived on a student visa, receive OPT to stay while working, and then subsequently get married. I know many top performers at my company who are in that boat, especially from India, who have built lives here during their OPT + STEM. It would be a shame to lose them if they have to go back to India and wait years (if not decades) for a green card or H-1B.
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  • freediddy 5mo ago
    No. This is the last stage of the Green Card process. When you do Consular processing you make an appointment at the US embassy or consulate in your country, go do the interview and then you are granted the GC on the spot. Then you fly back. You don't need to fly back for years, it's only for the purpose of the interview at the consulate.
    • arrowleaf 5mo ago
      What is the typical wait time for appointments when going to consular processing route? My brief searches say anywhere from 2-9 months. 60-90 day NVC review phase, 60-120 day interview scheduling, and then 1-2 weeks once you have the interview. Are you saying that the 120-210 day wait time can happen while you're still in the US?
      • freediddy 5mo ago
        Yes, the wait time is in the US. You just leave the country for the appointment. All this FUD in this entire post is disheartening.
        • arrowleaf 5mo ago
          For F-1/OPT there is no 'pending immigrant visa case' status that lets them remain in-country after OPT expires.
• freediddy 5mo ago
  All this means is that I485 is no longer allowed and everyone needs to do Consular processing. It doesn't mean that Green Cards are no longer being processed. I did consular processing when I got my Green Card. It's the FINAL step fo the GC process. You don't need to be outside the US for all the other stages, in fact I think if you leave during some parts, it would be considered abandoning your application. It just means that while you're in the US, you need to schedule an appointment at the US embassy/consulate in your home country, and fly back. Then you go through the appointment and there on the spot you're approved or rejected. It's a big nerve wracking but unless you lied you will be fine. Then you fly back to the US. For me CP was much much faster, on the order of months.
  • daft_pink 5mo ago
    I think in specific visa circumstances, an i485 will still be required such as K1 visa which is granted outside the country and then by nature of a K1 visa, adjustment to green card must happen within the United States.
  • adjejmxbdjdn 5mo ago
    > but unless you lied you will be fine. That’s a huge unsubstantiated claim.
• pointertowhere 5mo ago
  [dead]
• fredrb 5mo ago
  This news has to be read alongside the immigration visa emission pause for 75 countries by DOS[1]. Since USCIS is blocking Adjustment of Status, and the Department of State is blocking green card emission for citizens of 75 countries, this means that if you are from the following countries you are effectively banned from getting a Green Card: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, 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. [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/immigrant-visa-processing-updates-for-nationalities-at-high-risk-of-public-benefits-usage.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/i...
  • gck1 4mo ago
    I'm from one of the countries on the list. Not only is there no way to legally immigrate to the US anymore, but just visiting US once requires me to give an interest-free loan of up to $15k to the US government. Yeah, no, thank you. I never considered illegal immigration, nor will I ever - I value predictable outcomes. But looking at these new rules, I can't help but think that it really punishes people who want to play by the rules and sets the price for ones that don't to approximately $15k.
    • xtracto 4mo ago
      My country is not in the list (Mexico, not that we need to... Americans hate us), but I just cannot comprehend why people would go through all the pain for the immigration process in the US. Actually, it kind of make sense why only the most desperate try to get into the US , people who have something to lose are naturally repelled by the bureaucracy.
• aborsy 5mo ago
  One issue (apparently a feature) that may arise is that, if application is rejected in consular proceeding, the applicant is locked out from usa. AFAIK, if someone applies for an immigration visa in usa, they will not be able to obtain non-immigration visas in the future. A refused green card application might be the end of being ever in usa. The person may have to truely exit USA since there may be no way back (close bank account, sell property and assets, etc). If the person adjusts status in usa, there are more possibilities for appeal etc.
  • xpl 5mo ago
    > they will not be able to obtain non-immigration visas in the future Why? Aren't L1 and H1B "dual intent" visas?
    • aborsy 5mo ago
      I should have been more precise, yes. But the majority of non-immigrant visas are single intent. H1B requires 100K and if you can’t first enter to see people and attend interviews, chances seem slim in these circumstances, if H1B program is not altogether scrapped.
  • throwaway219450 5mo ago
    The end result is the same though. If your application is rejected in the US, you could stay while you appeal, but if you're ultimately rejected then you have no choice but to re-apply through consular processing anyway once your status runs out. Good if you have a job in the US, but you're kicking the can down the road. > A refused green card application might be the end of being ever in usa. Do you have evidence for your other claim? The main thing you need to prove for a non immigrant visa or VWP is that you won't overstay or have intent to immigrate at the time of application and upon entry. Otherwise it's up to the consular officer like usual. You would need to declare the refusal/denial of course. What will get you denied is "inadmissibility" if you don't submit a waiver. If you're inadmissible that usually means some serious violation and you've got other problems. As far as I know, people have been successful in re-applying for EB green cards after being rejected when they've assembled a better packet.
• sleepyguy 5mo ago
  So if someone is here in the US on an H1B and they want to become a permanent Resident/ Green Card holder, they will have to go back to their country of origin to apply? Otherwise they just stay on their H1B VISA and work. Is that right?
  • jleyank 5mo ago
    Aren’t h1b’s time limited? 1-2 renewals?
  • sameers 5mo ago
    Yes - the rule is that the application for Adjustment of Status can't happen while you're already in the US.
• SV_BubbleTime 5mo ago
  I was under the impression that this is roughly how it works (assume equivalency) in most European countries is it not?
  • busterarm 5mo ago
    Except for the part about requiring you to leave to process your application. Wait times to process applications depend on your country of origin and visa type. If you are an H1B from India that was already decades approaching never. Same for Brazil and elsewhere. And that was before Trump. All that was practically halted.
  • jesseendahl 5mo ago
    No, it is not. And if you fall in love and want to get married to someone on a student visa, your fiancée should not need to leave the country for a year or two to wait for paperwork to process. Which is one of the real world impacts of this change.
    • refurb 5mo ago
      Why wouldn’t your spouse just stay on the student visa? From what I gather it’s purely the processing that is overseas. Stay on whatever visa you’re on -> apply for consular processing -> travel for interview -> enter on green card
      • kettlecorn 5mo ago
        The green card process can take 9 to 20 months and applying for a green card demonstrates an intent to immigrate so it's highly likely attempts to return on other temporary visas like a student visa will be denied. So they likely have to wait out the green card process abroad unless they secure a dual-intent visa like an H-1B. There's also 75 countries that the US has shut down consular processing for so those people may be locked out getting a green card entirely.
        • refurb 4mo ago
• rayiner 5mo ago
  The U.S. doesn’t have a real statutory pathway to permanent residency for skilled immigrants. The current H1B to Green Card pipeline is built on a legal fiction papered over a visa program that was the word “non-immigrant intent” written all over the statute. Gemini gets this correct: “The H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant classification that allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign nationals in ‘specialty occupations’ that require highly specialized knowledge and at least a bachelor's degree.”
  • airstrike 5mo ago
    You're not actually wrong, but your phrasing makes it sound like that somehow excuses this travesty of justice. I can only assume that's accidental. You're the 17th most active person on HN, so I'm certain you've seen an overwhelming amount of evidence of how skilled immigrants are immensely beneficial to the US economy. The H-1B is not the only path to a green card. There are many ways, every case is different, and pretty much all of the paths suck, even if you do everything right. This decision only makes all of those paths worse.
    • rayiner 5mo ago
      > evidence of how skilled immigrants are immensely beneficial to the US economy. That's irrelevant. "Justice" means following the rules. Congress gets to decide the immigration laws. Congress has never created a real system for skilled permanent immigrants. The term "H1B" actually comes from 8 USC 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(B). Subsection (a)(15) literally defines the term "immigrant" to exclude people in the subsequent subsections, including (H)(i)(b). Subsection (a)(15)(H)(i)(b) then reiterates that the category is for someone "who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform services." Congress didn't hide the ball. It's just an example of how the immigration laws have been a bait-and-switch for decades: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/election-immigration.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...
      • digitaltrees 5mo ago
        Justice doesn’t mean following the law. It is possible to have an unjust law. Like red lining or slavery. Or civil forfeiture. Etc
• zaptheimpaler 5mo ago
  This is probably for the best in the long term. They've added enough friction, insanity and disdain for foreigners that no sane person will immigrate and we can start to build stronger industries and trade relationships outside the US.
  • epistasis 5mo ago
    How is this good in any way? How could this ever help to build stronger industries or trade relationships? If somebody hands you a shit sandwich you don't need to pretend it tastes good.
    • zaptheimpaler 5mo ago
      It will help would-be immigrants understand that the US does not want them and that it would be a mistake to invest time and energy trying to build a future in a country that hates them and can nuke their lives at the drop of a hat. It will help other countries that are not the US retain their talent and build up their own industries. A greater diversity in distribution of talent and industry across the world is a more resilient system.
      • digitaltrees 5mo ago
        It’s not a more resilient system. It creates geographic isolation and friction. It dilutes the talent pool instead of concentrating it which limits cross pollination. It also reduces specialization that drives efficiency and lets each country focus on what it does best and then trade with others.
        • elzbardico 4mo ago
          Specialization is for insects. And on the contrary of what you say the real world show plenty of reasons to diversify: For example, the success of China with renewables and EVs shows exactly that: Every single EV company in the US wanted to be like Tesla, it was like an idée fixe, most of them failed miserably compared to BYD.
• busterarm 5mo ago
  This is such an insanely unpopular move even among some of trump’s supporters. I really think this will be this version of the republican party’s suicide note.
  • airstrike 5mo ago
    It's an insanely stupid move, but from what I'm seeing on Twitter, it's somehow not that unpopular among the less bright.
    • deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    • cheinic6493 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      • digitaltrees 5mo ago
        Or we could build more houses, and schools and hospitals. When did we become a country of scarcity instead of builders? Half of downtown down San Francisco is built on the abandoned boats from migrants that were building too fast to bother moving the boats that brought them to the gold rush so they just built a city on top. We could create special economic zones like china, allow 200 million immigrants into the country with a goal of a billion people to match the population of china and India. Make it a condition of citizenship that they help build ten homes or similar infrastructure. Immigrants could be the solution to all the problems you cite and they certainly aren’t the reason those problems exist.
      • anigbrowl 5mo ago
        If you think this is going to immunize you from the worst of what the MAGA movement has to offer I think you're in for a rude awakening.
      • zaptheimpaler 5mo ago
        It’s sad you don’t realize who you’re getting in bed with. H1Bs and their families are only 0.4% of the population and yet they’re being blamed for -all of americas problems. Must be your first rodeo around the american political system if you actually think they will no longer blame you even if that number shrinks to 0.1%. The economic considerations have always been a pretense. Some of them hate you because you’re brown but not the kind of exploitable cheap labour brown that serves them food and cleans their houses. Politicians see an easy scapegoat to blame for their mismanagement of the country and lean on the narrative. Indians keep leaning republican and learning this lesson over and over again.
• darth_avocado 5mo ago
  I don’t know how this will play out for employment based categories. You need to be have a job and be on a valid visa to even apply for a green card. How do you then go outside the country, apply for a green card, all the while maintaining your job and a visa while you wait for the application to be processed? As far as I know not being in the US for extended periods of time, voids your work visa in the first place.
  • buzer 5mo ago
    IANAL. My understanding is that you can do consular processing even if you are in the US, it's just that you need to leave to do the interview (and things like biometrics) and get the actual visa. Now I'm not sure if you are allowed to re-enter after your interview before your case is decided/you get the visa but I would imagine so (if have valid visa), you would just need to exit again to get the visa later.
    • kettlecorn 5mo ago
      Also not a lawyer. I believe the issue with what you're describing is that if you're on a temporary visa, like a student visa, applying for a green card shows intent of immigration so you cannot return to the US on a student visa. If you have an H-1B already you may be able to do what you're describing. If you're a recent grad in the US this basically locks you out of trying to get a green card until you've already secured an H-1B.
    • darth_avocado 4mo ago
      If that’s true, things may be slightly better, but I’m also reading this move will take away substantial funding from uscis since it is funded purely based on fees collected with immigration applications. Processing times are already pretty large in a lot of countries. So even with the flexibility, you carry a substantial risk.
  • cheinic6493 5mo ago
    > You need to be have a job and be on a valid visa to even apply for a green card. False You don’t need a job to apply for green card. Valid visa, yes. But that’s easy.
• chopete3 5mo ago
  From the USCIS policy directive. >> admitted into the United States as nonimmigrants to depart rather than pursue adjustment of status. Such aliens are generally expected to pursue an immigrant visa and admission from outside the United States if they wish to reside permanently in this country. H1-B was already a dual intent visa. Are they trying to create a new visa category? Whatever they are trying to get to this is a big concern for all H1B employees.
  • cheinic6493 5mo ago
    > Whatever they are trying to get to this is a big concern for all H1B employees. Thankfully H1B is a small visa category.
• KingMachiavelli 5mo ago
  Absurd, currently trying to figure out how to sponsor my wife and now this. The wording seems to imply that even those here on valid non-immigrant visas (F1) would need to apply via their home country. It doesn’t help that I130+I485 (AOS) could take over a year to process? If you have filed I485 and they fail to process it before your current visa expires (D/S ends like F1 OPT). Then what? You just have to leave, abandon AOS and re-apply for CR1? It’s insane that the simplest immigrant pathway; spousal green card could take 12+ months and may now require temporarily moving and being separated. Guess I actually will be paying $4K for a lawyer (plus the 3-4K just to file the USCIS forms). I wish they would just have a simple fast lane for the 100% legal, non-complicated case.
  • airstrike 5mo ago
    And don't forget that US consulates in 75 countries, or approximately a third of the globe, have stopped conducting Green Card interviews.
  • bulbar 5mo ago
    Happens as well in Germany and it's pure insanity. The US at least does not depend on migration as much as Germany, I believe. Even the current right wing party CDU doesn't seem to want to make migration harder, but when the extremist party AfD gets voted into office, an already highly damaged balance will break. Sad how people become so detected from reality that they make their society irrelevant and destroying a lot of wealth in the process.
    • ornornor 5mo ago
      > The US at least does not depend on migration as much as Germany, I believe. To me it feels like the US pretends they don’t need immigrants when: 1. The overwhelming majority of current US residents were immigrants themselves at some point in the last 150 years (only natives were there, everyone else immigrated from somewhere) 2. The US wouldn’t function without illegal immigrants 3. Every country is short of workers in one domain or another. Encouraging immigration in these domains (see how Canada does it for instance) would be the smart move. But instead… yeah let’s make it even harder across the board
• digitaltrees 5mo ago
  It’s amazing to see someone do literally all of the opposite things to create a successful business, country, economy and world.
  • jaybrendansmith 4mo ago
    It's shocking, actually. Horrifying, and again I say: They do all of the things one would expect them to do if their stated goal was the absolute destruction of the United States of America. They are traitors, no more, no less.
  • ashley95 4mo ago
    Which is so puzzling to me given Trump's impeccable record as a successful and prudent businessman.
    • xena 4mo ago
      The dude bankrupted a casino.
      • _doctor_love 4mo ago
        The dude didn't bankrupt a casino. It made itself bankrupt. That was its choice.
• booleandilemma 5mo ago
  [flagged]
• mstank 5mo ago
  They obviously know how unpopular this is, or else they wouldn't be releasing on a Friday night. This is so unimaginably disruptive, I wonder who inside the administration is suggesting this.
• SilverElfin 5mo ago
  So the racists in the Trump administration - my guess is Stephen Miller types - are literally making it so that LEGAL immigrants have to spend thousands of dollars and time to go submit a form in another country, when they can do it here? Or online? Why? The cruelty is the point. They want the economic benefit of immigrants but also want them to live in uncertainty and without any easy path to settling down. Complete and utterly stupid.
• airstrike 5mo ago
  I find the amount of people chiming in on something they do not understand to be disheartening. Anyone is entitled an opinion, even when they're wrong. But perhaps before posting, engage with intellectual curiosity and get informed. Otherwise you're just posting a layman view that could easily be rebutted.
• _blk 5mo ago
  This does not seem to target NIWs but rather those who use change of status as a way of extending their stay. Change of status was never meant for those without status in the first place or for tourists. I would love be to hear an immigration lawyer's perspective on this. Here's the memo directly: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-602-0199-AdjustmentOfStatusAndDiscretion-20260521.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...
• cyanydeez 5mo ago
  next headline: trump closes consulates in nonwhite countries
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
• mrlonglong 5mo ago
  White supremacists on the rise in the US. Never forget, there were people already in the US when they first arrived. White supremacists stole their lands. Come to the EU instead, we want more STEM people.
  • _doctor_love 4mo ago
    Ah yes, the EU, which has no problems with white nationalism.
    • jsadfsdafh 4mo ago
      I don't think the US or the EU has specific problems with "white nationalism" more than any other country. You can't migrate to Arab countries easily if you come from sub-Saharan Africa. Is that "Arab nationalism"? No, it's just countries enforcing their borders and immigration policy. Effectively what pretty much every country does. You can't immigrate easily to most countries, it's the norm, not the exception.
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  • jmyeet 4mo ago
    White supremacy never left. There are a whole bunch of people in the US that never got over the abolition of chattel slavery and arguably we're in this mess because not enough slaveowners were strung up after the Civil War. And by "not enough" I really mean "anything less than all of them". That may sound harsh, even hyperbolic, but we teach a really whitewashed version of slavery in schools, like these were just laborers who worked the fields but just happened to be owned by people. That couldn't be further from the truth. Conditions were normally horrible. The conditions captured people were kept in in Africa, the Middle Passage, the slave auctions, the living conditions, the physical violence, the loss of language and culture, the destruction of family units and, last but certainly not least, the industrial-scale, systematic rape of enslaved people for centuries, easily numbering in the tens of millions of victims. But I have to object to the implication that the EU is somehow free of any of this. Like the UK, France and Germany (in particular) don't have far-right to neo-Nazi movements threatening to take over government. Also, ask any average European about Romany, Syrians, Turks, North Africans, Arabs, Muslims in general, Polish people or Russians and there's a decent chance you won't get American-style racism, you'll get almost "scientific racism". I'd posit that a decent number of Europeans are only 1-2 steps away from taking phrenology seriously. You will hear arguments like "they don't assimilate" or "it's cultural not racism", just as you would in the US.
• anelson 4mo ago
  Anecdote time: My Eastern European wife and I recently faced the decision of how to go about getting her a green card. At the time we lived outside the US. One option was to enter the US on her B1 visa pretending to have no “immigration intent” and then “change our mind” a respectable number of days later and apply for AOS. The process for this was 1.5 to 2 years. I didn’t want to do it for that reason and because I wasn’t comfortable with what amounts to visa fraud, but our attorney presented it as a pretty standard option. The other option was consular processing. This wasn’t automatic. Our attorney contacted a few consulates in the region where we lived to see if any would accept our case (due to war the consulate in her home country wasn’t handling routine cases). We got approved for consular processing in Budapest. I had to go once as the US citizen spouse to submit our application packet and do a pro forma interview. Then a few months later it was my wife’s turn to go to the interview. The process, like any immigration process, was paperwork heavy and nerve wracking. The final interview was very simple and felt like a formality. In that case once approved she received a visa that would be stamped upon entry to the US and this would count as a temporary green card pending receipt of the physical card. All of this happened during the second Trump administration so I was expecting a hostile or at least adversarial process. But it was quite the opposite. Total elapsed time was about six months from initial attorney consult to entry into the US as an LPR. It would have been faster if our attorney was more on the ball getting our final interview appointment. If I were to find myself in need of a green card for a foreign spouse again I would opt for consular processing if given the choice. Now that it’s required I imagine there will be a longer backlog. Obviously if you need to do this at one of the consulates that no longer offers consular processing that’s a different story. I was fortunate that the Budapest consulate agreed to take our case.
• dyauspitr 4mo ago
  How to destroy the greatest country on earth.
  • sleepybrett 4mo ago
    ... by what metric is/was the us 'the greatest country on earth'?
    • beej71 4mo ago
      We just dropped three points to 81% on the Freedom House freedom index, so it's certainly not that.
  • sys_64738 4mo ago
    Petrodollar is gone now. Only ships paying in Yuan can exit the Strait.
  • efitz 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    • potatototoo99 4mo ago
      Death by a thousand cuts.
    • jfengel 4mo ago
      In itself, no, of course not. But it's part of a much larger pattern which together blow apart that whole "great American melting pot" thing that seemed fundamental to the country's prosperity.
    • grassfedgeek 4mo ago
      It will destroy the United States as a leading economy and superpower. Think about it: China draws mainly on the talents of the best of its billion+ population. But America has had its pick of the best of the world's 8 billion people. Until now.
• GuestFAUniverse 4mo ago
  [dead]
• rebekkamikkoa 4mo ago
  I don’t think this is realistic at all. It basically means a huge percentage of these people might never come back. Once you go back to your home country, life moves on. Your plans change. Your path changes. And that could be terrible for the economy. Hundreds of thousands of people either wouldn’t enter the local economy, or they’d be delayed for a very long time. I really don’t see companies being okay with that. Think about all the students who are ready to enter the job market. Instead, they’d have to go back home, wait for a visa, and only then come back. That kills the speed of the economy and makes hiring way more unpredictable.Or at the very least, it would seriously slow things down.
  • TimedToasts 4mo ago
    Number must go up
• thinkcontext 4mo ago
  Curious how the tech lobby will react. You would hope Musk and Huang might take their own personal experience into account.
  • rebekkamikkoa 4mo ago
    Absolutely. I don't think they will be happy. So many great students will be off the market. This will affect to the whole tech space. No way they will be happy with this decision.
    • pixel_popping 4mo ago
      Not from the US, but is a green card actually necessary to work there after studying? afaik student visa is different from green card right? Most countries, you get a visa of some kind but you have no way to permanent residency at all unless you marry but you can keep staying there somewhat permanently.
      • arccy 4mo ago
        most countries actually let you apply for permanent residency once you've hit a set number of years, usually around 5 or 10, on work visas
  • Arodex 4mo ago
    Musk has no problem "pulling the ladder behind him", and Huang's only duty is to shareholders - which means kissing Trump's ring to avoid retaliation. Americans voted for this.
  • driverdan 4mo ago
    You think either of them care about other human beings? They have continuously demonstrated they only care about themselves.
  • declan_roberts 4mo ago
    The tech industry and general business lobby is extremely pro H1b/immigration. They're probably the only thing holding back a total ban on h1b immigration right now. In some ways that industry is losing a tool. Sponsoring a green card used to be the prize they dangle in front of the h1b to keep their nose to the grindstone.
• thinkcontext 4mo ago
  Another immigration policy that would have negatively effected Trump's own wife. Oh well, she got hers. This could be a big deal for Big Tech. I wonder how personal experience of Musk and Huang will play into how they react.
• amazingamazing 4mo ago
  > From now on, an alien who is in the US temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances Whats the equivalent policy for other countries? Can you stay like you could prior to this?
  • noodlesUK 4mo ago
    Many other countries including UK enforce a similar rule. It's very inconvenient in those countries, but there's a significant difference: in most other countries that have this kind of policy, visas can typically be processed in a timely fashion (and are actually processed at all). It's insanely expensive and very arduous administratively to get a visa for the UK as the spouse of a British citizen, but the process will typically only take a month or so.
    • zipy124 4mo ago
      Isn't the Uk the opposite? There are many visas in which you have to be in the UK to apply. This is why we have people coming on boats, and why they are not illegal immigrants. They technically have to travel here to apply for aslyum, and since they do not have a visa cannot take conventional transport, but it is entirely legal for them to come here on a small boat as long as they present themselves to the authorities to claim aslyum upon arrival. Graduate visa's are the same for example, where you cannot apply abroad, so you must be careful not to leave the country between graduating and getting that visa.
      • noodlesUK 4mo ago
        The asylum system and immigration system are surprisingly disconnected from each other in the UK. Pretty much all forms of permission to stay in the UK other than asylum can only be granted from within the country if you hold an existing long term status. So if you're visiting as a tourist you can't then decide to apply for a spouse visa or even a working holiday or student visa without leaving the country first. If you're already on a student visa or a work visa or similar you can change categories without having to leave. The graduate visa is essentially an extension to the student visa with slightly different permissions - it makes sense that you can only apply to extend if you're in country and you view it from that lens. The historic reason behind all this is that there used to be a substantial difference between being granted "leave to enter" and "leave to remain" (out of country vs in country applications). Leave to enter used to be granted by embassies etc and the foreign office, but leave to remain was granted by the home office. Now the home office handles everything in the UK centrally so the distinction is not significant.
• jfengel 4mo ago
  I hear "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant" a lot. To which there is an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow. Instead we're doing exactly the opposite, cutting down on legal immigration as well. Making it hard for me to believe that it was ever about illegal immigration at all.
  • happytoexplain 4mo ago
    In my experience, the phrase is just used to mean, "I don't hate immigrants, but..." (which, like the phrase "I'm not racist, but...", you are free to doubt case-by-case). I.e. it is not inherently inconsistent to apply the same disclaimer regarding a belief that legal immigration is too loose, too high, mismanaged, whatever; since that doesn't necessitate a belief that immigration as a concept is bad.
  • georgemcbay 4mo ago
    [flagged]
  • kibwen 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    • grosswait 4mo ago
      And I will stop assuming that people know what the word fascist actually means
      • koe123 4mo ago
        [flagged]
      • kibwen 4mo ago
        "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past." ~ Jean-Paul Sartre, 1944
• nine_zeros 4mo ago
  [dead]
• cmiles8 4mo ago
  This is a bit extreme. On the other end of the spectrum the existing system is heavily abused and hard to defend. For example many if not most PERM applications in tech are a complete sham. Putting tiny job adverts burred deep in a newspaper hoping nobody applies to try and say there are no skilled workers in the US is just one example of current abuse of the system.
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  • hellojesus 4mo ago
    Isn't the correct response to the sham hirings to regulate that jobs are posted on a gov-run board for some period of time, ~30 days, before you can claim no qualified workers? That seems more reasonable than turning the spigot off entirely.
    • cmiles8 4mo ago
      Perhaps. But given the volume of abuse that appears to be out there the tactic is more turn it all off then selectively back on where appropriate. Thats obviously extreme but given the abuse in the status quo it’s hard to defend what was going on and whine about this now. Some folks are obviously angry, but that anger is better directed at those that were abusing the system not those trying to fix it.
      • bsimpson 4mo ago
        It sounds like you're trying to defend going nuclear on green cards by arguing about a quirk of the H1B. The H1B system was stupid. That doesn't justify any of what the Trump admin has been doing.
        • dilyevsky 4mo ago
          PERM doesn’t just apply to h1b, having to prove no qualified hires was never required for h1b, it’s green card requirement which also applies to o1 and bunch of others. PERM is the thing that is stupid - they should automatically grant you GC if youve been legally employed for 5 years or something and dont have any criminal records
• cogman10 4mo ago
  So much of the US immigration process is built around punishing and exploiting. The primary reason for the strong border is allowing farms and construction companies to find cheap labor which can't complain about mistreatment. It helps that a decent portion of the population hates and/or is fearful anyone different from themselves. That is what's allowed for these even more draconian and brutal measures.
  • hellojesus 4mo ago
    This is the part that is the wildest to me. The current system seems to generate a collection of second-class citizens: people we openly rely on for labor but that have no recourse if they're exploited and no regulatory protections such as minimum wage (even though I argue against min wage, if we're going to have it, have it!). My personal preference would be to allow nearly unlimited legal immigration but strip welfare programs for all. In this way we allow anyone and everyone to become an economic participant, voting participant after the naturalization process, and mitigate those immigrating purely for handouts. But I haven't thought through this policy well. Maybe there is something this seemingly solution is missing.
    • bognition 4mo ago
      Is this a surprise? This is hardly anything new. The United States was built with slavery.
      • 0xDEAFBEAD 4mo ago
        So do you support building an even higher wall, and doing even more deportations, to keep the so-called "slaves" out? If the US is so "exploitative", we should be keeping illegal immigrants out for their safety.
        • alistairSH 4mo ago
          Generally, republicans want lots of illegals for two reasons… first, cheap labor. Second, it’s a drum to bang during election season. And democrats only halfway want to fix it. If they actually succeed, they also lose a drum. And have to pay more for chicken and oranges. Making non-immigrant visa or work permits easy to obtain would be trivial (relative to other gov endeavors). But we don’t. I’m left to conclude the political elite on both sides like it this way.
• scottyeager 4mo ago
  Refusing future applications to adjust status would be one thing (still wrong, in my opinion). The fact that they are canceling pending applications is simply evil. There will be so much unnecessary anguish and expense. I really feel for anybody who is now learning they will have to leave and wait years to come live in the US with their spouse, due to overstayed visas which were supposed to be forgiven under the status quo.
  • coolThingsFirst 4mo ago
    Why on earth would they need to wait years?
    • lazide 4mo ago
      Says right in the comment.
      • coolThingsFirst 4mo ago
        Consular processing isn't that backlogged for majority of countries that's what i meant.
        • wtmt 4mo ago
          Is consular processing prioritizing adjustment of status applications? Here in India, as of now, a consular appointment for a B1/B2 non-immigrant visa application is about eight months away. The COVID pandemic was mostly over about three years ago and there’s still not enough processing capacity.
        • behnamoh 4mo ago
          As an Iranian, it took 4 months for me to get a F1 visa. Now it's completely banned.
          • deleted 4mo ago
            [deleted]
• koalaman 4mo ago
  This is a really horrible policy and I personally know a fair few people and families that are going to have their lives upended by this. On the other hand I've always wondered if most of America's competitive advantage at driving tech innovation hasn't simply been through capturing the ROI of other more social minded countries investing in public education. It could be a massive long term benefit to Europe and Asia especially if they get to keep the talent they created, and more globally distributed innovation seems like it could have some benefits to global welfare.
  • rangestransform 4mo ago
    Those countries could keep their own talent through economic policy (i.e. fuck you pay me) That they don’t is entirely their own fault and they deserve to be brain drained. “Talent” are people with agency and not possessions subservient to national interests.
    • jjtwixman 4mo ago
      Sure, and now they don’t need to keep their talent through economic policy. The USA is being kind enough to force them to stay in Europe/Asia :)
      • nostrebored 4mo ago
        no, there are already runoff places that will brain drain the rest. there will be no "great repatriation". it's not just "The US" and "Home", there is an ease of immigration, quality of life, and success potential gradient.
        • throwaway132448 4mo ago
          Nobody was talking about repatriation.
• bikelang 4mo ago
  My wife already has her green card through our marriage - but it expired under the Biden admin and we were given a 4 year “non-renewal extension” because USCIS was unable to process its renewal in time due to the post-COVID backlog. We’ve got about a year left on that extension and are absolutely terrified we are going to be forced to uproot our entire life by this evil administration and its pointlessly cruel policies.
  • hellojesus 4mo ago
    It's shocking to me that the gov is allowed to claim "backlog" to defer one of the functions the gov is actually supposed to do. They print the money. They can hire enough to fulfill their obligation with almost zero effort.
• ilaksh 4mo ago
  The DHS has made many communications that were openly white supremacist. It's not just an unfair situation with legal technicalities. Their views and plans are more extreme and dangerous than our society is able to accept as reality, so many are in denial. There are obvious historical parallels. There need to be thorough weekly video walkthroughs of all of the detention centers. Otherwise you can expect actual starvation at some point.
  • tastyface 4mo ago
    If the perpetrators are not dragged in chains in front of a nationally televised tribunal at some point in the future, we will have failed as a country.
  • overlord1109 4mo ago
    > The DHS has made many communications that were openly white supremacist Just dropping this here: https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1970251208322621530 https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1970251208322621530
• ck2 4mo ago
  Don't worry, the are letting in white South Africans https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/us/politics/trump-afrikaner-refugees.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/us/politics/trump-afrikan... the wildly corrupt double-standard is breathtaking There is well documented historical evidence Elon Musk not only illegally overstayed a student visa, he also illegally worked while on that visa AND did illegal drugs publicly while on that visa Destroyed USAID murdering millions, highlights the President is in the Epstein Files extensively, then six months later is flying on Air Force One, it's all a cruel joke against humanity
  • dccoolgai 4mo ago
    Right - this is the natural extension of the dichotomy "There are those the law protects but does not bind and those the law binds but does not protect". The law doesn't bind Musk - those visa infractions are enforced on peasants, not Epstein Class Nobles like him.
  • throwawaypath 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    • JCattheATM 4mo ago
      Well, no, it's just that people with basic empathy can see the racism and judge it accordingly.
      • zulux 4mo ago
        Yes. We all hate how South Africa treats differing races. It's evil. Right? Right....?
        • JCattheATM 4mo ago
          I think the point being made may have passed you by.
      • throwawaypath 4mo ago
• anonym29 4mo ago
  So what does this do to the K-1 fiancée visa? Your partner gets the visa, they come over, you get married, and then they have to leave and submit an application to get status changed from their origin country? Seriously? WTF is this crap?
  • stackskipton 4mo ago
    K-1 visa is immigrant intent, you are basically applying for temporary 90 day pass to get married and one of two things will happen: Get married and adjust your status or leave. What this screws over is there was plenty of people from US visa waiver countries who decided K-1 was too hard and just flew over to US and got married. They would then apply for Adjustment of Status. That is big door being shut close because B-1 is non immigrant intent visa. My room mate from college did this with UK foreign exchange student 20 years ago. She came over on visitor visa, got married and they got a lawyer to fix it all up.
    • anonym29 4mo ago
      What about for people who do want follow the K-1 process "by the book"? It sounds like they would they now need to come over, get married, go back to their origin country to apply for status adjustment, and then come back over again? Or am I misreading this?
      • stackskipton 4mo ago
        You are misreading this. K-1 can come and stay since it’s considered an immigrant visa. This screws over anyone who enters the country on visitor/temp work or student visa since those visas are not immigrant visa. You would be expected to leave the country and apply for GC overseas if you got married on one of those.
• NDlurker 4mo ago
  We live on a prison planet. The borders are the cell walls. Some of us have more privileges and freedom to travel, but we're all restricted. This doesn't help anyone other than the few parasitic slave masters.
  • talon8635 4mo ago
    It’s an overly upsetting policy, but comparing me to a slave because of my US citizenship seems… distasteful. The are other nits to pick with the analogy, but I’ll leave it at that
    • NDlurker 4mo ago
      I'm talking about the whole world. The immigration systems are like controlling which pastures different herds are allowed to graze.
      • talon8635 4mo ago
        What barns you can live in, perhaps, but not what pastures you can graze in.
• mapt 4mo ago
  One of my hardest working coworkers at the big box retail store was here on a perpetually extended U visa (reserved for witnesses to crimes of federal interest) after being sold to a sex trafficker at a young age back in the 90's. Under Trump 1 she was fired because they wouldn't renew it and she lost work authorization. Her kids are citizens and she speaks better English than Spanish, she was educated here and is effectively fully integrated. But she's slightly brown, and Stephen Miller says we can't have that.
• vachina 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  • leosanchez 4mo ago
    So people from other countries also have to suffer ?
    • vachina 4mo ago
      No https://infogram.com/figure-3-employment-based-green-card-petition-backlog-by-immigrant-birthplace-1hnq410kw50lk23 https://infogram.com/figure-3-employment-based-green-card-pe...
      • jrmg 4mo ago
        Your curt ‘no’ is ignoring backed by your own source, hundreds of thousands of people a year.
        • vachina 4mo ago
          Okay, not as much. Point still stands.
• stego-tech 4mo ago
  It's just sparkling xenophobia. Forcing a return to one's home country to apply for a Green Card can frequently remove the very qualifiers one has to getting said Green Card. Just take a look at the categories of Green Cards available on USCIS' website[0], and think about how many of them will be unavailable if you're back in your home country. * Green Card via Family? 18 months, minimum, for approval. * Green Card via Employment? Well, self-deporting likely means the loss of said job opportunity, thus your ability to convert to LPR status * via Special Worker? Here's hoping you're not an Iraq of Afghani national that might be persecuted back in said home country for cooperating with the US Government. * via Refugee or Asylee Status, or as Victims of Abuse? Are we fucking kidding, here? Forcing refugees/asylum seekers/abuse victims back to their home countries is deliberately cruel, and I'm going to be looking for statistics on changes in approvals pre- and post- this policy change to make sure "special circumstances" are actually recognized as such It's just a despicably cruel policy change that's so overtly xenophobic, it actually reveals the alignment of those reporting on it when it's not called out as such. It's the antithesis to legal immigration in that it all but destroys the process entirely, promoting more illicit behavior (dangerous and clandestine border crossings, exploitation of migrant workers, human trafficking, etc) in the process. Fuck this regime. [0]: https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility-categories https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility-cate...
  • throwaway5752 4mo ago
    I'd disagree on nuance. Xenophobia is anti-foreigner. This targets people of color. They target people of color who are US citizens, too. It is gutter racism. edit: I wish I could be surprised by the downvotes, but it's gutter racism and I'm proud to point this out! I would be never be quiet about a matter of ethics and conscience just because of startup accelerator social media popularity points. This directly influences many of our friends and colleagues in this field. It is vile, evil racism and directly topical for software startups. edit 2: the list of immigrants and children of immigrants who have founded software companies that are the absolute backbone of US information infrastructure is embarrassing to write down. Anyone can search for the information, but it's harder to list companies not founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.
• ulfw 4mo ago
  I have never regretted abandoning my Green card and giving up US PR. Honestly every day I feel I lucked out by not being stuck there. Especially now in the NewUSA
• crazyfingers 4mo ago
  This thread has a lot of comments that seem to associate labor regulations and concern for the poor underclass, and immigrants themselves, with racism. Effective, but not in the intended way.
• konaraddi 4mo ago
  Objectively terrible policy for ethics, public safety, and, selfishly, the American economy. Immigrants contribute to economic growth and are less likely to commit crimes are well established facts. It’s the 21st century, we have the internet and education is accessible, but instead of recognizing and championing the vital role of immigrants in America’s rise to power, here the nation moves to hurt itself for some misguided anti immigrant ideology.
• bsimpson 4mo ago
  I'm so happy for my friends that got green cards before this insanity.
  • kibwen 4mo ago
    The government has completely abandoned any pretense of following the rule of law. Don't be shocked when they start revoking green cards. Don't be shocked when they start revoking natural citizenship. "But they can't do that!", you say. But who's going to stop them?
    • OutOfHere 4mo ago
      For those who're in the US, the courts can stop the government. The ones more at risk are non-citizens who are abroad.
      • phs318u 4mo ago
        Can they though? Hasn’t the government already ignored plenty of injunctions against them?
        • jfengel 4mo ago
          And will they? This administration has appointed a significant fraction of judges.
        • ethbr1 4mo ago
          Do you have some examples?
          • pas 4mo ago
            https://apnews.com/article/trump-courts-defiance-judges-lawsuits-152e5b39ca222c583962805fda5f47ae https://apnews.com/article/trump-courts-defiance-judges-laws...
      • redserk 4mo ago
• steveBK123 4mo ago
  Again worth asking VC Bros if the light touch on their crypto bags was worth all this ethnonationalism?
  • _doctor_love 4mo ago
    If you recall, Andreesen said he’s not into introspection. Don’t think this is a thing they’d think about. Also, a lot of these guys are simply straight-up ignoring the news today. They got their bag and they believe it will keep them safe.
• jrmg 4mo ago
  Another case of this administration just doing what it wants and ignoring legislation - ignoring the will of Congress. And Congress abdicating its responsibility to even make its will clear. I am no longer surprised, but still don’t understand why almost all members of Congress are wiling to just let their power slip away like this.
• nrmitchi 4mo ago
  > doctrine of consular nonreviewability protects any denial from judicial review, and there is no administrative appeals process. I personally think this is the big secondary benefit that the administration is going for.
• dyauspitr 4mo ago
  Step 324 of how to make Russia great again.
• danielrmay 4mo ago
  I had 10 years of work experience and had been married to my wife for two years, together for five, when I applied for my spousal visa. We had already gone through the UK visa process to bring her there, but decided we wanted to try the USA. Despite being able to show 10 years of consistent working history with income far exceeding the minimum, because I didn’t have a job lined up in the US (who would, or could, in that scenario?) we had to ask my wife's elderly parents to sign affidavits of support to prove I wouldn’t become a "public charge". There were several times where we felt so insulted by the process, the length, the cost, the targeting from scammy law firms, that we almost gave up. People who have never been through the legal immigration process don't quite understand the amount of work it requires and stress it causes. I feel for the thousands of people who now have little certainty over their futures, and it feels necessary to say: people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1, nor do they only come from white or european countries.
  • garyfirestorm 4mo ago
    They undid public charge from my memory. It doesn’t exist anymore.
    • SlightlyLeftPad 4mo ago
      How recently? As of about 2010, it was very much still there. I understand that is 16 years ago.
    • tmp10423288442 4mo ago
      It has always existed, but how strictly it’s interpreted (i.e., just cash welfare, or also Medicaid, SNAP, and other means-tested benefits) has shifted between administrations. If you applied during Biden’s administration, I could believe the public charge rule was applied very laxly, particularly because it’s rare to get direct cash welfare in the US these days, and even less for an extended period.
    • danielrmay 4mo ago
      I looked it up, and we were required to complete form I-864 "Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA". My wife, her grandmother, and her grandfather all needed to complete one, and when considered together, prove that they earned 125% of the HHS poverty guidelines. As my wife didn't have provable income (we were moving together), we needed to dig into their social security income and complete the forms. I remember feeling sad that I needed to ask for such personal information from them. My salary in the UK was many multiples of this guideline, but _earning potential_ is not considered. Pragmatism is not really a service offered by USCIS, it's too political. To be on-topic: this move will disincentivize smart but not-yet-wealthy people from immigrating to the "land of opportunity". It was already harder than it had to be.
• esalman 4mo ago
  I received my green card in 2023 and I have mixed emotions. On one hand, I'm so relieved that I have been able to dodge everything that the administration has been throwing at immigrant (legal and illegal alike), trying to see what sticks, like mass deportations, border wall expansion, visa restrictions, asylum crackdown, H-1B cuts, and chain Migration Ban. On the other hand, we cannot apply for citizenship for 3 more years, even though me and my wife have been in the US for combined 25+ years, and paid over $100,000 in taxes last year alone, and it's jarring to imagine what the administration will come up with next to make the process less straightforward than it seems. Most disturbing is the fact that a lot of people I know who climbed the same ladder will go out and cheer what the administration is doing.
  • Underphil 4mo ago
    I received mine in 2020 and have decided to move back home. The uncertainty in general just keeps me up at night. Feels like the goalposts could move at any moment. I know I'm likely overreacting but it is what it is.
    • 999900000999 4mo ago
      If anything everyone else is under reacting. You have ICE officers randomly abducting people off appearance alone and then detaining them for days if not weeks. If you were a citizen the whole time, cool who cares. No one in America has any rights. That aside, even as someone who's been in this country for generations, I've been exploring options to leave. America is behind most of the developed world in terms of standards of living. I was in Asia for a while and I felt a fraction of the fear I constantly do at home. It's not getting better.
      • BowBun 4mo ago
        GC holder of 25 years with citizen parents. I agree with you and I stress about this daily. It's always been a shitty deal though - we are taxed with no representation in government.
• deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
• linuxhansl 4mo ago
  Other countries paying $10,000's to educate people who then want to apply this knowledge in the US. US reaction: "Nah." Besides, we are talking about legal immigration here. I don't get it.
• seshagiric 4mo ago
  This is just reckless without any responsibility. A number of people, especially in tech sector, legally stay in US while their GC is being processed. They have kids born in the USA. If such people were to leave USA to seek green card: - the kids must first get visas to their parent's countries - once reaching the other country, consular offices now have multi year wait lines for getting an appointment with a office to even hear your case. - parents may stay in that country but what if kids run out of their visa? A number of countries offer citizenship via parents e.g. Indian parents can obtain Indian citizenship for their kids but it also means letting go of the kids' US citizenship. And what if the parent's country does not have such mechanism? It's completely illogical that a person must first stay in a country for 5 years to become eligible for a green card and then leave for x years to get a green card to come back !! this is just a tactic to get non-immigrant visa holders out of the country.
  • thesmtsolver2 4mo ago
    > It's completely illogical that a person must first stay in a country for 5 years to become eligible This is wrong. There is no minimum time in the country for a green card. You are thinking of citizenship. That is different.
    • thesmtsolver2 4mo ago
      Wow. Downvotes for stating an obviously verifiable fact. HN is now filled with agenda pushers peddling obvious fake information about the US.
      • ohyoutravel 4mo ago
        Can you think of any other reasons why you might have been downvoted? It seems a little conspiracy-minded to jump to “agenda pushing” I think.
      • FireBeyond 4mo ago
        Because while the green card itself has no minimum requirements on time spent in the US, with the exception of the DV program, all of the visas with green card pathways have one. So yes, there is - it's just attached to the visa pathway that determines green card eligibility, not the green card itself.
• asterix276 4mo ago
  So throw the baby out with the boat. I'd say no matter how you do the numbers nowadays the number of people unknown to the government applying for a green card legally would be in the minority. So is this really a matter of national security that this needs to be done this way who knows. Given that most people have been here forever paid taxes paid Medicaid social security are being treated like fugitives. I am certain at some point the world will reject the choice of coming to the USA over other choices they have. This government has a really bad reputation for taking one or two cases and making an example of them and then telling the other 98% they deserve it. I hope at some point this stops and someone rationalizes whatever is going on in my country
  • pstuart 4mo ago
    The base of the issue is weaponizing fear and anger in the citizenry to better control them. Immigration has been an evergreen topic for that for the entire history of the US. In recent years, they've combined yet another favorite, racism, to get that tasty peanut butter chocolatey goodness to get the base angry enough to go to the polls to vote based on that. I hold on to hope that somehow, someday, we can overcome this nonsense. I have nothing to support this so I get in this sense it makes me a man of faith.
• techteach00 4mo ago
  I support this. The United States is too crowded. I don't want to compete with all these new people for housing. American citizens really need to begin advocating for themselves. For their material interests.
  • declan_roberts 4mo ago
    I don't think we're too crowded, but it definitely doesn't make sense in the era of AI and tech layoffs to continue the H1B/green card status quo.
  • skybrian 4mo ago
    Apparently you haven't travelled much in the US. Outside the major cities it can be pretty desolate.
    • guywithahat 4mo ago
      I don't want every square inch of my country to be city; and if you look on google maps, most of the land in the US is already either used for farming, cities, or not suitable for either.
  • grassfedgeek 4mo ago
    Guess what? America's homebuilding is powered by immigrant workers. https://www.businessinsider.com/immigration-crackdown-housing-construction-worker-shortages-cities-most-affected-2026-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/immigration-crackdown-housin...
    • jsadfsdafh 4mo ago
      Ah, the argument, "who will clean our toilets and make our tacos?"
  • akkartik 4mo ago
    That's a reasonable opinion for one to have, but it can coexist with humane timeframes for changing laws over time. Not grandfathering people already here for a change in policy of this magnitude -- this is inhumane.
• leokennis 4mo ago
  May the world extend Americans the hospitality that the US has extended to the world in the last year.
  • throwawa14223 4mo ago
    That would be amazing.
  • akkartik 4mo ago
    As a naturalized American citizen, I hope the world extends Americans who leave the same hospitality the US extended for decades before the last year.
    • fooker 4mo ago
      When you say world, do you also include the Middle East and South America and various Asian countries that were invaded, bombed, or couped by America?
    • eigenspace 4mo ago
      As a non-American who has to live in a world that's deeply affected by the schizophrenic convulsions of your current government, I hope you stay in the USA and work on fixing your mess.
      • akkartik 4mo ago
        Does it occur to you that we too are deeply affected? Stop piously telling a whole country of people how to live their lives.
        • eigenspace 4mo ago
          You're a USA citizen, I'm not. It is your responsibility to clean up this mess, not mine.
          • akkartik 4mo ago
• didgetmaster 4mo ago
  The whole immigration argument basically boils down to two schools of thought. 1) Those who believe that every human born on this planet has a basic right to move to and live in, any country that they want. 2) Those who believe that the people who are currently citizens of countries around the world, have the right to set strict restrictions on who is allowed to move there. These two schools are fundamentally at odds with each other. Some members of both camps will go to the extreme to enforce their position and demonize anyone in the other camp.
  • convolvatron 4mo ago
    the reality is that there a very wide spectrum of opinions about what immigration policy should like, and really not so many people in the (1) category
    • lugu 4mo ago
      I am genuenly curious what do you think would happen if every country were to apply 1.
      • convolvatron 4mo ago
        I've written several replies and deleted them all. I really can't speculate. its never really occurred to me that that would be a good idea, and everything I wrote was just the kind of unsubstantiated bullshit that I hate reading here.
        • lugu 4mo ago
          Thanks, i appreciate your message. When I look at the US or EU were internal migration is allowed, I am hopeful. I just don't know if this is generalizable.
          • convolvatron 4mo ago
            if we look at governments as the local administrative function, then certainly, it shouldn't really matter to the government who its citizens are as long as they contribute to public kitty for the mutual benefit of the residents. and from that perspective we can see migration as enabling a kind of healthy competition between governments. one that's very empowering to the citizens. its a nice picture. but governments apparently have roles which are not directly related to collecting taxes to lay sewers, and I think we should maybe be questioning those. and of course there are economic consequences to the population varying, and things start to unravel at both extremes of density. from this perspective the US was a very good competitor in the attraction of talented citizens. sadly we won't really have a good accounting of what was lost.
• 5701652400 4mo ago
  it is way easier to immigrate to China, no kidding. Hong Kong introduced new self-sponsored visas, Mainland introduced new high-tech visas couple months ago
  • toephu2 4mo ago
    Easier to get a temporary talent visa? Maybe, for some profiles. Easier to get permanent residence? Almost certainly not. The U.S. green card system is backlogged and maddening, but it is still a mass immigration system. China’s green card is closer to an exceptional-status program (it's 100x harder to get a green card in China than a green card in USA). Also if you really want to immigrate to a country you eventually probably want to become a citizen of said country right? USA has pathways for this (albeit getting harder with this new admin). However in China it's nearly impossible.
• itkovian_ 4mo ago
  The US isn’t what it used to be. It’s definitely not the best place in the world to live for quality of life, on basically any metric. The requirement of being permanently obligated to pay us taxes on global income, if you have any kind of global mobility, is not worth it when you look at the situation objectively. The US is the only country that requires this, and signing up is voluntarily. So while US immigration continues to act as though people will jump through any hoop they put up in order to be granted the extreme privilege of being able to live in the country indefinitely, it’s worth realising it’s not the 70s anymore and thats a goal many people are no longer optimizing for. In fact the opposite - the most talented people I know are all planning their lives to not settle long term in the US.
  • itkovian_ 4mo ago
    The extreme privilege of being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it, to the us gov indefinitely. And they make it hard for you to apply to do this. Crazy.
    • paulddraper 4mo ago
      And yet why do people want this?
    • deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
    • vel0city 4mo ago
      > being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it If you're a US citizen living abroad you get a Foreign Earned Income Exclusion of $130,000 for 2025 taxes. So if your income was $130k you'd pay zero in US taxes. You potentially also get to deduct housing costs and get a credit for foreign taxes you already paid among other things. If you're paying a "major portion of your income" as a US citizen living overseas you're probably pretty dang wealthy. Go wipe your tears with your bands of $100 bills.
      • 4mo ago
• amir734jj 4mo ago
  What about a spouse visa? It's insane. I just got married to my girlfriend, and she needs to go back to her home country and wait for years before getting a green card? It's crazy.
  • kylehotchkiss 4mo ago
    Yes, and if you move there, you lose “domicile” and no longer qualify to sponsor her but if you don’t visit her regularly, she’ll get RFE’d for “bonafide relationship proof” (since your name appears Indian just be aware they’re very quick to RFE at Mumbai immigrant dept)
• ViktorRay 4mo ago
  This is going to worsen healthcare in the United States. Many critical roles are filled with doctors who are here on visas because there simply aren’t American graduates who want those jobs. I’m talking about jobs being doctors in hospitals and towns and cities that are not the most desirable. Many of those doctors filling these positions today are immigrants who are on visas. They want to get green cards and stay here. They end up living long term in those communities caring for patients in them over the years. If this policy goes into effect it will hurt all of that. And actually many of these hospitals and less desirable areas are placed with lots of Trump voters too. In general if someone has spent years working hard with a visa and is law abiding and contributes to the community I don’t understand the purpose of making immigration harder. And I especially don’t understand why you would make it harder for doctors and engineers and other educated people who are here on visas to get a green card. Can someone explain the rationale?
  • querulous 4mo ago
    the number of doctors on j1 extensions the us is going to lose over this is going to seriously impact us healthcare. it's also not uncommon for doctors to practice on an o1 and they'll be impacted also
  • nceqs3 4mo ago
    > because there simply aren’t American graduates who want those jobs. Facts are just invented in these debates. Here is an actual fact: in the 2026 residency match cycle, about 6.5% of U.S. MD seniors went unmatched, resulting in approximately 1,300 to 1,400 U.S. MD students failing to secure a position initially.
    • ViktorRay 4mo ago
      No need to say “ Facts are just invented in these debates.” Especially when what you are talking about is different from what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about residency. I’m talking about jobs post residency. There are hospitalist jobs in areas that are in desperate need of doctors. And these jobs are staffed with doctors who are on visas. Outpatient jobs too. These jobs are in locations or hospital systems that are important and that American graduates do not want to go to.
• abalashov 4mo ago
  This is insane. I cannot fathom how I, nor educated and talented people I know, could have possibly stayed in the US back in the day if this requirement had been in place then. Applying for a greencard while working on an H, J or O-class visa is extremely common. Far from a loophole, applying from inside the US is the only reasonable way to apply for a greencard. Depending on the country of origin, there may not even _be_ a US consulate, and where it exists, the wait can stretch into years, and the odds of approval much lower. You can't reasonably get a job at a US firm while being physically located somewhere else and on the other side of an uncertain and greatly attenuated greencard application process. That's just not how this works. Whoever thought of this is either intentionally malevolent or inexcusably incomprehending of the immigration process.
  • hibgymnb 4mo ago
    It’s intentional malevolence that’s a given from this admin
    • abalashov 4mo ago
      I take that as a given, too, especially considering the diabolical architecture of Miller Thought.
    • Gibbon1 4mo ago
      The secret sauce is bad faith and crime.
      • BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
        Thankfully, malevolence, bad faith, and crime are unsustainable as governmental motivations. Unfortunately, they do stir the populace in a cadence long enough that prior examples are are only fragments of memory. More unfortunately, however, is that the time it takes to heal from such governments is similar to said cadence.
  • hvb2 4mo ago
    When you're in your visa or green card process it's not uncommon to be advised not to travel out of the country... Yep. You're kind of in jail. It doesn't mean that you cannot, it just means that it might complicate your already complicated application. So if a family member dies, maybe... But that's it
• gdubs 4mo ago
  As an American, I just want to say that I'm very dismayed by the discourse around this topic over the past 24 hours in particular. The polarization of politics has become so intense, that the bipartisan mainstream position of just a couple of decades ago – that immigrants are a net positive to this country – feels like a distant dream. We've gone from perpetually punting the football on comprehensive immigration reform, to people saying, "Good, go back home, we don't want you here." The same people who want to paint the Statue of Liberty gold seem to have no clue what it represents.
  • solid_fuel 4mo ago
    > The same people who want to paint the Statue of Liberty gold seem to have no clue what it represents. Well, yes. The current administration and the republican party as a whole are composed of fascists and thieves who steal from hardworking citizens like you and I to fund vanity projects like a ballroom and "Arc de Triomphe but bigger and gold". They're shitting on the history of our country and all the people who have sacrificed to make this place what it is today, and they're doing it just to enrich themselves. Frankly they are traitors and I hope that in time the wheel of history will deal with them as traitors deserve.
  • alterom 4mo ago
    Oh they have a clue. They just want to rub it in. "Look how prosperous we got off your backs, suckers!" is the intended message. It's taunting.
  • tamimio 4mo ago
    Immigrants are the low hanging fruit to attack, and the best to blame all your suffering on, meanwhile, the real issue is wealth distribution. Since covid, the very few people got mega wealthier while the majority suffered, do you just leave it as is for people to find out? No, you push other distractions like immigrants, race rage baits, and other nonsense to keep people busy fighting each other.
    • RoadieRoller 4mo ago
      This ^ If it is secularism and religion in some countries, it is language and ethinicity in some other, and immigration and racism in America. Depends on the timing, and the need for it, politicians use it to their advantage.
• fleroviumna 4mo ago
  [dead]
• blindriver 4mo ago
  You can apply for GC from within the US. The only time you need to leave for Consular Processing is for the interview, after which you immediately receive your GC. Everyone is saying that the entire GC process needs to be done outside the US but that's wrong. You can have an H1B and apply for GC from within the US without leaving and you only need to leave for the CP interview which is a couple of days max.
• 0xbadcafebee 4mo ago
  This is them working their way up through "purges" of undesireables. Remember it first started with illegal immigrants. Now it's expanding the classes of who counts as illegal. First forcing green card holders to become illegal. Next they'll make it illegal to speak out against the government, be a union organizer, trans person, non-Christian, anyone who gets or helps someone get an abortion (actually that's already illegal), socialists/social democrats, anyone who supports Palestine. By 2029 the gloves will come off. The internment camps of today will be dwarfed by what comes next. If you think I'm crazy, look at what they've already said in the past. They are not kidding anymore.
• 1984throwaway 4mo ago
  Typing this from behind a VPN proxy, just in case but... Does anyone know if this mean that I as a US citizen, who has a spouse who has already applied/submitted their application (but has been waiting while the government drags its feet on it for over half a year), will now need to say goodbye? Things were already getting blurry when we moved quickly to get things in when we saw the winds in 24.... This is all so terrifying.
  • RoadieRoller 4mo ago
    Looks like it. And if you are from one of those 75+ countries, whose consulates have already stopped processing GC applications, you are cooked.
  • jmyeet 4mo ago
    IANAL. Seek legal advice. I hope you have an immigration attorney. I honestly think that in this administration, no case should be submitted without an attorney. DIY filing is incredibly risky. What matters here is how your spouse entered the country, what visa they are on, how soon you got married after they entered the country, their entire immigration history and whether or not they've accured any unlawful presence. It seems like people who are on so-called "immigrant intent" visas (eg L1, H1b) might still be able to ordinarily adjust in the US. What this will affect (if it isn't struck down) is people who entered on a visitor's visa or a student visa (both of which are not dual-intent) and then got married and filed for adjustment. Those people might be forced to consular process if this stands. People who have already filed when this memo was released might still be able to adjust. We really don't know until this gets tested in court. But interestingly there are work visas that aren't dual-intent (eg TN, E3). Those people may not be able to adjust with consular processing if this stands. That's a big change. It may force them to adjust to an H1B first.
  • 1984throwaway 4mo ago
    That is batshit insane. Thank you for the insight and messages from people. (almost posted this on my main, scary times)
• xp84 4mo ago
  This is confusing. If someone is already here on a valid visa, it's stupid that they should have to go anywhere else. If they simply showed up or overstayed a visa illegally, then it's actually totally reasonable that before they can be given permanent resident status, they should be demonstrating compliance with immigration laws by not being here illegally. Yet again with Trump's bizarre mixture of a nugget of a reasonable (and popular) idea with a barrel of nonsense and chaos. It's the same as with tariffs. Tariff things produced by adversaries, that we are well-positioned to make here ourselves and stimulate a good domestic industry with good-paying jobs? Yeah, but also let's tariff a ton of things we need that we don't even freaking make or grow here, and against our geopolitical allies to boot.
• shevy-java 4mo ago
  Trump is still trying to distract from the magnitude of the Epstein network. Not long ago, new accusations came about, involving more superrich - see here https://wsvn.com/news/us-world/former-miami-beach-mayor-accused-of-sexual-assault-by-epstein-assistant/ https://wsvn.com/news/us-world/former-miami-beach-mayor-accu... and elsewhere, really just a few hours ago; and from the last few days. So here I am wondering ... how can there be an investigation in the USA, but even many weeks afterwards, they keep on finding more and more people that MAY have been involved here? Of course it is guilty-unless-proven-otherwise-in-court, but the key question here is why the investigation "reveals" more and more victims? Should this not already be revealed? Or is the investigation deliberately crippled? Something no longer works in the USA here. The "we are against immigration" is just the carrot on the stick before the donkey. Or the "let's bomb Iran ... oh wait, inflation now goes up". This is literally an administration that worships chaos and executes pillaging while implementing chaos.
• ciconia 4mo ago
  I think it is hard for citizens to understand how precarious it feels to be an immigrant in the present political climate in the US and Europe. I'm a permanent resident in France, I'm white, I have a EU passport, I have a job, I'm OK. But, my naturalization request has already been denied twice, because I couldn't provide some arbitrary document the government demands, and they keep changing the rules, just for the fun of it or so it seems, it's quite insulting. I really feel for immigrants that are less fortunate than me. we all just want to have dignity, find a job (anyway the low-paying jobs are done by immigrants) and provide for our kids. What's wrong with that? How is this taking advantage of our host country? Frankly, the present discourse around African/Arab immigration seems to me to resemble a lot the kind of rhetoric around the millions of Jewish Russian immigrants who fled pogroms to Poland and western Europe a 120 years ago. I find the similarities quite striking. The blatant racism, the conspiracy theories, the fascist propaganda, all in order to whitewash (pun intended) a corrupt regime of thieves and sycophants. Absolutely disgusting!
• tegiddrone 4mo ago
  My H1B coworker has paid $180k more in taxes than I have. We are the same age. He has fewer years working in USA than I have as a citizen. We calculated this by the data exposed by the mySocialSecurity website. I get to vote and he does not. Edit: s/green card/H1B/
  • margorczynski 4mo ago
    Well the fundamental question is does one see the US as a nation or some economic zone/factory where your worth is determined by how much you produce. In the first case the paid taxes argument is pointless.
    • adi_kurian 4mo ago
      Uncle Sam likes tax payers. I believe the current administration, in general, appreciates those with $$. https://www.trumpcard.gov/ https://www.trumpcard.gov/
    • mktk1001 4mo ago
      Is that the same line you take with people who argue that immigrants are a net drain on society and live off welfare?
  • horns4lyfe 4mo ago
    So you want voting status to be determined by how much you pay in taxes? Fascinating, surely that would go well
    • wiseowise 4mo ago
      Well, that’s the main talking point when it comes to immigrants, isn’t it?
• SomaticPirate 4mo ago
  Not to speak on the anguish that this would undoubtedly cause but economically? This is like shooting yourself in the kneecap. America doesn’t nearly have the social security net of European countries and ours is already overburdened. Without younger, immigrant workers paying into our social security net the US govt will either need to print money (double digit inflation) or start raiding the evil tech bros RSUs for Medicare money. Being a natvist is an expensive proposition. Expect your retirement to decrease in real value and struggle to find acceptable healthcare as you age (healthcare in the US is increasingly staffed by immigrants, especially nursing).
• jezzamon 4mo ago
  Wow. As someone who just went through this process myself (leaving the US to get a green card via consular processing), I can only hope they hire more people to handle the increased case load. You need a medical exam and there were only 2 people available in my country to do that, which added 2 months to my application time (where I could not return to the US)
  • kylehotchkiss 4mo ago
    If anything they are reducing staffing for these posts. Last I heard foreign service staff morale was at an all time low
• davidmurphy 4mo ago
  What the Trump administration has done, and is doing, to people wildly obscene — and I think evil. Let's not mince words. My heart goes out to everyone impacted by all this.
• confuseddesi 4mo ago
  As a US citizen I am confused. H1-B and similar are supposed to be non-immigrant visas for temporary workers. Why was it allowed to permanently immigrate under those visas to begin with? We have immigrant visas like the E-1 for routes to permanent immigration.
  • mtremsal 4mo ago
    H1B is considered “dual intent”
• varenc 4mo ago
  The internal memo on this is interesting: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-602-0199-AdjustmentOfStatusAndDiscretion-20260521.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-... Essentially they're trying to change the rules by aggressive re-interpretation of the existing legal framework, and not actually changing any laws or regulations. I don't follow all of it, but it seems to be arguing that the "ordinary consular process", leaving the country and applying for a visa from abroad, is the long-established default, and that "adjustment of status", where your immigration/green card status changes while you're already in the US, is merely an extraordinary exception and "a matter of discretion and administrative grace." Even though applying for a green card while in-country (an "adjustment") seems like the only sane and reasonable process. It feels goofy watching them marshal decades of prior case law to try to frame this as just a "reminder" rather than admitting this is a real change. (Since changing laws is harder I assume)
  • skeeter2020 4mo ago
    Adjustment of Status has been on the books since the start in the 1950's, and was greatly expanded leading into what might turn out to be the high point of the country in the late 90's and early 2000's.
    • drstewart 4mo ago
      Deregulation and union busting greatly expanded in the 80s leading to the high point of the country in the 90s as well.
      • jamespo 4mo ago
        [flagged]
        • drstewart 4mo ago
          1% says correlation is not causation
      • 4mo ago
• Aniket-N 4mo ago
  The number of people commenting who are grossly misinformed yet feel very confident is very very high. Many comments are calling legitimate facts as “wrong”. People don’t event know the difference between a visa and a permanent resident status and yet feel compelled to talk about foreign born people coming to America, “non- western” or “non-European” immigrants. Do better HN audience. This is very disappointing.
  • _doctor_love 4mo ago
    Hey friend, you don't come here for reasoned discussion, do ya? On a Saturday?
• squibonpig 4mo ago
  I don't feel scared of or concerned about immigration. That's it. I don't know where that's coming from.
• cboyardee 4mo ago
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• EasyMark 4mo ago
  There really is no rhyme or reason to this insanity. Even someone who wants less immigration shouldn't be able to see this as anything other than insanity. The current administration is pathetic beyond belief.
• Chinjut 4mo ago
  Silicon Valley bigwigs supported this administration vocally. I am starting to doubt that their interests and morality align with mine.
  • notnullorvoid 4mo ago
    Their interests and morality have been evident for a long time.
• lowbloodsugar 4mo ago
  Companies don’t want their H1s getting a green card and the freedom that comes with it.
• letsberealman 4mo ago
  On a related topic, the number of H1Bs brought in by big tech has been insane. Have you seen mtn view castro lately?
  • _doctor_love 4mo ago
    Lately as compared to when? Mountain View is in the heart of the tech world, it's right next door to Palo Alto and Menlo Park.
  • henry2023 4mo ago
    The biggest industry in the world is importing top talent from around the world? Who’d have guessed?
• shell0x 4mo ago
  That makes sense to me. If you come on a non-immigrant visa, you can’t become a permanent resident easily. it’s a privilege, not a right. Other countries like the UAE also take a lot of foreign workers but do not want them become PRs or citizens and there are tons of people moving there for opportunities. The labor is needed but they don’t want these people permanently. You made your money, now leave
  • dboreham 4mo ago
    Nice way to destroy the US economy over the next few decades, if you consider who made the country rich since WW2.
    • nceqs3 4mo ago
      H1-B wasn't invented until 1990...
      • righthand 4mo ago
        H1-B isnt what made the US economy rich, it’s what made Silicon Valley richer.
    • jsadfsdafh 4mo ago
      European scientists?
    • Longlius 4mo ago
      The US had one of the most restrictive immigration systems in the world up until 1965 and it did not see significant immigration until the 1980s.
  • skupig 4mo ago
    That doesn't make any sense. The US enjoys its position of economic power because it has the reputation and wealth to attract skilled people and keep them here.
    • 4mo ago
• colechristensen 4mo ago
  The president isn't a king. If Congress weren't cowards this would be trivially preventable. Forget the French, the new meme for cowards who retreat at the first opportunity should be the American Congress.
• geertj 4mo ago
  There does appear to be a limited walk back for dual intent visa holders (H1B and L1) “A spokesperson for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, however, told Semafor that H1-B visa holders and high-skilled workers might not be affected in the near term.” Source: https://www.semafor.com/article/05/22/2026/trump-orders-green-card-seekers-to-go-overseas-to-apply https://www.semafor.com/article/05/22/2026/trump-orders-gree...
  • nonfamous 4mo ago
    That “might” is rather load-bearing for something you are literally staking your future on, though.
  • leptons 4mo ago
    They "might" also end up in an ICE facility and then deported to somewhere like the Congo or an El Salvadoran prison.
  • FarmerPotato 4mo ago
    I see the article argues that this new policy is NOT following the law ("faithfully executing Congress' intent".) So any further spokes-person-ment is just more of the same -- no rule of law, just what we decide today or tomorrow. Everything set by precedent from 1952-present is out the window.
• mehulashah 4mo ago
  This administration has made it clear in no uncertain words or actions. They don’t want immigrants. And if you think this is bad policy, please stop voting for them. Please vote for the alternative candidates. This is the easiest way to fix this nonsense.
  • amir734jj 4mo ago
    I will vote in midterms. Enough is enough.
    • _doctor_love 4mo ago
      I don't think voting is going to make a very meaningful dent in the issue.
      • mehulashah 4mo ago
        Why not?
        • _doctor_love 4mo ago
          I have participated in democracy exactly once. It was the only time in my life I was eligible to vote. My vote made no difference and the course the United States took is now irreversible. Prior to being able to vote, I watched one unsatisfactory candidate after another get elected to the US Presidency despite the obvious presence of a much preferable and more qualified candidate. Still, even if I had voted and my preferred candidates had won, it's not clear to me that this would have changed anything. Our world is not run in public.
• ashley95 4mo ago
  For those not very familiar with the US immigration system: it can be very confusing and the naming of things is rarely related to their function due to a very thick layer of legal fiction in how it works. The system sorely lacks reform to align the legal fiction with reality, which is precisely why this news release may sound entirely sensible for the uninitiated.
• yongjik 4mo ago
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  • amazingamazing 4mo ago
    Police have been killing Americans since at least the 1900s
    • bigyabai 4mo ago
      ICE aren't police.
      • amazingamazing 4mo ago
        I’m sure the people killed appreciate the distinction.
        • bigyabai 4mo ago
          It's in the interest of their dignity and our safety to clarify it.
    • _doctor_love 4mo ago
      Much longer ago than that.
    • sneak 4mo ago
      Not on high res, widely distributed video. Not, immediately after that video, telling us we didn’t see what we saw. The game has changed.
      • amazingamazing 4mo ago
        There are plenty of police killings fitting that criteria since 2020.
    • thrance 4mo ago
      What's new is that we have the deeds captured under multiple angles in full HD, and still around 30% of the country believes the victims were actually the aggressors and deserved to die. They're so indoctrinated that they're able to rationalize away their own eyes' evidence. And they feel comfortable enough in the current environment to try and gaslight you about it.
• refurb 4mo ago
  I don’t see this as that significant of a change. The way I read the new policy is that it will be applied to people who have violated immigration law in some way. An alien’s failure to comply with the conditions of their nonimmigrant admission or parole and an alien’s failure to depart as expected are highly relevant to this analysis And those on dual-intent visa are fine… USCIS reminds its officers that applying for adjustment of status is not inconsistent with simultaneously maintaining nonimmigrant status in a category with dual intent. It’s basically adhering to the laws on the books. If you’ve violated immigration law a high hurdle will be in place to use this special pathway. However, if you’re in the US on a dual-intent visa (e.g. H1-B) then you can continue to use the AOS pathway. This includes temporary works on L or H visas. And includes those sponsoring their spouses on K visas.
• _heimdall 4mo ago
  Sure seems like we as a country are heading further down the isolationist, nationalist road. I expect we won't be the last western country to batten down the hatches as it were, for better or worse it seems like most countries are preparing for something much larger.
• gcanyon 4mo ago
  1. They desperately want to end all immigration. 2. They are too stupid to enact reasonable policies to achieve that end. 3. Therefore they resort to the blunt force tool of cruelty. Either that or they're racist sadists, one of the two.
• foofyter 4mo ago
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• bobjordan 4mo ago
  Legal immigration was already hard. Just went through that green card process with my wife from China, glad we already got it done. But, even before Trump admin 2nd term, it's been difficult. Further, even my wife has the green card, my Chinese mother-in-law has been rejected twice for a simple visitors visa, and I'm an American that has been with my wife for 16 years. She was rejected before Trumps latest term while Democrats were in power. She owns like 3 houses in China and has plenty of assets and would not move here permanently even if there were zero friction. We just want her to be able to visit us a few months per year instead of me being forced to fly my entire family of four back to China each year just to visit my wife's mother. These stupid barriers are totally ridiculous. I promise, Grandma from China isn't taking anyone's job and she has plenty of money to spend while she's here to help the economy and then she wants to return home. All that said, as a data point, when I got my working permit and working visa to legally work in China, I first had to fly back to America and get a "landing" visa issued, then fly back to China, where they then finally issued me the China working visa and China resident permit. So, I think globally, this is pretty common for process.
• Padriac 4mo ago
  Makes sense and this is how we do it in Australia.
• whatever1 4mo ago
  Is there now a path to retain a fresh PhD / postDoc in the US? If all of these folks are pushed out of the country right after their student visa expires, likely they are not coming back.
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• booleandilemma 4mo ago
  Well, I for one hope we can send all the foreigners home.
• xuzhenpeng 4mo ago
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• crm9125 4mo ago
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  • tomhow 4mo ago
    We've banned this account. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48253685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48253685 and marked it off topic.
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• gigatexal 4mo ago
  This must be rolled back this is so hella disruptive. But it’s very much in line with this administration. One part stupid another part callous and 3 parts bad for the economy.
• aabajian 4mo ago
  Devil's advocate: My wife thankfully just got her green card three months ago. She first came on a J-1 and then an F-1. She knows many, many people who come with the intent of staying either without status or via questionable marriage licenses. The vast majority of her acquaintances in the J-1 visa program were young (<25 year old) au pairs with no intention of learning English (they had 'mandatory' English language cultural lessons per J-1). My wife is an extreme outlier in that she learned English in 5 years and just got accepted to veterinary school in USA. The bottom-line is that she thinks the J-1 / au pair program should be discontinued.
  • iLoveOncall 4mo ago
    When I studied in the US, a lot of our friends were au-pairs, and they all spoke perfect English. Your wife's experience is an outlier, not the fact that she speaks English.
  • bubblethink 4mo ago
    That is completely orthogonal. Whether any non-immigrant visa program should or should not be continued is immaterial. The topic at hand is about adjusting status to permanent residency, for which you need to independently satisfy the criteria for permanent residency. The admin is proposing asking people to go out of the US for their interviews as opposed to an interview in the US. The admin can just as easily deny AOS in the US, but people have more rights in the US and can seek legal recourse. They cannot outside the US.
  • Der_Einzige 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    • undeveloper 4mo ago
      to vote you have to be a citizen i think you've forgotten
      • Der_Einzige 4mo ago
        No I haven’t. I’m specifically talking about a voter base that has huge representation of newly naturalized citizens. If Latino legal immigrants want maga, than they can eat “speak English” mandates, and other generally “anti Latino” policy. Reap what you sow since you want to act white and assimilate and bring the racism/colorism from your homeland so bad.
• jmward01 4mo ago
  I personally can't understand anyone wanting to move to the US anymore except for extreme reasons. And, yes, I have actually lived in several other countries so I know how green the grass can be in different places. So with how ugly the US is being right now, what is holding back the remote worker from turning truly remote, at least in tech? For clarity here, I don't think this is a great direction. A massive strength of America has always been its ability to draw immigrants. People that are willing to leave their families, cultures, etc behind are generally a cut above the average and it shows. The US is being, in a word, stupid and we are already paying the price for it and will for generations to come.
  • drstewart 4mo ago
    >So with how ugly the US is being right now, what is holding back the remote worker from turning truly remote, at least in tech? Because money and taxes, both of which are unchanged due to this policy And boy wait til you find out how other countries treat immigration and visas. You'll be shocked to learn they're also super racist and don't give everyone citizenship at birth just because of being there! They are, in your words, very stupid countries
    • Calavar 4mo ago
      If you're looking for international precedent, this is an old vs. new world issue. Birthright citizenship is rare in the old world, but it is the default for the Americas. Canada, most of Latin America, and a decent part of the Caribbean have birthright citizenship.
      • yoble 4mo ago
        I thought France had it. It turns out France, Italy, Netherlands, UK, and Belgium have a conditional deferred version: you can become a citizen at 18 if you're born and have been living there (plus a few caveats).
      • drstewart 4mo ago
        Agree, all the old world countries are stupid and all the talent is fleeing from France and the UK to countries like Uruguay and Bolivia
• martin-t 4mo ago
  My colleague organizes workshops for gifted teenagers interested in tech/science in Europe. He often asks them if they want to go study abroad. A few years back, most of them would say they want to go to the US. Now none of them do. This is not hyperbole - he said literally 0 wanted to go to the US. Maybe that country still has some prestige somewhere else and people still want to apply but definitely not here. We've been watching the country sabotage itself and take a nosedive for a while now. The latest president is just the cherry on top. I hope the rest of the world learns from this but I doubt it actually will.
• KnuthIsGod 4mo ago
  "The Cruelty Is the Point President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt...
• moomoo11 4mo ago
  Is America an economic zone for people (who might be highly educated) to just come and make money, or is it a place for them to call home and be American? I'll be honest as a naturalized citizen, I am shocked at how many people treat America as just a economic zone. They don't really consider this country to be their roots and don't assimilate into the broader culture. And I'm not talking about H1b, I'm talking about the O1s and L1s. They are so entitled and they are usually super well off in whatever country they come from. It doesn't matter if they're a PhD or whatever, they might contribute via their employer or their own startup on a monetary basis, but I have also dealt with enough people who try to maintain one foot here and another foot wherever they're from. We moved to the USA because the system of governance here and all the things it stood for were what motivated us to become Americans. It is our home and we have only our American passport. Most of the so-called "highly educated" immigrant workers I meet have a spouse who won't become a US citizen so they can double dip in their origin country's low cost of living. It is kind of gross. Just food for thought. I don't really like people who only seek to extract, if that makes sense. Doesn't matter if your TC is 1.2M or you raised 40M.
• squarefoot 4mo ago
  This swill split entire families, more likely forcing those in the US to follow those who need to leave. Of course this has nothing to do with immigration. They're indeed feeding their racist voters some candy, but the goal is rather to reduce population among the poor to counter the inevitable unrest that is happening soon, when tens millions of families will be left with nothing to put on the table because of recent technological advancements that happened too fast before society could adapt.
• khriss 4mo ago
  The performative cruelty is the intent, I guess. At this point, seems like the only practical thing to do is to wait the lunatic out. However, the big question this will leave for future immigrants is 'What if this current administration is the prototype for future Republican administrations?'
• deleted 4mo ago
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• splittydev 4mo ago
  This is common practice in many countries, although I don't quite understand why
• whiddershins 4mo ago
  I am under the impression this does not apply to for example o-1 visas. Possibly not for h1-b. Is everyone clear about what they are commenting on here? Is the news coverage clear?
• jsadfsdafh 4mo ago
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  • tomhow 4mo ago
    We've banned this account. Stop registering accounts to post inflammatory comments about race. It's all clearly against the guidelines and a waste of everyone's time.
• zkmon 4mo ago
  I do not endorse this change in anyway, as it means breaking promises and assumptions which drove thousands to the shores of USA in the recent past. Having said that, most commentators here, including me, might not have the full picture of the situation - the scale of influx of current immigration, quality, tactics and loopholes used, and goals (universities as visa machines) etc. USCIS might have a different picture they are looking at, than most of us here. They also might have better visibility of the future needs of the businesses here.
  • sagarm 4mo ago
    You're in the minority if you still assume that anything out of this administration is driven by competence rather than malevolence.
• thenoblesunfish 4mo ago
  To make sure this opinion is here: The fact that they get to make this announcement is probably the biggest upside. Their base loves it. It makes people think they are doing something. There is an asymmetry in that if they quietly roll this back or it's blocked in court, it will generate only a tiny fraction of the publicity. Probably not too controversial here to say that the economy wants these immigrants so good bet they'll keep getting hired. It's a cruel strategy, but I think it's fair to say that it's far from certain it'll be a consistent one. Don't let them troll you too much, stay strong.
  • warumdarum 4mo ago
    Its the same model china has? Was one of the reasons the enclaves flourished (like hong kong). And i dont get it, no actually i get cognitive dissonance whiplashfrom all that contradicting messaging. Millions of jobs will go due to AI, but millions of those unemployed must stay in addition? In a country thats constantly portrayed as the worst on earth but constantly attracts the wretched of the earth. Who want the opportunities but not the melting pot. The recipe that produced the economy that allowed such luxuries must go, but those who detest that system must stay. If a set of opinions has no intersect why does it make a sound ?
• koe123 4mo ago
  The most insane thing to me is that legal (non-asylum) immigration is somehow framed as a “moral” thing that nations do out of charity. Its not: you get to directly address a shortage in your country without the burden of raising and training the person. Arguably, if you don’t mind morality, the immigrants are also easier to exploit. And all that + you get a free tax payer! My reading is that Americans (but also other parts of the world) are 1) uneducated on this topic 2) racist and or xenophobic to the point of self sabotage. Quite literally if county building was a video game where the xenophobia of the masses could be ignored, I would brain drain the shit out of every country, leaving myself stronger and the rest weaker.
  • 0xDEAFBEAD 4mo ago
    Switzerland does this well. In Switzerland, immigrants are mostly permanent residents. Achieving Swiss citizenship is very difficult. They have a bunch of immigrants in their country, yet immigration is much less divisive than in other countries, since they have such a well-designed system. The US has a naturalization-driven model of immigration, which is being tested by fast jet travel. It worked OK in the days when you had to pay a bunch to cross the Atlantic and you couldn't easily communicate with your relatives back home. But things are different now. The citizenship model or naturalization model creates policy implications for accepting immigrants. New voters, new policies. Of course the people on the losing end of this policy shift become upset: https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/increasing-skilled-immigration-is https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/increasing-skilled-immig...
• noobermin 4mo ago
  I will say, there are a non-zero number of people who were rooting for Trump and the American right wing in general who are now surprised the fascists are turning on them. I don't know, it's hard to have sympathy for some of you. Did you really think the whites saw you as one of them? Were you so naive? Because you were "educated"? Because you worked in Silicon Valley or SF (you know California, the same places that Trump ranted against for years because they never voted for him)?
• 3vo-ai 4mo ago
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• debarshri 4mo ago
  It is just ironic - there are other countries who want talent that goes to US but does not have industry to support them. I guess this is how monopoly looks like.
• wesleywt 4mo ago
  Does the American Dream myth still exist?
• tao_oat 4mo ago
  I love the US; I’ve lived there and held an H-1B visa. Moving there permanently was a teenage dream of mine. Unfortunately the country in that dream no longer exists. I now avoid jobs that require travel to the US. As a non-American it makes a lot more sense to focus on building up the tech centres closer to home.
  • stinkbeetle 4mo ago
    Not American here, what did you like about it that is no longer?
    • tao_oat 4mo ago
      A lot of the good is still there -- e.g. the nature, the unusually high level of drive/determination/spirit/openness. At least compared to northern Europe where I'm from. Unfortunately tilting towards fascism outweighs those.
      • stinkbeetle 4mo ago
        Thank you for answering!
    • atoav 4mo ago
      It was once an open, free country that fought fascism and respected the rule of law? Arguably it was never perfect and the ugly bits where there, so a lot of that is about an image it projected to the outside world. You know it is the land of the free when you have to give them access to all your social media accounts at the border. I have heard stories of fellow countrymen being held for weeks without hearing any cause. So yeah, no thanks. Maybe if you restore the rule of law and have the current, president, supreme court justices and representatives removed in 20 years or so. Bigotry and xenophobia has brought the downfall of the US empire, for real. It was always more about who believed in it than it was for real. The US had an ugly history that it tried to ignore for the passt hundred years and at some point unsurprisingly it comes back to haunt you.
      • 4mo ago
• thih9 4mo ago
  Looks like a recipe for a brain drain, but out of US for a change.
• andyjohnson0 4mo ago
  I see lots of comments about the legal minutiae around this -- but as a non-US person I'd like to understand the motivation. Straight-up nativist discrimination? This kind of technical measure would seem to be hard to sell to the MAGA base, compared to something more blatant? Or is this somehow a favour for their corporate clients?
• bubblethink 4mo ago
  Whenever stuff like this happens, the chuds, both inside and outside the WH, start searching for ancient texts that would support their positions. Invariably, there will be the "actually, the INA says ..." crowd in the comments. To these people, I would like to point out laws that have been passed in this century that speak precisely to this issue. The law is appropriately called "American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000", for which USCIS maintains this page https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-7-part-e-chapter-5 https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-7-part-e-chapter-....
• mik09 4mo ago
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• SeattleAntifa 4mo ago
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• hdivider 4mo ago
  The strategy for many folks will likely be to wait it out until the next administration when hopefully some amount of sanity returns. The question buried in much of the detail: there is an indication this doesn't apply for H1B's and similar who work in the national interest or provide economic benefit (presumably substantial). Perhaps this allows an opening for at least some people. Perhaps the people initiating this -- that is to say, almost universally either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants to the US -- would prefer something like the following version: With silent lips. "Keep your poor, your tired, your teeming masses, too! We’ve rewritten the laws, reframed the view, To raise a middle finger straight at you. Send your huddled refuse back to your own shore, I lift my lamp beside the dead-bolted door!"
• thelastgallon 4mo ago
  This is the will of people who voted the current administration into power. Its a democratic country, politicians have to respect what the people want, a recent video which reflects the thoughts of majority: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FcCTXRiKo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FcCTXRiKo
  • tibbydudeza 4mo ago
    They don't want legal immigration except in cases where it is in the national interest i.e a Deepseek AI researcher wanting to move to the US - bet your bottom that person ain't waiting for a green card.
  • softwaredoug 4mo ago
    The will of the country is also expressed in who is elected to Congress. And they make laws, the President implements them. So yes what you say is true, if what the President is doing actually is within the legal authority set out by the law.
• softwaredoug 4mo ago
  One thing with this policy, its not all green card seekers, its those deemed to be under temporary visas (student, tourist, etc). Apparently these comprise the majority of applicants, but not nesc. the majority of those granted green cards (family, longer term workers, etc). I'm not defending the policy, but I think that's one nuance being lost.
• xyst 4mo ago
  your life in your home country must be really terrible to decide to come to the USA to jump through all of these hoops now.
• tithos 4mo ago
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• commandersaki 4mo ago
  I'm dumb, can someone give me an objective take as to why leaving the country is a good thing for applying a green card? In Australia usually you apply when you already have an existing visa, and if that's going to expire you usually apply for what is known as a bridging visa while your PR application is being processed.
  • troad 4mo ago
    It's not. The US green card process takes years, and being forced to be outside the country while the process is ongoing makes it very hard to continue working for a US employer, which is how most people are actually sponsored for a GC in the first place. If you're looking for some objective rationale for this change, you're not going to find one. This is simply designed to make GCs much, much harder to get and dissuade prospective immigrants. That's the only goal.
    • commandersaki 4mo ago
      I think others are saying you just need to apply outside the country but you can return while the process is ongoing. So it seems to be some kind of clerical thing.
      • troad 4mo ago
        I imagine this will continue being walked back into nothingness. It's probably not even legal.
• Havoc 4mo ago
  This definitely has "cruelty is the point" vibes
• terrycody 4mo ago
  A very good deep analysis of this: https://x.com/providence_eye0/status/2058577102321131755 https://x.com/providence_eye0/status/2058577102321131755
• throw092 4mo ago
  A lot of immigrant doctors and nurses have to go. Natives should get those jobs first
• CommenterPerson 4mo ago
  I've read through many comments. Like true HN-ers, they are trying to understand this change in terms of logic, reasoning, cost / benefit, and so on. This is missing the point. The arbitrariness, cruelty, racism, xenophobia, etc. is A DESIGN FEATURE, NOT A BUG. I hope this may help youngsters in this terrible situation understand what is happening. Since at least the 1980's, if not earlier, one American political party has been using racism as a part of their platform. They used to do this in coded "dog whistles" before. The earlier targets were mostly Black Americans (they still are, if you look at what the Supreme Court just did with their voting rights). Now it is all out in the open. The racist beast needs to be fed continually with fresh targets. Gay Americans were another target group. More recently it is undocumented South Americans. The most recent target is .. foreigners (especially non-white non- Christian). Don't look for logic and reasoning in all this, in the abominations. Take a deep breath, and a long walk. Evaluate if it is worth dedicating your life and career contributing to the beast, and living in constant uncertainty of your legal status, unable to travel, and so on. You are worth way way more than that.
• nikolay 4mo ago
  That's right. Many people obtain visas with the clear intention of changing their status, which is illegal, and so far, authorities have turned a blind eye to it. The typical progression is: people come on a J-1 visa, join a language cours to get an F1 visa, then drag it for as long as possible, graduate, which gives them the opportunity to work on campus for a short period of time, meanwhile, try to get married, or pay somebody to marry them fictitiously, or try to get an H-1B, which is almost impossible, or, in most cases, stay illegally, but now they have an SSN, and a driver's license, which nobody checks if they are authorized to work, so, there millions of people with SSNs and DLs, whose stay is completely illegal, and it's not too hard to identify them, but so far this illegal situation has been silently tolerated. Okay, if you knowingly allow violation of the law, then change the law so that people don't live with the sense of being unlawful residents! Oh, I forgot that illegal residents can have legal children and later on get green cards as parents of U.S. Citizens. All these scenarios are well known, including the abuse of L-1 visas by outsourcing companies, but, as I said, it's been tolerated.
• zhouquanxi 4mo ago
  [flagged]