Immigration in the US

I believe the current cap on total immigration visas is 675,000 per year. It’s set by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which has been amended many times over the years.

From the state department.

Immediate Relative Immigrant Visas (Unlimited): These visa types are based on a close family relationship with a United States (U.S.) citizen described as an Immediate Relative (IR). The number of immigrants in these categories is not limited each fiscal year. Immediate relative visa types include:

IR-1: Spouse of a U.S. Citizen - Learn More
IR-2: Unmarried Child Under 21 Years of Age of a U.S. Citizen
IR-3: Orphan adopted abroad by a U.S. Citizen - Learn More
IR-4: Orphan to be adopted in the U.S. by a U.S. citizen - Learn More
IR-5: Parent of a U.S. Citizen who is at least 21 years old
Family Preference Immigrant Visas (Limited): These visa types are for specific, more distant, family relationships with a U.S. citizen and some specified relationships with a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR). There are fiscal year numerical limitations on family preference immigrants, shown at the end of each category. The family preference categories are:

Family First Preference (F1): Unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens, and their minor children, if any. (23,400)
Family Second Preference (F2): Spouses, minor children, and unmarried sons and daughters (age 21 and over) of LPRs. At least seventy-seven percent of all visas available for this category will go to the spouses and children; the remainder is allocated to unmarried sons and daughters. (114,200)
Family Third Preference (F3): Married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens, and their spouses and minor children. (23,400)
Family Fourth Preference (F4): Brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens, and their spouses and minor children, provided the U.S. citizens are at least 21 years of age. (65,000)

I personally would rather increase the number of legal immigrants, but if the number of immigrants is fixed, giving preference to people with desirable skills seems preferable to the family preference category.

On the issue of the 1980s amnesty, first my memory was faulty as the date: it was 1986, not 1988. Here’s the basic Wikipedia entry Please note this wiki entry is very poor by Wikipedia standards IMO. It’s “analysis” is quite poor. However it does give the legislative history and various links.

Here is an Atlantic article that is fairly good.

The basic idea is that this Act was a bipartisan bill supported by and signed by Ronald Reagan. It was based on a 2-part concept of providing a path to citizenship for those already here and increasing enforcement at both the border and and at the employer level. The idea was to legalize the existing population and prevent or dramatically reduce illegal immigration going forward. Sound familiar? Yeah. In theory, by legalizing those already here and preventing the future flow this law was intended to reduce the population of unauthorized immigrants by a large fraction.

Problem is, it failed miserably on the enforcement side. The total number of people who were here illegaly at the time was in the 3 million range and of those 2.7 million received amnesty. That should have brought the number of unauthorized residents to a very low but now 30 years later we have 10-12 million unauthorized immigrants. The reason for the failure is that the employer level enforcement was ridden with loopholes as I’ve described above such that it didn’t prevent illegal employment. In fact, illegal employment went UP from around 2-3 million in 1986 to around 10-11 million now.

The right wing considers this proof that amnesty never works and that any amnesty is a travesty. The hard right base also considers this a vast sellout by the GOP elite (and it was).

It is the kernel of factual reality around which the racism and xenophobia of the far right have crystallized to create our current scenario where the far right wants to deport all 11 million people RIGHT NOW, including all 1.8 million Dreamers, and where the far right is opposed to any amnesty evar.

It’s actually something worth learning about as it’s a good example of a well-intentioned, bipartisan law that failed miserably to achieve its purpose, due IMO to very intentional loophole creation over time, as well as laughably lax enforcement and perennial under-funding.


I’m sure @Malathor as a “libertarian” will be shocked and incensed enough about such a huge government overreach that he will denounce the current administration and call for radical change.

Oh wait, no, tax cuts, so nothing else matters.

“Tax cuts, gunslinger… but not for you.”

So build the wall like the California High Speed train? Just start building and figure out later how you are going to pay for it, where you are going to put it and whether it will actually be needed or not.

By the way, the 30 miles or so they have started in Central California is already way over budget.

but, the wall…

Does anyone have a way to bring a meteor down ASAP? We need it.

Right? When I started that video, I thought “Surely the people in this video will act decent in a face-to-face conversation?” I was wrong. I didn’t expect any outright conversions, but I assumed Trump supporters wouldn’t openly be shitty to Dreamers.

Look, the 2008 financial crisis was rough on my country, and things haven’t been going great, but we’re doing better now.

We won the Euro. And Eurovision. The economy is picking up. And sure, nearly 80 people died in fires this last year when half the country burned down, so, there’s room for improvement.

What I’m getting at is make it a small meteor. Localized. :D

LOL, nice.

I will put in a good word for the rest of the world when I find someone who can work the meteors.

Can they be small, directed meteors?

Where’s Melf when you need him?

FYI there’s no story, it’s just supposed to be a photo.

“ICE Agents Hurl Pregnant Immigrant Over Mexican Border To Prevent Birth On U.S. Soil”

A little levity in these trying times.

It’s pretty damn scary to me that I didn’t realize the headline was fake until I saw the site. Would anyone really be surprised if this happened?

Yes. The GOP cares about them until they’re born. If it read ICE hurls mom with newborn baby over the wall that would be more believable.

I feel like the authors of this piece read A Modest Proposal and didn’t realize it was satire.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/13/immigration-visas-economics-216968

Here’s how the program would work: Imagine a woman named Mary Turner, who lives in Wheeling, West Virginia. She was recently laid off from a chicken-processing plant and makes ends meet by walking and taking care of her neighbors’ pets. Mary could expand her little business by hiring some workers, but no one in the area would accept a wage she can afford. Mary goes online—to a new kind of international gig economy website, a Fiverr for immigrants—and applies to sponsor a migrant. She enters information about what she needs: someone with rudimentary English skills, no criminal record and an affection for animals. She offers a room in her basement, meals and $5 an hour. (Sponsors under this program would be exempt from paying minimum wage.) The website offers Mary some matches—people living in foreign countries who would like to spend some time in the United States and earn some money. After some back and forth, Mary interviews a woman named Sofia who lives in Paraguay.

Many people will worry that the Sofias of the world would be exploited by their sponsors. But all health and safety laws would apply to them, and periodic inspections could be undertaken (as exist for the J-1 au pair program, where admittedly occasional exploitation also occurs). Yes, Mary would be able to pay Sofia less than the minimum wage, but even at $5 an hour, Sofia would earn many times what she earns on a farm in Paraguay. Sofia would be free to leave at any time if she did not like the conditions of her employment. Effectively, this system allows the benefits of exchange in international labor that are permitted by online labor markets like Fiverr and Amazon Mechanical Turk to extend to a much broader range of tasks that need to be done in person, from dog walking to construction work.

Yes I see now way this could be exploited with slave like conditions.

Jesus this is rancid.