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Comment by drinchev | Hacker News Reader

I know a girl that had to leave the U.S. >24< years after her parents brought her there ( she was a baby ).

The story ( as far as I can remember ) is that a family of Germans moved to the U.S. with their 1 year old child. 24 years later the child graduated university and ... needs to apply for a green card or permanent VISA.

US government refused, so she had to come back to Germany.

I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship. In most of the EU countries you get naturalized ( receive citizenship ) if you spend certain amount of time in the country and pass a test ( Germany I think it's 7 yrs ).

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>I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship.

The American electorate believes unemployment is caused by an improper ratio of people to jobs, and it can be solved both by increasing the number of jobs and decreasing the number of people.

In this theory, your friend's expulsion was a victory for the American who took over her job, and for the unemployed person who entered the labor market (if not directly, then via a domino effect).

We are comparatively loose with immigration statuses that don't permit work. Tourist, student, etc. visas are relatively trivial to obtain. We have programs that allow work which doesn't compete with Americans, such as international performing arts groups on tour. We even have programs to fill jobs that Americans aren't available to fill (H1B for highly skilled labor, seasonal farm workers, etc).

The moat is built around statuses that permit competition with Americans for jobs in general. It remains this way because Americans do not generally consider or believe Econ 101 ideas like that trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange (or they would not make it), more workers also means more consumers, cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services => higher standard of living, etc.

Yes, that stupid American electorate who can't understand basic economics.

I really wish everyone could be as enlightened as yourself.

>It remains this way because Americans do not generally consider or believe Econ 101 ideas

It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa.

Imagine the extreme, worst case scenario. If the US opened it's borders completely, and imported every poor worker in the entire world into its borders. Do you really believe that average American worker would be better off? That they could compete with that, and be able to demand a decent wage?

>trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange

True, but extremely misleading. E.g. f you move factories overseas for cheaper labor, the local workers lose out, even though other classes may gain. The benefits of trade are not distributed among the entire population.

>cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services

Sure, but if everyone is making proportionally less money, they can't afford the cheaper services, and on net they are poorer.

>Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa.

This assumes everyone is taking jobs and noone is creating them. America has a strong tradition of immigrants building businesses.

No, it assumes that less are created than are taken, not that none are created at all.

> It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa.

Increasing the supply of labor also increases the demand for other goods. Workers have to eat! If you kick someone out of the country, you reduce demand for food, clothes, etc., eliminating the local jobs that would have gone towards satisfying that worker's needs.

Not that I'm arguing against the possibility of more workers lowering wages. They might, to some degree (studies are unclear on to what degree they do), but it's not a zero-sum game, here.

But does the benefit make up for the cost? It would be really unlikely if 100% of a workers wages went into the local economy, let alone local workers. Many products they buy may be from overseas, for instance.

The fears of globalization are various and not as simple as a GDP or employment rate. It promotes an uprooting and destabilization of people's lives as everything becomes more competitive. There is no guarantee that you stay near home, work in a familiar culture, build lasting ties in your career. These things aren't strictly a matter of globalization, and their value is not easily measured against the known benefits of bigger markets. But the status quo is to ram free trade down the precariat's throat without allowing protest or negotiation, with a paternalistic "we'll all be better off if you take it on the chin."

Analogies to the enclosure movement come to mind.

>We are comparatively loose with immigration statuses that don't permit work. Tourist, student, etc. visas are relatively trivial to obtain.

That's a weird statement, I feel like you lack wider context. As an Australian, pretty much the only place in the western world where I need a visa /at all/ to be a tourist is the USA. In something like 50% of the the world, I can just show up at the border whenevs and they'll let me in on the promise that I'm going to leave in a few weeks.

Your standards are actually pretty anal compared to almost everywhere else. China and Russia are really the only comparable places.

> I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship. In most of the EU countries you get naturalized ( receive citizenship ) if you spend certain amount of time in the country and pass a test ( Germany I think it's 7 yrs ).

I think it's more complicated than that. My gf has lived more than 10 years in France now and she has to renew her visa every year, they never granted her the 10 years visa, let alone citizenship (she was discouraged to apply for it...).

On the other hand, I have a bunch of friends that obtained their US nationality quite easily. They started as illegal immigrants, got married, which gave them a green card and after a few years they obtained their citizenship.

These are just anecdotes, just to say that it's not so clear that it's harder to get US citizenship.

In the US you can begin the naturalization process after five years of permanent residency.

A green card is what establishes permanent residency. (I don't think we have permanent visas, but I could be wrong.)

I can only speculate how your friend was allowed to live in this country that long without ever obtaining permanent residency, but regardless, it's an example of the system failing, and that's a really terrible thing to happen to someone.

Well as far as I can remember the story, their parents were there with a working VISA ( extended through time ) and she got at one point ( I think at 18? ) a study VISA until it all expired after university.

Forgive me if this sounds harsh but shouldn't she have applied for a green card as soon as she turned 18?

I don't know the ins and outs of immigration but that's because I'm a citizen. If I wasn't, I'd sure as hell know what I needed to do in order to stay in the only country I'd ever known as home.

It's not harsh, but your reply just proved the point of either how little Americans know about their immigration system or how it much nonsensical it is.

According drinchev, I can assume that when his/her friend turned 18 she would have had to go through the process to apply for green card just as if she never lived in the US.

I know someone who was in a similar situation, grew up in America, his parents were diplomats, when he turned 21 he could not longer be a dependent of his parents' status, and the amount of time he lived legally had no benefit in giving him eligibility to apply for a green card.

Brought over an immigrant myself. The fact is you MUST ensure you've done everything correctly. You don't trust, you verify. Diplomats should have known better. People who adopt from overseas need to know. You can't just do whatever you want in terms of bringing new bodies from foreign lands. That's the administrative reality and there's no reason to have exceptions when these people should have been responsible. If you don't have consequences, then people don't follow administrative rules. If you don't have administrative rules and laws, good luck having order, good luck managing. Good luck collecting taxes, good luck having a country.

Why are we so quick to blame the USA, or blame our own country when these things actually aren't all that difficult. There are forms for everything. And where there are challenges, there are lawyers. Can't afford a lawyer or figure it out yourself? Guess what you just proved you're not prepared to bring over an immigrant regardless of their age.

It's okay to foist an injustice upon someone because they were ignorant or lazy? We should be making our social systems fail-safe when the consequences are so severe. It shouldn't be possible to eject someone like that without round after round of appeals and second chances to get good paperwork, and if they were eligible for citizenship, and in good faith relied on the idea that they were citizens, then by all rights they should be one.

I think that's how it works today. In my personal experience, USCIS goes above and beyond to get citizenship for citizens. It's possible the above comment leaves out some crucial detail.

Or things just fall through the cracks. It's not surprising to me that tragedies like the one in the original comment happen sometimes.

You're actually calling justice / rules 'injustice.' You clearly have never done any of this type of paperwork. It's not actually that hard for one. And there are consequences for things you don't do, whether you're a nice guy, whether you didn't realize something was prohibited.

Sucks for some yes because they don't take care of business. But it also sucks when we don't have protective measures in place. And it's both unfair and extremely difficult to have exceptions for everything subjectively.

Are we also expected to pass with an A+ everyone who had good faith that they knew course material? Are we supposed to loosen up all regulation as well because we 'trust' a company will handle things fine because somebody's cousin owns the company?

You know when somebody leaves the scene of an accident, they sometimes do it because they don't realize they are supposed to stay, sometimes they don't even realize they knocked a cyclist down nearly killing them. Guess what, they still get charged with leaving the scene of an accident even if they were completely oblivious.

I too always like to start my day with a fresh breath of legalism.

You do have some points, but your examples aren't so good.

1. In your test example, the students didn't know the course material, they just thought they did. They don't actually qualify for an A+. 2. In the scene of the accident, the rule there is in place because there is an incentive to leave the scene of the accident. Ideally, someone who didn't know the law would get a less harsh penalty than someone who did (so intent matters).

In the case above, there is something special happening. The rights of citizenship are on a much higher more protected plane than other rights (as other fundamental rights, voting, residency, amongst others are derived from them). We are allowed to use strict liability for leaving the scene of an accident because it's a shitty thing to do regardless of the law and because while it does affect the fundamental rights of liberty, it is based on something that the person did to deserve a punishment.

In the case of citizenship, if they technically qualify and act as though they do, that should be enough to at least give them the option of taking it retroactively. It's too fundamental for the most simplistic interpretation of bureaucratic rules to suffice.

How exactly are you going to apply for a green card at 18? It's not like most 18 year olds have the necessary university degrees to qualify for an employment based green card. And 18 is a bit young to be getting married to qualify for a marriage based green card.

Part of the problem is more that she might not have had grounds for a green card. Study gets her through school, but afterwards? She'd have to have a job or marry or something similar to be in the programs. And things can go wrong with all of this. The system just doesn't have much to deal with this sort of situation.

And sometimes, these sentiments are easy to say when you are 30, but not so easy to see these things when one is 18, not so easy during the next 4 years as they are in college... and suddenly, crisis.

Its more than that - the thing is that America was the place where things "just worked". Thats why lots of people in the 80s immigrated.

This stuff is common sense for most agencies to deal with. Lived over 24 years here, born a baby - lets solve this.

Its tragic to be honest. More than anything else, seeing that crumble is disheartening. More than wars, more than Trump.

> I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship.

In some ways it isn't: merely being born here grants citizenship. That's no longer the case in any EU country: Ireland repealed birthright citizenship years ago.

It means that simply flying to the US on a tourist visa before your baby is born will grant it citizenship. But living in the US on a work visa for 18 years after your baby is born? That doesn't grant anything.

The USA does have similar rules, but there are some restrictions based on what you can prove, and your status upon entry.

What are these rules that you refer to? I know a lot of people who could benefit from such rules having come to the United States legally and spending 10 years and has to leave because their visas were expiring.

I am not too familiar with the details, but the government website is informative, as is the Wikipedia article.[1][2]

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-nat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization#.C2.A0United_St...

Because she is an illegal immigrant. Case closed.

> I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship.

We've got a lot of racist assholes, basically. Particularly ironic for a country that was founded on immigration. These laws, and their heavy-handed enforcement, are mainly targeted at keeping out Mexicans. European and Asian immigrants are collateral damage, essentially.

Europe, unfortunately, is starting to go the same way. I think it was Switzerland that denied citizenship to a couple of teenage Muslim girls because they didn't want to swim with boys in mandatory co-ed swim class. They've also banned minarets on mosques, apparently--I have no clue how they pretend to justify that. Xenophobia makes people do ridiculous things.

Heavy handed enforcement? If we had that we would not have 12m people here illegally.

Wanting to keep national character is respecting culture. Switzerland is right to defend equality

So, in your mind, "defending equality" means deporting people who don't respect the sanctity of swim class.

Assuming that the story you've told actually happened. Yeah, two kids in a school didn't want to enter the pool, and they've sent them packing back to (where?) because of that. Have I understood well what you described?

Do you not follow the news? It was all over a few months ago. Here: https://www.google.com/search?q=muslim+girls+denied+citizens...

As of the story breaking at the end of June, they had not yet been expelled from Switzerland, but we both know what "denied citizenship" means.

Yes, I follow the news, and they are not the same as what you described. By the Swiss law, any aspirant for the Swiss citizenship has to show (among other things) that he/she is integrated into Swiss culture and society. The immigrant family clearly does not want to accept that, so they did not get citizenship. No right has been denied to them: they are still in Switzerland, and are free people who can do whatever they like, and, what's more, are allowed to fully practice their religion, which I understood is most important to them.

So, TL;DR: a family, actively, defiantly, on purpose, failed one of citizenship tests and were not granted citizenship.

Citizenship is not something that guests are entitled to. It's practically an award by the host. Mind you, I am not a Swiss, nor US citizen, nor an EU citizen. I would like to be, since it would benefit my situation considerably, but I was born in another country. So, why any of these countries would be obligated to grant me their citizenship?

Why is this down voted? It is the truth.

As I said, xenophobia makes people do ridiculous things.

The two stories doesn't match.

It was a decision of the girls ( or their father ) [1] not to be naturalized. They could've just did the swim with the boys and they would've got their citizenship.

On the other hand my friend had NO CHOICE in her 24 year stay in the U.S. to get a citizenship ( although she followed all the rules / laws of the country ).

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-c...

If you think underage muslim girls are normally going to go against the wishes of their father then you clearly don't know much about the kind of patriarchy they are exposed to. Fathers word > law.

Child education comes from 1) parents & 2) society. (1) should not exclude (2) and vice versa.

If the patriarchy family understood the idea of education better, maybe they would've thought their children that the law > father word.

If they do understand that idea, but don't like it. Well they should vote on their next election for someone that doesn't support it.

What they should not do is go against the law and do something on their own. Because that's what makes us all citizens.

Maybe in Middle East. Not in Switzerland.

You'd think so but in plenty of those households when you cross the threshold you might as well be in the middle east. I've had plenty of contact with Muslim families living in the West and the range is very wide, given that these girls were not allowed to swim with the boys it isn't a wild guess at all that their family is on the traditional side of the spectrum.

I know. I meant: maybe that is acceptable in Middle East, but it is not acceptable in Switzerland.

The connection is that these girls and your friend were both denied citizenship over some petty bullshit that doesn't matter, motivated by xenophobia.

Europe was like that for a long time. France and Germany were vey scared when eastern countries joined EU.

Well, it still is. Just look at Brexit, which was largely driven by eastern immigrants "stealing jobs"

Ironically, according to the BBC, Brexit requires so much in the way of negotiators, and they're suspicious of pulling retired negotiators back into work (as they're overwhelming on the Remain side) that Whitehall is probably going to end up hiring foreign negotiators.

No-one does irony as well as the Brits.

> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37190357 "In such a febrile atmosphere Whitehall is likely to recruit some negotiators from other countries."

I completely support what Switzerland did. If you don't want to be part of the culture you are joining, they don't have to let you in. Note that they are not expelling the girls-they are denying them citizenship. Citizenship for Switzerland means shared values.

Ping me when Saudi Arabia allows Jews to become citizens.

If you think Saudi Arabia is a good example of how nations should be run, then something is very wrong with your priorities.

Maybe read their comment again. It went over your head I think.

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