4 ms·

There's many more shades of grey than that, unfortunately. People are genuinely uncomfortable about challenging your residency status. In a number of situatio

by soneil 12y ago

There's many more shades of grey than that, unfortunately. People are genuinely uncomfortable about challenging your residency status. In a number of situations, it's illegal to do so, and this seems to lend discomfort to situations where it's acceptable, or even expected. I lived in the US (legally) for 5 years. In that time I held three jobs, opened a bank account, got a loan for a car, etc. The topic of my residency only came up once - at the airport on the day I arrived. When I got my 2-year card renewed for a further 10, I made a point of letting my employer know ('mom & pop' shop, so I had some feel for their concerns). He looked genuinely uncomfortable - like he wasn't sure if he should even look at it. I had to tell him; don't worry man, you didn't ask. So I can quite easily imagine that on both sides (I've read that, eg, first-generation cubans tend towards democrat, and second-generation tend towards republican - this isn't unique to one side), when trying to make sure that all-important minority vote are all registered and savvy, this topic may not come up. They may not feel entitled to ask, or be afraid of offending, etc. When you're going door to door trying to squeeze every vote you can out of them, you don't want to be that guy that comes off as "are you meant to be in my country?" Trust me - we really don't like that guy. I guess what I'm getting at is that you can have a perfectly innocent scenario where someone they can assume to know what they're talking about, has come to their door and reminded them to register - and then we try to fault them for not knowing better. All in all, it is clear as mud. I'm not sure I'd even say "less-educated", as I don't obviously consider myself in that category - but I was never clear on which elections I was, and wasn't (local/state/national?) allowed to vote in. I gather I'm allowed to vote for the county sherif, but not for the president. And everything in between is just one big grey area.

cowsandmilk 12y ago
> I lived in the US (legally) for 5 years. In that time I held three jobs, opened a bank account, got a loan for a car, etc. The topic of my residency only came up once - at the airport on the day I arrived. You didn't have to fill out a W-9 and/or I-9?
- soneil 12y ago
  So here's an awkward story. I worked in a hotel for a year. It was a roughly 50/50 mix of housekeeping & handyman. Not exactly the 'american dream', but it was smalltown-nowhere, and I'd rather work than hold my nose high. I'd been working there a while, when my greencard happened to come up in conversation. It did happen from time to time, mostly because I found it (and still do) to be a complete novelty. It's an interesting bit of kit, with a whole bunch of different things in one big kinda hologram on the back. From one angle you can see my face, from another angle, madame Liberty, etc. (It also came up when a gas station wouldn't accept it as proof of age for smokes. They wanted An American ID. How do you argue with that?) At the end of said conversation, my boss turned around and said .. well I guess you'll have to pay tax then. It seems they'd just assumed up until that point. That was an interested realization that the world of "under the table" labour is a whole lot less clandestine than you might like to think. Which kinda goes back to my original point - That was not an intentional act on my part. The way other people approach the subject has a huge impact. (The forms you mentioned, I took a google - I don't recognise the I-9 at all. The W-9 looks familiar, but that might be because of its striking resemblance to my stack of W-2's, which I dragged back to europe with me for some unknown reason. This isn't to say no to either of them, just that this was 10 years back - I remember human interactions much better than paperwork.)

by soneil 12y ago

cowsandmilk 12y ago

> I lived in the US (legally) for 5 years. In that time I held three jobs, opened a bank account, got a loan for a car, etc. The topic of my residency only came up once - at the airport on the day I arrived. You didn't have to fill out a W-9 and/or I-9?

soneil 12y ago
So here's an awkward story. I worked in a hotel for a year. It was a roughly 50/50 mix of housekeeping & handyman. Not exactly the 'american dream', but it was smalltown-nowhere, and I'd rather work than hold my nose high. I'd been working there a while, when my greencard happened to come up in conversation. It did happen from time to time, mostly because I found it (and still do) to be a complete novelty. It's an interesting bit of kit, with a whole bunch of different things in one big kinda hologram on the back. From one angle you can see my face, from another angle, madame Liberty, etc. (It also came up when a gas station wouldn't accept it as proof of age for smokes. They wanted An American ID. How do you argue with that?) At the end of said conversation, my boss turned around and said .. well I guess you'll have to pay tax then. It seems they'd just assumed up until that point. That was an interested realization that the world of "under the table" labour is a whole lot less clandestine than you might like to think. Which kinda goes back to my original point - That was not an intentional act on my part. The way other people approach the subject has a huge impact. (The forms you mentioned, I took a google - I don't recognise the I-9 at all. The W-9 looks familiar, but that might be because of its striking resemblance to my stack of W-2's, which I dragged back to europe with me for some unknown reason. This isn't to say no to either of them, just that this was 10 years back - I remember human interactions much better than paperwork.)