4 ms·

This is another sad example of the US's twisted immigration policy. Brilliant entrepreneurs, scientists, and academics want to come in legally and are rejected,

This is another sad example of the US's twisted immigration policy. Brilliant entrepreneurs, scientists, and academics want to come in legally and are rejected, while thousands of others come in illegally.

knowtheory 17y ago
First, we don't know what his idea was. Obviously he believes in it to have dropped so much cash on it already, but there are all sorts of things that people believe in (FSM FTW). That's not to slight his concept, since we haven't seen it, what's the point in passing judgement. And actually, your point illustrates quite effectively why there is illegal immigration. If the system is broken, people will try to work around it, rather than through it. Bureaucracy for the lose.
- sho 17y ago
  You can look at his startup in his profile - well, I'm presuming it's the same one, it does say "Founder and CEO".
wheels 17y ago
Not really. There are plenty of examples of that, but this is an example of someone applying for a special kind of visa that they were obviously not qualified for and then not getting it. I'm sorry for them on a personal level, but at an institutional level, the system worked just fine.
- ellyagg 17y ago
  Uh, what? Your parent essentially complained that US immigration, institutionally, favors low quality immigrants over high quality. It's hard to fathom how you don't consider this an example of that.
- davidw 17y ago
  At an 'institutional level', it's a bunch of horse shit. Sorry, but the whole mess brings out strong feelings: the process to get my wife (who is also the mother of our American daughter), into the US is quite a hassle. And we're talking about someone with a doctorate in biochemistry from a wealthy nation. Tons of similar stories of intelligent, hard working, qualified people being hassled to no end. Remember when Linus' visa was about to expire, and only a ruckus got them to speed the process up?
  - wheels 17y ago
    The guy applied for an investor's visa. He's not an investor. If your wife applied for an investor's visa and not an I'm-married-to-an-American visa and didn't get it and said, "But I really love my husband." that wouldn't mean that she'd been unfairly denied.
    - davidw 17y ago
      And what other people and I are saying is that the whole system is quite fucked up and needs a major overhaul. Maybe this guy shouldn't have got in on this particular visa, but it's still lame; I'd much rather people like that have the option to go, and then get encouraged to go home if things aren't working out, or some similar compromise that encourages smart, hard working people to go to the US.
      - wheels 17y ago
        Sure. I agree, which is why my original statement was essentially, "Yes, there are loads of examples of it being screwed up. This doesn't sound like one of them." I definitely agree that the US immigration system is pretty broken, but assuming that the US system was fixed, and there were still different kinds of visas, it wouldn't magically be broken again because people got denied for applying for the wrong kind.
        dandelany 17y ago
        I think you're missing the point: there's no "wrong kind." There's no way for a non-US Citizen with $65k in the bank to legally come start his or her business in this country, even though its (relatively) easy for people to slip across either border. It's not a matter of "oops, I accidentally applied for the investor visa, I should've picked up the startup-founder visa instead." PG has written about this idea here: http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html

knowtheory 17y ago

First, we don't know what his idea was. Obviously he believes in it to have dropped so much cash on it already, but there are all sorts of things that people believe in (FSM FTW). That's not to slight his concept, since we haven't seen it, what's the point in passing judgement. And actually, your point illustrates quite effectively why there is illegal immigration. If the system is broken, people will try to work around it, rather than through it. Bureaucracy for the lose.

sho 17y ago
You can look at his startup in his profile - well, I'm presuming it's the same one, it does say "Founder and CEO".

wheels 17y ago

Not really. There are plenty of examples of that, but this is an example of someone applying for a special kind of visa that they were obviously not qualified for and then not getting it. I'm sorry for them on a personal level, but at an institutional level, the system worked just fine.

ellyagg 17y ago
Uh, what? Your parent essentially complained that US immigration, institutionally, favors low quality immigrants over high quality. It's hard to fathom how you don't consider this an example of that.
davidw 17y ago
At an 'institutional level', it's a bunch of horse shit. Sorry, but the whole mess brings out strong feelings: the process to get my wife (who is also the mother of our American daughter), into the US is quite a hassle. And we're talking about someone with a doctorate in biochemistry from a wealthy nation. Tons of similar stories of intelligent, hard working, qualified people being hassled to no end. Remember when Linus' visa was about to expire, and only a ruckus got them to speed the process up?
- wheels 17y ago
  The guy applied for an investor's visa. He's not an investor. If your wife applied for an investor's visa and not an I'm-married-to-an-American visa and didn't get it and said, "But I really love my husband." that wouldn't mean that she'd been unfairly denied.
  - davidw 17y ago
    And what other people and I are saying is that the whole system is quite fucked up and needs a major overhaul. Maybe this guy shouldn't have got in on this particular visa, but it's still lame; I'd much rather people like that have the option to go, and then get encouraged to go home if things aren't working out, or some similar compromise that encourages smart, hard working people to go to the US.
    - wheels 17y ago
      Sure. I agree, which is why my original statement was essentially, "Yes, there are loads of examples of it being screwed up. This doesn't sound like one of them." I definitely agree that the US immigration system is pretty broken, but assuming that the US system was fixed, and there were still different kinds of visas, it wouldn't magically be broken again because people got denied for applying for the wrong kind.
      - dandelany 17y ago
        I think you're missing the point: there's no "wrong kind." There's no way for a non-US Citizen with $65k in the bank to legally come start his or her business in this country, even though its (relatively) easy for people to slip across either border. It's not a matter of "oops, I accidentally applied for the investor visa, I should've picked up the startup-founder visa instead." PG has written about this idea here: http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html