3873

Yes, they should. But, even under the best of circumstances, the US immigration system takes 2+ years to process people. This is for rich white folks, from France, the UK, with graduate STEM degrees from top US colleges. Biden can’t fix immigration on his own, Congress has to fund it, and if even he had the money to double the immigration judges, immigration official etc. It would still take a long time to be hired and ramp up. Plus where would the government hire these people from?

I’m saying after the first hearing, once a person can show they are from a place like Venezuela, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, maybe even Central America, they should be given a short-term work visa.

3874

I thought that did happen - that while the case is pending they do get a temporary work visa? I thought that was part of the process?

3875

I know its been discussed/advocated but I believe it is the case you don’t get a visa until after asylum is granted.

This bill is pretty much exactly what I"m advocating for.

I think Biden could do this by executive action, but as labor lawyer I suspect you know better.

3876

I don’t know anything about federal labor law. But I could swear a temporary right to work was part of the asylum process while the case was pending.

3877

everyone declares victory

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307203225_5381958281853476_5662731526640277574_n1080×1920 91.3 KB

3878

Posted without comment. Err, except that one, and also the following comment: there was a 1 month baby in the party.

3879

Abbott and DeSantis are doing this right before an election in which they are candidates. The people of Texas and Florida have an opportunity to tell them how they feel about this, so let’s see what they say.

3880

I watched an interview with Mayor Adams, and he said that “we need give those waiting asylum hearings the right work,it was ridiculous that they couldn’t work for months and sometimes years.”

I’d be interested to see what you find, but I believe I’m right.

3881

According to Nolo Press, a temporary work permit is granted once the asylum seeker has waited for a decision for 365 days without a decision (Trump increased it to that level from 150 days).

So we were both right: there is a work permit but its not immediate.

Of course, there is an uglier reality here in that since so many bottom feeding employers will intentionally NOT verify work status, many people without authorized work status CAN work in the US, but only for relatively scummy employers, typically in very low paying jobs. And they end up in pretty legally vulnerable circumstances b/c they have to commit federal document fraud (using a false or invalid Social Security number, typically) in order to work.

It’s just a shitty system all the way around and we need comprehensive reform that combines a path to citizenship for folks who are already here, dramatically expedited asylum hearings, and strong enforcement of labor laws including mandatory verification of legal authorization to work. AND THEN we would still need to deal with the specific problem of the northern Central American countries which are causing hundreds of thousands of their own citizens to flee crime and bad economic conditions to the US. The problem being, more than half of those cases won’t quality for asylum in the US due to a lack of a threat of violence targeted by individual or group identity. Bad economic conditions and a high crime rate don’t count - US law requires some type of targeted threat such as ethnic cleansing, government persecution or active war operations targeting the localities of the refugees. (I’m paraphrasing but that’s the gist.)

3882

Of course, Trump increased it to 365. This does suggest Biden could drop it to a more reasonable number like 30 or 60 days by EO.

No one is arguing that systems is not badly broken. I have yet to hear a single immigrant, describe the process as anything but confusing and frustrating, and these folks are mostly the cream of the crop, with advanced degrees and good English. Shitty employers absolutely do exploit the undocumented worker which is why giving them documentation is so vital.

The US system hasn’t always been this broken. In 1956, when Andy Grove fled his native Hungary, he applied for asylum, with US officials at the refugee camps in late Oct and then in early Nov 56. By Jan 1957 he was on ship to New York,and enrolled in City College of New York and had a job by Feb. 1957. Nor was his treatment really unique, the US took in 30,000 refugees and virtually all 180,000 were resettled in 3 years in the west. All this was done with out computers, cellphones, and jet planes.

If it was up to me I’d open the borders but my opinion is not a popular one, and to be fair immigrants ain’t going to take my job. Central Americans are a tough case, cause lots of folks want to come to America for the economic opportunity from all over the world. However, for places like Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and I’d say Venezuela, the presumption should be that qualify for asylum, and the burden should on the government to show they don’t qualify. This is what we basically have done for Cuban refugee for most of the last 60 years. If you are fleeing communist you can come to America. The system worked pretty damn well, America got Sergi Brin, and Andy Grove as well as plenty of hard working regular folks.

3883

Actually the article said it was a regulatory change and that actually requires a process that takes time and can be challenged in court. If you recall, several Trump era regulatory changes were challenged and delayed or prevented so Biden probably can’t just zip the number down by EO as you suggest. I don’t know why they haven’t at least tried to move back to the 150 number instead of 365 although perhaps Biden’s bigger idea is to reform the system such that cases don’t take so long. However, that requires funding and other Congress-level laws (probably) so…

3884

One more thing: a cynical leftist would point out this is a classic example of what’s wrong with America: asylum seekers can work illegally in low wage jobs fairly easily but making it easier for them to work in better paying jobs seems to be impossible for our system. So our system creates competition for low wage jobs but provides protectionism for the middle class. Asylum seekers get forced into low wage jobs which is great for low wage employers but shitty for everyone else. America!

3885

Ken Burns latest the US and the Holocaust is as almost as much about immigration and the Holocaust. It is not just America that is anti-refugee and anti-immigrant.

3886

of course. it’s a two tier labor system. In New York it is very obvious. You can ask people openly if they got papers and they will tell you if you’re also an immigrant, they know you won’t snitch. Immigrants help power cheap kitchens, construction, food delivery.

I don’t know enough about labor history but I fear that racial animosity has been behind many labor movements which is… uncomfortable to reconcile as a leftist. The easy and lazy way is just to claim that’s how “they” control the masses, by division. The 1965+ immigration quotas changed it to 2% per country which assures no one country will be the majority. Mexico is an exception because the contiguous land border makes it relatively cheap to enter.

As for Strollen’s point on admitting war refugees I fear that is a distraction. Most migrants want to come in for economic reasons because they are fucking poor and they like to eat everyday. That’s the same reason most Europeans did when they came and took the land from the Indians. As humans we are selfish and the instinct is not to want to share unless you feel like you have enough for yourself. (it’s probably more accurate to claim that large interests benefit from the status quo, and conspirational if you try to claim they actively caused the clusterfuck we have now)

3887

An Ecuadorian friend of mine, a chef, took a long tourist tour of the northeast US earlier this year. He has a Dutch passport so it was easy for him to go as a tourist, while not giving him any right to work. But once he was there, and hooked up with his Ecuadorian friends and family, they found him a job working in the kitchen of a restaurant. He said the kitchen he worked in was effectively in another space next to the restaurant kitchen but separate from it, to create some kind of deniability that the people working in that separate kitchen were necessarily associated with the restaurant, and to make it easier to flee in the unlikely event that the official kitchen was raided. He worked the whole time he was there on his tourist visa, probably almost 90 days. They paid him in cash and everyone was happy, except the (imaginary?) American whose job he stole.

3888
3889

Ain’t nothing gonna happen

3890

Yup. Remember all those Sheriffs who promised to get to the bottom of Obama’s birth certificate?

3891

Sheriffs are politically elected. Which has been awful in our partisan times.

3892