I love comments about "my country" who never identify it so you can't look it up to really understand what their "wonderful policies" are...

Stopping immigration is a priority yes. A job would contribute equal taxes if a current permanent resident was doing it. Unemployment is an issue, there is no need for more immigration.

I'm not judging just debating the topic.

I won't dox myself. If I ever need to visit US there is always a chance for your paramilitary police to take my phone and find anything and make an excuse. I am not here to defend something is better, I am saying it is different. Note that I never said I agree with the policy, I am saying it exists and why.

From your comment you see people as tools for work supplementation. Immigrants are also a peace tool. They help establishing short and long term associations with other countries and spread cultures both ways. There are reasons to think this is the main reason why immigrants are being attacked. I don't know if it is true but it could make sense.

Are you talking about general immigration or asylum? If general, what country do you live in? I’m going to plan an extended visit.

I won't dox myself, but you'd be welcome if you needed to.

Following World War II, we took in European immigrants who had lost everything. More recently, we have welcomed individuals from countries in the Middle East and South America.

Within a few days, you would receive your citizenship and be integrated into the system. I believe there are some initial advantages, but based on what I've heard, the expectation is that you'll need to become self-sufficient very quickly because the financial support diminishes rapidly.

Despite not having a community center or NGOs for that, the overall community would find out and help.

You can find out where I am by searching for the single country in the world that continues to uphold all post-World War II human rights.

My position to this policy changed when I encountered a refugee who had successfully integrated into the community.

He has lost his wife and two daughters and his only remaining daughter was all he had when he got here.

He rebuilt his life working his a* out to be able to provide to his daughter. We never know what people are going through.

> the expectation is that you'll need to become self-sufficient very quickly because the financial support diminishes rapidly

The US has this same expectation. It’s the long and short of what this reaction of pausing visas is about: bickering over how to make sure the expectation is being met during visa screening.

I don’t see anybody anywhere even remotely implying that hard working immigrants shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt and be allowed to make their own way in the US. I do see people rightly upset that when given the benefit of the doubt a Somali fraud ring setup to extract money from the welfare programs we’ve set up to provide children with education and generally people with healthcare runs rampant. Stopping that indeed involves more “public-charge” scrutiny during the visa process.

Hey. I am not judging. I just feel I have more emotions than facts about it and that's not how I like to be.

Can you tell me more about this Somali thing? I confess I googled and I saw a couple of cases, but maybe because I don't understand the benefits system i am not quite getting it.

Do you mean that they send people to live on benefit claims? Do they do that remotely? Are the benefits that good that they can live from it and still sustain a criminal organization? Are not the benefits not conditioned getting a job or something?

I'm an American who's lived in Europe for the past 20ish years.

Comparatively, the US is extremely good at 'integrating' immigrants for whatever reason they come (asylum, work, family reunification, etc). There are a lot of factors, but I'd say the biggest one is that the "American" identity is one of immigration and is generally more flexible than say, the Dutch or Norwegian identity. I'd also say the general lack of a safety net compared to more socialist countries mean you pretty much have to hit the ground running and work, which usually means learning English quickly and all of the social components that come with work.

The idea that there is an urgent need to protect the US from a significant number of people abusing the system who come via legal immigration (as is the case in this context) is, to me, pretty laughable. I would assume that any abuse in the system or strategic priority shifts (which I may or may not agree with) could easily be picked up through a more normal policy/procedure/training structure within the state department.

There doesn't appear to be a specific, recent event where a significant number of people were discovered to have gotten through some state department filter or loophole that needs to be IMMEDIATELY closed in the context of some large risk to the US.

I am not aware. What loophole do you mean? And what risk do you mean?

I am not being pedantic. I think I lack lots of context here.

Late reply.

I don't see any loopholes. There are immigration policies that guide state department employees through a process of deciding who gets a visa. Let's say, theoretically, that a particular visa was meant for one scenario... let's say allowing athletes to live and train in the US with no additional checks or limits based on country of origin. And then let's say that all the sudden this summer we saw the number of people receiving that visa go from 10k / year to 100k in a month.

That would be a scenario where you could say holy cow we need to put a pause on the visa application process because when we created this visa program or wrote the screening criteria we did not envision this at all. In this scenario you could, of course, just put a pause on this particular type of visa while you revisit the intent and criteria.

I was saying that I don't see any evidence for that at all. So any desire by the administration to change what kind of visas are given out, or what the criteria or thresholds should be for those visas, should be adjusted in the normal way of working and not via some huge pause on all visas.

> I'd also say the general lack of a safety net compared to more socialist countries mean you pretty much have to hit the ground running and work, which usually means learning English quickly and all of the social components that come with work.

Even before that, the US only attracts people who are at least willing to work.

I think there are different kind of safety nets. When economy is good in the US, credit is easy, interests are low and if you have a problem you can pay in the long run.

I think depending where in Europe is the same but you still have some other things that you pay as taxes.

On some other countries you pay for everything and sometimes you have it sometimes not.

It makes me feel that the levels of accessibility to the thing are about the same but they way the uncertainties of life can hit you are different.

There are the negative effects as well. There is all the incentives in the US for health to cost more or for people to do deals with pharmaceuticals or similar businesses.

In other countries a more general public policy is required to make things standardized.

About people only willing to work. I am 100% sure there people who are not willing to, but in the UK and France and Italy, the illegal immigrants cannot work, literally. They are not allowed. So what can they do?

Most of them needs to use fake accounts to get a gig job which certainly is more exploratory than a anything.

I was told that Brazil has a policy to integrate immigrants more similar to what Spain is doing now. The idea is that as soon as you get the safety of not being kicked out, which seems to be quite fast, you need to start working. Brazil does not have as many public funds available other countries in Europe, but to be honest, some of them have all the incentives for locals to not work as well.

Not saying it is right or wrong. In the UK if you go to a uni and start earning after a certain threshold, you need to start paying back what you spend, but now as the economy is bad it is likely to not have a related job that allows you to pay it back and live a normal life, so you might be better living on benefits because the other option is much worse. I think it is time for UK to reshape how to pay these bills and the thresholds so people can start working.(And maybe not offering support for random stuff too)

the Trump administration is ham fisted, performative, and ineffective in almost everything it does. but i agree with stopping and reversing the rapid demographic change in our country. even law abiding ones. i want to live in my culture and my country, not an international airport.

So here's the deal with the current admin:

The figureheads (Trump and others) are the least qualified populists imaginable, who have no business governing anything. They have zero ambition solving big problems, and have rather managed to get the US bogged down in a war with Iran, trade wars, and what have you. Trump is more concerned with the ballroom and the Kennedy center, than fixing anything of substance.

But working in the background, you have extremely goal oriented people trying to implement changes outlined in Project 2025.

So there are essentially two admins working in parallel.

On top of that, conservative media is working like a propaganda machine to filter what the MAGA base sees. Unpopular or head scratching news never make it to prime time, while the culture war nonsense is aired 24/7.

And frankly, Trump is not concerned what non-MAGA, or left leaning voters see. The current admin is concerned with convincing their base to keep voting for them, while doing everything in their power to make it harder or more chaotic for centrist and left leaning voters to vote.