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At 1/3 of the cost, it's rather irrelevant to those who do nothing but stare at the bottom line all damn day long.

With those kinds of demonstrated cost savings measures, even system outages perpetuated by a lack of skills are somehow justified.

This is the BS part of the H1B Fraud that is going on. If you look up the rules around H1-B one of them is:

You must be paid at least the actual or prevailing wage for your occupation, whichever is higher.

If this was being done legally, there would be no advantage to displacing the US workers; it would only be used for skills in short supply as it was intended. This law is being totally subverted by Infosys, Tata, WiPro and everyone of their customers that uses such replacements. I think that they would qualify for prosecution under RICO statutes.

If, for example, Trump follows through with his promise to deport all illegal residents, the fourteen year old sister of a friend of mine will lose her mother. She doesn't have Mexican citizenship, and her mother doesn't have U.S. citizenship.

I didn't (and don't) support Trump. But presumably she's in this position because her parents entered the U.S. illegally and she was born in the U.S., thus granting her U.S. citizenship by birth? The remedy in her case is:

• For her parents to fill out the paperwork to give her Mexican citizenship. Children born of a Mexican parent while outside of Mexico automatically qualify for Mexican citizenship.
• Or if the friend of yours is an older sibling and over 21, for her to fill out a I-130 Petition for Alien Relative visa for the mother, which is the first step to getting a Green Card and eventual citizenship.

These things have a procedure you're supposed to follow before you're supposed to enter the country. Just because she finds herself screwed because she (or her parents) tried to cheat and violated that procedure doesn't entitle her to a sympathy waiver when others are all required to follow the same legal procedure. It's disingenuous to try to blame the system or Trump for being cruel to her situation, when her situation is entirely her parents' creation.

Nearly my entire extended family was granted green cards and eventually U.S. citizenship via the latter process. Took a few years, but this is one of the more accessible means of obtaining a green card. She's fortunate that she even has U.S. citizenship. The U.S. is one of the few countries which grants citizenship just because you happen to be born on U.S. soil. Yes her mother will have to leave the U.S. while she waits for the visa application to be processed. No that is not the fault of the U.S., since she wasn't supposed to be in the country in the first place. Immigration is a stickler about this - even U.S. citizens who get married and apply for their spouse to get citizenship are required to have the spouse first leave the country and wait until the spouse visa application is approved.

I don't have a problem with illegal immigrants as people. One of the hardest workers I've ever met turned out to be in the country illegally. But it makes little sense to have more lenient rules for obtaining citizenship for people who entered the country illegally, than for people trying to enter the country legally and following the proper procedure. That would destroy any motivation to even try to follow the legal procedure.

H1-Bs require that no one capable can be found.

Well, and in this case, the job is to gather requirements and perform training in order to facilitate outsourcing to India. Obviously, the current UCSF IT staff are not well versed in that, are they.

Nice bit of spin. The job is whatever job the H1-B will be doing. So, do they have people in the school capable of doing those jobs? Apparently they do, as they have current non H1-B employees doing those jobs and I assume that UCSF is also providing a program in this area training new people to do them as well.

H1-Bs are not temporary by the definition of temporary workers.

The H-1B visa defines temporary workers. So, wrong again.

But, H1-Bs meet all the other requirements of Permanent employees, regular employees or the directly employed work for an employer and are paid directly by that employer. In addition to their wages, they often receive benefits like subsidized health care, paid vacations, holidays, sick time, or contributions to a retirement plan. Permanent employees are often eligible to switch job positions within their companies. The only difference between H1-Bs and a "permanent employee" that I have seen is that they are only permitted to stay in country for 'x' amount of time, and they're usually paid significantly less. Regarding retirement, they are obviously not able to partake of government involved plans like 401Ks nor IRAs. A bit of legalese or semantic hand-waving on a document does not change the facts. Neither the job nor the employment terms are temporary. However, the visa allowing them to stay in country is temporary. I'd even argue that most H1-B jobs in IT are more permanent than the actual "permanent" jobs some of us get hired into.

That may be, although since the labor certifications are issued by the federal government, Obama must be complicit in that.

However, your statement that it "only requires a minimum salary of 60K" is incorrect.

Any more "dog poop" you want to produce?

There's definitely a lot of stink all over the federal government regarding this program. Personally I do not feel we need an H1-B program at all. If a skill set is needed, I'm sure we can get it either domestically or promote that skill set for people actually wanting to immigrate. But that would revert the current immigration policy back to that in the 70s and that's a whole different can of worms.

My statement about 60K was in relation to computer / network support people who we are discussing in this thread.

H1-Bs require that no one capable can be found.

Well, and in this case, the job is to gather requirements and perform training in order to facilitate outsourcing to India. Obviously, the current UCSF IT staff are not well versed in that, are they.

You just stated that they either have a whole school of them, or, rightly so, they should be shut down.

No, I didn't.

H1-Bs are not temporary by the definition of temporary workers.

The H-1B visa defines temporary workers. So, wrong again.

As for the the INA clause you cite, H1-B abusing companies regularly hand that clause out for their dog walkers to pick up poop with.

That may be, although since the labor certifications are issued by the federal government, Obama must be complicit in that.

However, your statement that it "only requires a minimum salary of 60K" is incorrect.

Any more "dog poop" you want to produce?

Please. "My religion is that Bruce Perens must die." Does that mean I'm now immune from prosecution if I manage to hunt you down?

There are numerous precedents for the idea that if a regulation isn't specifically aimed at religion, you can't use the cover of religion to claim exemption from it.

Since we already have an oath of citizenship requiring that one support the constitution, this isn't a terribly radical thing I'm proposing here. I'm merely saying that this provision should be given some eyes and some teeth. If you don't support the constitution, including the first amendment, then you don't get to become a citizen, period. "But my religion doesn't allow me to grant other people religious liberty and/or freedom of speech and/or freedom of the press!" is not a valid excuse.

Every other country that I'm aware of requires respect for its laws and/or integration with its culture as a prerequisite for citizenship. Even with the most tortured readings, the first amendment of our constitution does not indicate that we are completely unable to examine the beliefs of prospective citizens. Not their religious beliefs, just their beliefs about terrestrial matters. If they choose to base those beliefs on ancient books of nonsense, that's not our concern.

I would think it self-evident, but OK. From here you can see that H1B candidates all but certainly have at least a bachelor's degree.

Requirement 2 - Your job must qualify as a specialty occupation by meeting one of the following criteria:

• A bachelor’s degree or higher degree or its equivalent is normally the minimum requirement for the particular position;
• The degree requirement is common for this position in the industry, or the job is so complex or unique that it can only be performed by someone with at least a bachelor's degree in a field related to the position;
• The employer normally requires a degree or its equivalent for the position; or
• The nature of the specific duties is so specialized and complex that the knowledge required to perform the duties is usually associated with the attainment of a bachelor's or higher degree.

So that means that they have a bachelors or higher at a percentage of near 100%. Compare that to the US population at large, which has a rate of around 32%. They are objectively more educated than the US population at large.

Intelligence? It might be more speculative. But, controversy recognized, there does appear to be a correlation between education and cognitive skills.

Huh? H1-Bs aren't citizens and can't vote. It's only when you get citizenship that you can vote. The number of new citizens nationally is only in the mid hundreds of thousands each year, so not enough to impact elections. (source: https://www.uscis.gov/archive/...)

Liberal Democrats (at least all that I know, and I live in Austin, so that's pretty much everyone I know) tend to support immigration for humanitarian, not selfish reasons.

-Chris

No, the data is supposedly already collected: the question is on the visa form.

Of course, that could be problematic: the visa data is not always complete and accurate. The visa form also asks for the job title that the applicant is to fill. Reading through the 2014 USCIS report, one finds on p. 12 that

In some instances a petitioner will leave the beneficiary’s job code blank, which we report here as “Occupation unknown”. This does not mean, however, that the position is not a “specialized occupation”.

Beyond the fact that whoever compiled this report uses British punctuation (period outside quotation marks), this tells us that a visa application does not have to be complete and accurate in order to win approval. In fact, almost all petitions are approved. Of them, 70% are for Indians, and two-thirds for computer-related work. Education apparently isn't that big a deal: 45% have a BS or BA degree, 43% a MS or MA; less than 10% have a PhD.

It's absolutely amazing to me that India, where millions of people still don't have electricity, still manages to produce skilled workers who can fill jobs that no American candidate can, and that half of these Indian workers have those skills with only a BS or BA. Further, apparently only India can produce these skilled workers, since 70% of all the H1Bs go to Indians.

That, or the H1B is a pipeline for Indian managers to hire their college buddies from back home.

cops are prohibited from asking about anyone's immigration status, unless they have already been arrested for other reasons

As it should be. No cop should be requesting information unless they have a valid law enforcement interaction with you and looking like a crook is not valid.

Republicans want to keep them around as a wedge issue that they can exploit

Well, that and cheap labor. In fact, many democrats like the idea of cheap labor too.

This is why things like E-verify is important. It gives penalties to employers who attempt to exploit illegal immigrants. You still have the problem of criminals doing day labor while hiding from capture but at least they aren't doing more criminal things in their attempts to survive.

The article lists some red flags that should have been raised (two addresses listed as being active, the IRS getting W2 forms from two employers that weren't even near each other, etc). In my experience, though, companies and government agencies don't mind missing red flags. Red flags mean that someone has to put in extra effort to resolve the issue. Ignoring the red flag, though, means that you continue doing what you're doing and it becomes someone else's problem.

There's a more sinister reason behind it. A huge chunk of W2s under duplicate SSNs are due to illegal immigrants using a fake SSN to work. You can't just make up any number - the IRS will reject that. So (presumably) they or someone they hire gets a real person's SSN, and the illegal immigrant adopts that person's name, identity, and SSN. "Fixing" this problem means creating a sure-fire way to prevent illegal immigrants from working in the country, so nothing is done about it. One party doesn't want to fix it because they want to make these people citizens so they'll vote for that party. An influential fraction of the other party doesn't want to fix it because they want these people to remain as a source of cheap labor.

I used to do the accounting at a company which I'm pretty sure had a not-insignificant number of illegal immigrants. Employers are only allowed to ask potential employees for certain pieces of ID, and the most common one is the Social Security Card. The government has no system by which an employer can verify a SSN matches other info the applicant provides, so all you can do is look at it and see if it seems real (it's super-easy to fake), make a photocopy of it, and keep it in the employee's file. If INS ever comes knocking, that's your proof that you've done your due diligence. Anyway, about a month or two after I completed everyone's W2s, I got a stack of letters from the IRS about "irregularities" with the W2s. Some careful reading between the lines and some web research turned up that these letters are commonly generated when two W2s are issued for the same person whose name and SSN match but other details (like address) differ. As an employer, you just sign saying that the employee swears that that's their real SSN, mail it back, and it becomes the government's problem. I'd like to do more as an employer, but my job is running a company, not immigration enforcement. The government doesn't even provide me with tools to verify it anyway. And the potential liability for incorrectly ratting someone out as illegal is huge.

I worked on the most recent iteration of this ( the second successful version) if anyone has a real questions about it (that I can actually answer). One thing is it wasn't just 1 large shit of an IT project. About 3 full architectures were completely scrapped and MANY people fired. IBM itself were assholes who architected an IT project to include as many of their licensed middleware solutions as possible...then that failed miserably too and ...back to the drawing board. There was one moderately successful version of it that was migrated off of. This is the current reference to the project: http://www.uscis.gov/uscis-eli... (and the current design supports about a dozen forms and counting ).

Blah, blah, blah. Please look at page 6 on this link http://www.uscis.gov/sites/def... You're right, it's not every on, but it was 64% in 2012.

The US has a similar plan, the EB-5 visa program, but you only need to invest $1 million to get your green card.

I say, if we're going to let people bribe their way to the front of the immigration line, we should get top dollar for it. $15 million sounds about right, plus $2 million paid directly to the government, and used to hire more immigration workers to clear the ludicrous immigration backlog for everyone else.

*Especially* since a good chunk of those buying green cards are Chinese businessmen and government officials fleeing corruption charges in China: if we're going to be complicit in fraud, I want a bigger piece of the action.

Oh, and by the way, ever notice that Americans who're furious about people "skipping the line" in the immigration process never complain about this program? Seriously the only mention I can find over on Fox News is concern that Mexicans are doing it, despite the fact that for every Mexican EB-5 visa applicant, there are 200 Chinese.

That may or may not be factually correct, but irrelevant.

van Rossum easily qualifies for an O-1 visa.

It most certainly is not. A passport is proof of nationality, not citizenship - two very different legal concepts.

http://www.uscis.gov/us-citize... "Your U.S. passport is your best proof of U.S. citizenship."

You might want to convince the governments of the world that they are all wrong and you are right.

There are many people right now who, for instance, are US nationals but not citizens. They have US passports but do not have the rights of a citizen i.e. they can't vote, participate in elections, etc.

Yeah, they are called felons. They are citizens, just not humans anymore.

Adjustment of status is the process by which an eligible individual already in the United States can get permanent resident status (a green card) without having to return to their home country to complete visa processing.

and also

Employment based categories most often require the intending U.S. employer to file a Form I-140, Petition for Alien Worker, for you.

After that, you apparently file form I-485 for yourself.

I think employers helping their existing H1-B's to obtain permanent resident status would show that they're not interested in the extra negotiating power the employee's non-resident status gives the employer. OTOH if they're not willing to help their current H1-B employees obtain permanent resident status, but they still petition for more H1-B's, this shows legislators clearly that they consider lack of residence as desirable in an employee.

Yep.

Of the H-1B petitions approved in FY 2012, 64 percent reported that the beneficiary was born in India. The second most prevalent country of birth of H-1B beneficiaries was the People’s Republic of China, representing 8 percent of all beneficiaries.

http://www.uscis.gov/sites/def...

This article lists some H-1B employer fees. Let's increase that by $50,000 per year per "guest" employee. That should cut down on the number of employees who are brought here in order to save on wages.

However, some non-American hiring managers will want to hire only people from their own countries, because of feelings of patriotism for their countries. So we should have a law that states that "guest" hiring managers must hire at least 50% Americans, and that each year, the lowest starting salary of Americans that he/she hires must be higher than the highest starting salary of the non-Americans that he/she hires.

A legal resident is considered a US Person and has the same rights (and obligations) of a Citizen minus:
- The ability to vote in elections
- Working at some jobs that require citizenship (many federal/state)
- Certain benefits like social security (although they have to pay into it regardless)

More info here.

Also ironically, if the legal immigrant in between 18-25 and male he would have to register with the selective service and could be drafted into war should congress and the president authorize it.

Learn

If there's any question about their age, they present the certificate.

And how do you validate the certificate if there is no record of its existence?

Forget certificates. How about a driver's license or state-issued non-driver ID? Of course not. Those are never used for age verification. Sigh.

It is really difficult. Exceedingly so. Because business owners aren't required to verify that someone is allowed to work in the US, so as not to run afoul of the IRS.

And of course these places have no way to verify the age of anyone who comes into their club. It's not like people are ever asked to prove their age to enter an establishment that serves alcohol, which most of these clubs do.

Useless registration rules to raise barriers to getting into this kind of work. Our Puritan forbears would be proud.

H1B is being abused and they know it. It was meant for 1-2 month gigs and they leave. Instead its turned into 6 year stints

Almost true. While you are correct that the H1-B visa in itself is limited to a 6 year maximum stay, the visa can be renewed indefinitely if the holder is the beneficiary of an approved I-140 petition in the 5th year. This means that any H1-B holder can stay on that H1-B for a long time as long as they find someone willing to sponsor their greencard, and they have about 4 years -in the US- to find them.

Reason for this is that there is disconnect between the amount of H1-B visas (which are not limited per country) and amount of greencards (which are limited per country). We all know which country I'm talking about: the folks from India, however you may feel about their presence, are hitting this the most: For each EB category (EB1, EB2, EB3 in general), there are 265 greencards available per month. That's a little over 9500 per year. On the other side is the number of H1-B (and L-1) visa that get allocated to workers chargeable to India. Just for H1-B, that number comes close to 170,000 just for FY2012 (source). Then there are the L1 visa holders, which are uncapped.

So, you end up having ~10k greencards, vs ~200k influx, just for India alone. This means that there is a huge waiting list for people with approved I-140s, but not eligible to file for AOS. What are you going to do with them? Sent them back? Politics chose to let them stay by renewing their H1-B every 1 to 3 years, even after the 6th year.

I see. Thanks for the correction.

Anyway, you could read more on possibility of staying without being sent back on http://www.uscis.gov/tools/omb... which said that the person may be granted a time period to stay and find a new job if the person files I129 before the termination notice. Also, the 10-day grace period is from termination by expiring employment time period.

H1B caps are documented and are public record. So are salaries.

Well there's an authority to base your response upon! I especially like the links to payday loans and making sure your H1B sponsor treats you properly. I missed the part where it actually backs up a single thing you assert since the press release it references is not linked.

http://www.uscis.gov/archive/a...

Government press release you could have googled yourself. Feel free to continue whining that nothing is ever enforced in this area of law.

I don't see anything here that would indicate such a loophole... http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-...

Perhaps it's time to take a page from one of these books, and apply the same restrictions on a state-wide level, rather than bitching about San Francisco in particular, since San Francisco has no legal ability to regulate foreign ownership.

Bigotry is so interesting. Here, we go from a bunch of people wanting cheap rent to foreigners bad without any logical connection between the two.

You reordered the sentence to put the conclusion before the supporting evidence, so of course it sounds bigoted; that was pretty clearly your intent, when you went out of your way to edit the markup language so you could take those sentences out of order.

Out of 6 offers I made on houses in San Francisco - houses I fully intended to live in, not merely hold as investments or use as rental properties or "flip" in the new real estate bubble - all six were bid out by over 25% at the last second by all cash offers from foreign investors.

Was the property at that 25% premium still a good investment? If so, then perhaps you should bid more next time or snipe those auctions just like the pros did. If not, then a foreign investor just donated to the US economy. Send him a thank you letter.

Was it worth another 25%, and the extra effort to make an all-cash offer? It depends... there are three dfferent ways of looking at the word "investment" in this context:

(1) As a place to live... definitely "no"; the house was priced about market value to begin with, and all the bids were coming in close to that by 1-2%; certainly nothing close to a 25% premium, until the last minute.

(2) As a property intended to be held for ~5 years to appreciate, and then flipped as an actual investment property? It's very iffy. It depends on whether you believe that the current speculation bubble in San Francisco is the result of an actual depressed valuation, or whether you believe it's being driven by external influences (as I do). Certainly, we are not seeing an upswing in actual owner occupied homes, which means that it is in fact an investment bubble. If you believe the bubble will last that long, then yes.

(3) As a foreign investor using a purchase in excess of $500,000 to qualify under the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program as a fast track means of getting a green card? Clearly, it's a great investment. It's half the cost of the in excess of $1,000,000 that they'd have to invest otherwise. See http://www.uscis.gov/i-526 "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services form I-526, Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur".

As the CNN article says, four states accounted for 58% of all foreign sales: 23% Florida, 17% California, 9% Arizona, 9% Texas. See the CNN article here: http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/0... It's interesting that these are also the states with currently accelerating "recovery" in the real estate market.

These two have nothing to do with the US government. Having to prove your citizenship to get a job is a reaction by the market to the number of non US citizens applying for jobs in the US. Two, Canada is a fucking sovereign country and have every fucking right to ask for your passport if you aren't a citizen. Do you think it's acceptable for Mexicans or Dominicans to enter the US without a passport?

I was misinformed about why we suddenly need a passport to go to Canada. I was previously misinformed -- heard about the new requirement as assumed the policy originated in my police state, not theirs. What offends me is that the trust their government previously extended me has been revoked -- I fully expect to show a passport when going to Europe or Asia. Now that I know it's Canada's fault, to hell with 'em, I'll just cancel that trip to Niagra Falls. To answer your question, yes, I do think it's acceptable for citizens of Mexico to visit the US for short periods without showing a passport. But I don't set policy at the border (if I did, things would be quite different).

As to your first point, you must never have taken a job in the US, or you would know from the proof-of-citizenship form that it has a big-ass U.S. Department of Homeland Security logo on it and has to be submitted to the Customs and Immigration Service. Employers make you fill out that form because they're required to by Federal law, as it also says on the form. So you're obviously talking out your ass on that one.

I can confirm that "valid work permit" includes verifiable citizens. There's a particular federal form, the I-9, available at http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/form/i-9.pdf, that details the identification needed to verify legal employability. Proof of citizenship is one of the acceptable types of proof.

"resident aliens" to use the US governments description have a right to enter the US.

Not exactly.

What they have is permission, that can be revoked (along with their resident status) by CIS.
Rights tend to be more absolute.

This actual study itself has at least one very good point that may not be obvious to people: our leadership's drive to promote the idea of a STEM shortage is primarily to justify guestworkers and allow them to add provisions like OPT-STEM extensions. Don't get me wrong, there is a sort of shadow brain drain war going on here that for a long time the West had easily been winning. UK, Germany, USA, etc had been sucking up the talent from India, China, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, you name it we took the brightest from it. And it was really really easy. And now Western leaders are kind of getting uncomfortable because, well, it's not really working in our favor anymore. I care that our politicians are being deceiving about this concept but I don't care about the "taking our jobs." In fact, I'm one of those meritocratic boogeymen that thinks our borders should be open with nothing more than a background check into your criminal record before you're granted entrance to the United States. Sure, some other stuff would need to change but that's an entirely different argument I'm not going to get into.

The main point of this study, however, is what the Post picked up on and is being reiterated: there is no shortage of STEM workers here in the US. And while that's likely true, the study (though comprehensive) doesn't really seem to ever step up to the plate and look at STEM versus non-STEM in the cases of employability and what those industries do for our GDP. Our leaders like Obama are operating on the assumption that a surplus in STEM workers is better than a perfectly equalized workforce with zero unemployment. They're not going to say that but my guess is that they're getting uneasy that China is mandating how many STEM workers it will produce and limiting the number of liberal arts degrees. The West is now uneasy that they might start losing the STEM war and they're trying to figure out how to scare their populations into letting them selectively brain drain other countries. A fake "massive shortage of STEM workers" is pretty much their only card so far.

My sister-in-law has been living in the United States for the past six years

Path to US Citizenship

She should be applying for citizenship already, it only requires 5 years of holding a Green Card, so she should already be set.

Easy, Your aquientaces didn't do any research is their fault. There is this one form called Adjustment of status that you can use to stay in USA when you marry a citizen. If that does not work legally divorce and have the person leave the country and apply for a fiance visa Then you can marry and do the adjustment again. To bring a family member, friend or whoever as a visitor a citizen resident you need to fill out an affidavit of support I have even brought people from cuba this way to come and visit me. Bringing Cuban visitors is good, they are legally allowed to bring cigars and rum. I am not a lawyer but all the information is in the goverment site and all it requires is some reading.

Easy, Your aquientaces didn't do any research is their fault. There is this one form called Adjustment of status that you can use to stay in USA when you marry a citizen. If that does not work legally divorce and have the person leave the country and apply for a fiance visa Then you can marry and do the adjustment again. To bring a family member, friend or whoever as a visitor a citizen resident you need to fill out an affidavit of support I have even brought people from cuba this way to come and visit me. Bringing Cuban visitors is good, they are legally allowed to bring cigars and rum. I am not a lawyer but all the information is in the goverment site and all it requires is some reading.

Easy, Your aquientaces didn't do any research is their fault. There is this one form called Adjustment of status that you can use to stay in USA when you marry a citizen. If that does not work legally divorce and have the person leave the country and apply for a fiance visa Then you can marry and do the adjustment again. To bring a family member, friend or whoever as a visitor a citizen resident you need to fill out an affidavit of support I have even brought people from cuba this way to come and visit me. Bringing Cuban visitors is good, they are legally allowed to bring cigars and rum. I am not a lawyer but all the information is in the goverment site and all it requires is some reading.

Normally I'd agree with that sentiment, but there's a point where the publishing requirement becomes such a burden that it gets in the way of the research, or prevents it altogether. What qualifies as research? You opened a spreadsheet today and had it calculate the average of a series of numbers? Sorry, now you have to write a report about why you did that research, your results, and what they mean. And then someone has to review it. And you have to submit a form certifying that you did your mandated report. And someone has to read those and put together a report on the compliance rates of every agency. And then they have to publish that.

We're talking about the federal government, an entity that adds an extra page to a four-page form so it can print its congressionally-mandated one-paragraph statement about its compliance with the "Paperwork Reduction Act," which actually increases the amount of paperwork in the process. There has to be a threshold. Besides, $100 million doesn't buy as much as you'd think when hammers cost $436, pliers cost $748 and toilet seats cost $640.

We're still missing Kindle-like screens that can display text without beaming your eyes with light.

Don't you mean Kindle-like devices that can delete documents without your permission when the "owner" of that document doesn't want you to have it anymore?

Reduced paper in the office is fine, but taking paper away takes control and accountability away.

But even "paperwork reduction" is often counterproductive. My favorite example of this is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, which every employer in the U.S. must fill out when hiring a new employee. It contains 1 page that actually needs to be filled out, 3 pages of instructions, and 1 page (page #3) that is 80% blank and contains absolutely nothing but a brief boilerplate statement that is mandated by the "Paperwork Reduction Act."

Dipshit, lack of a treaty doesn't oblige ANY action, or any INACTION, on either country's part. Before treaties were invented, countries negotiated ALL international issues through diplomacy, and when diplomacy failed, force of arms. Even with a treaty in effect, a country can choose to disregard the terms of that treaty, though sanctions and possible military action could result from that failure.

You seem to think that sovereign countries are bound to behave in certain ways by the lack of a treaty. They are not. A treaty obligates them (insofar as they are willing to honor its terms), but lack of a treaty creates no obligation - if there's no treaty obliging them to act in a certain fashion, they can do whatever they want, and negotiate whatever terms they want, with their neighbors.

As far as this statement:

It is NOT POSSIBLE for a country to deport you to somewhere you are not a citizen.

Perhaps you're the one who needs to do a bit more reading. I'd suggest starting with the US Immigration and Nationality Act, specifically, Act 241, which states (emphasis below added to highlight relevant portions):

(b) Countries to Which Aliens May Be Removed.-
(1) Aliens arriving at the United States. - Subject to paragraph (3)-
(A) In general.-Except as provided by subparagraphs (B) and (C), an alien who arrives at the United States and with respect to whom proceedings under section 240 were initiated at the time of such alien's arrival shall be removed to the country in which the alien boarded the vessel or aircraft on which the alien arrived in the United States.
(B) Travel from contiguous territory.-If the alien boarded the vessel or aircraft on which the alien arrived in the United States in a foreign territory contiguous to the United States, an island adjacent to the United States, or an island adjacent to a foreign territory contiguous to the United States, and the alien is not a native, citizen, subject, or national of, or does not reside in, the territory or island, removal shall be to the country in which the alien boarded the vessel that transported the alien to the territory or island.
(C) Alternative countries.-If the government of the country designated in subparagraph (A) or (B) is unwilling to accept the alien into that country's territory, removal shall be to any of the following countries, as directed by the Attorney General:
(i) The country of which the alien is a citizen, subject, or national.
(ii) The country in which the alien was born.
(iii) The country in which the alien has a residence.
(iv) A country with a government that will accept the alien into the country's territory if removal to each country described in a previous clause of this subparagraph is impracticable, inadvisable, or impossible.

The law only gets to "country of which the alien is a citizen, subject, or national" if Clauses A & B are unable to be satisfied because the government of the country where the traveler boarded the vessel to the US refuses to accept the deportee. Assuming Guatemala's laws work in similar fashion, this is EXACTLY the section of code that McAfee would fall under.

You have a totally ignorant view of the entire world of laws as they relate to borders...

Funny, I was about to say the same thing about you. Go ahead, tell me how wrong I am when I just quoted US law which demonstrates that "deportation to country of citizenship" is not the only (or even PREFERRED) process, which directly contradicts your statement that NO COUNTRY would EVER do this. I can't wait for you to school me some more with your blanket assertions that bear no relationship to objective fact.

Hi there. Immigrant to the US from Canada here. I figured I'd just respond to the parent (mostly a troll) and some of the siblings here.

Immigration to the United States requires a significant amount of money and time. First, you have to qualify for either one of the immigrant visa categories, or come across on what's called a dual intent visa and then adjust status to Permanent Resident. These processes variously require interviews with USCIS and a significant wait for certain categories (more than a decade in a few, months to years for most), not to mention that the filing and other fees for the whole process can run into the thousands of dollars. (Did you know that USCIS, like the Post Office, doesn't take taxpayer dollars and instead is self-funded from filing fees? Good for you, not great for immigrants.)

If you came over on a nonimmigrant visa, like a visitor, work, or educational visa, you're likely going to have to return home before you can start the real immigration process, unless it's "dual intent" like the K-1 fiance(e) visa as I mentioned before.

Reason has a very good overview of the various paths available.

No, we aren't required to take a test on civics and English. That is required when one naturalizes, or becomes a United States citizen. This has a prerequisite of legally residing continually in the US for three or five years, depending on the visa category in which you entered. (Oh, and another thousand dollars, thanks.) The process, like other USCIS processes, takes about a year in wait and processing time. The process is also entirely not required; one can continue to be a permanent resident for as long as one likes, as long as one continues to file for an extension of one's Permanent Resident status (i.e. green card).

I personally plan to become a US citizen (well, dual citizen) as soon as possible though, because it allows one to obtain a US Passport (faster border travel), means one is done with USCIS forever (barring very specific, very rare circumstances), and allows one to vote.

So I guess what I'm saying is, the next time you want to make assumptions about legal immigration, look into it first. It's quite complicated, expensive, and not for the faint of heart.

"Give me your tired, your poor"? Not so much.

====
Back to the original topic, the birth rate. Here is my point of view. Demand a standard of living that is above realistic. That is, expensive vacation cruises, Highly mortgaged homes on one acre lots, private schools, private medicine, must have new cars after 3-4 years, high cost of education and the latest electronic toys. So what is it, a new toy or unnecessarily lifestyle, or children?
If you establish a need of restaurant living, high life styles, no savings, and debt for the toys, where is the moeny for that second or third child? And while I am not a follower of a religion that frowns on contraception, look to your own conjugal practices. In my province, 50 years ago 85% of couples married with a religious ceremony. Today, 52% are cohabiting without religion in the house. The provincial law now stipulates that a couple, cohabiting and with a child, are, after two years together, legally married. They do not require a justice of the peace to sign papers. So, when you look at why the birthrate is low, you need only look at the society's value system.
New or devout religious families are having 7 to 8 children on the low side, and 15 to 18, on the high side. Many do not have TVs, or enjoy American style vacations. Their vacation is measured as success of their children.
   

Hi there. Immigrant to the US from Canada here. I figured I'd just respond to the parent (mostly a troll) and some of the siblings here.

Immigration to the United States requires a significant amount of money and time. First, you have to qualify for either one of the immigrant visa categories, or come across on what's called a dual intent visa and then adjust status to Permanent Resident. These processes variously require interviews with USCIS and a significant wait for certain categories (more than a decade in a few, months to years for most), not to mention that the filing and other fees for the whole process can run into the thousands of dollars. (Did you know that USCIS, like the Post Office, doesn't take taxpayer dollars and instead is self-funded from filing fees? Good for you, not great for immigrants.)

If you came over on a nonimmigrant visa, like a visitor, work, or educational visa, you're likely going to have to return home before you can start the real immigration process, unless it's "dual intent" like the K-1 fiance(e) visa as I mentioned before.

Reason has a very good overview of the various paths available.

No, we aren't required to take a test on civics and English. That is required when one naturalizes, or becomes a United States citizen. This has a prerequisite of legally residing continually in the US for three or five years, depending on the visa category in which you entered. (Oh, and another thousand dollars, thanks.) The process, like other USCIS processes, takes about a year in wait and processing time. The process is also entirely not required; one can continue to be a permanent resident for as long as one likes, as long as one continues to file for an extension of one's Permanent Resident status (i.e. green card).

I personally plan to become a US citizen (well, dual citizen) as soon as possible though, because it allows one to obtain a US Passport (faster border travel), means one is done with USCIS forever (barring very specific, very rare circumstances), and allows one to vote.

So I guess what I'm saying is, the next time you want to make assumptions about legal immigration, look into it first. It's quite complicated, expensive, and not for the faint of heart.

"Give me your tired, your poor"? Not so much.

Thats all well and good but only the minority of immigrants do that.

Most cross over from mexico, have a baby born in the US and automatically become citizens. Then you have all the ones who come here and do absolutely nothing but get free everything that most american born citizens cant afford. Or the ones who work the system in other ways.

So basically yeah, give me the the poor is our countries motto. Well its more like "Give me your poor, your tax dodging, your freeloading, your lazy, your ignorant and your people who cant/refuse to speak english so they may gradually over time bleed this country dry".

And you dont have to look into it much when your a normal guy like myself who works in manual labor and see this kind of thing day in and day out. Youre just trying to take the pretentious high road to justify your pretty little speech that doesnt really say much of anything. Do yourself a favor and stay in canada, we have enough wanna be armchair government know it alls already in this country, we dont need to import more from countries that are only known for being cold and having hockey.

So bottom line is, youre doing it the hard way. Which is the suckers way.

Hi there. Immigrant to the US from Canada here. I figured I'd just respond to the parent (mostly a troll) and some of the siblings here.

Immigration to the United States requires a significant amount of money and time. First, you have to qualify for either one of the immigrant visa categories, or come across on what's called a dual intent visa and then adjust status to Permanent Resident. These processes variously require interviews with USCIS and a significant wait for certain categories (more than a decade in a few, months to years for most), not to mention that the filing and other fees for the whole process can run into the thousands of dollars. (Did you know that USCIS, like the Post Office, doesn't take taxpayer dollars and instead is self-funded from filing fees? Good for you, not great for immigrants.)

If you came over on a nonimmigrant visa, like a visitor, work, or educational visa, you're likely going to have to return home before you can start the real immigration process, unless it's "dual intent" like the K-1 fiance(e) visa as I mentioned before.

Reason has a very good overview of the various paths available.

No, we aren't required to take a test on civics and English. That is required when one naturalizes, or becomes a United States citizen. This has a prerequisite of legally residing continually in the US for three or five years, depending on the visa category in which you entered. (Oh, and another thousand dollars, thanks.) The process, like other USCIS processes, takes about a year in wait and processing time. The process is also entirely not required; one can continue to be a permanent resident for as long as one likes, as long as one continues to file for an extension of one's Permanent Resident status (i.e. green card).

I personally plan to become a US citizen (well, dual citizen) as soon as possible though, because it allows one to obtain a US Passport (faster border travel), means one is done with USCIS forever (barring very specific, very rare circumstances), and allows one to vote.

So I guess what I'm saying is, the next time you want to make assumptions about legal immigration, look into it first. It's quite complicated, expensive, and not for the faint of heart.

"Give me your tired, your poor"? Not so much.

Did they exhaust the H1B limit already?

The limit for H1B's for FY2013 was reached on June 11, 2012 already. The filing of H1B's for FY2014 will (probably) open up on April 1st, 2013. I'm sure a number of corporations have a few petitions ready to be filed.

The US does - search for choice in this page. I cannot find sources for Cambodia, but from what i hear they do (from what I hear most countries do)

So I am a poor unskilled Mexican with no family in the US. Please post the URL to "the correct process of obtaining citizenship"?

Oh look, there's a page for that.

And since poor unskilled Mexicans don't have an internet connection, I give them the same answer that has been true since the US started limiting immigration, "ask at the US embassy in your home country or discuss it with the immigration office on your way into the country."

OK

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis

and
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD

sorry about the second one about citizenship being so long

OK

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis

and
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD

sorry about the second one about citizenship being so long

If I'm reading things correctly, you would start with Form I-140, which covers workers of a range of skill sets, including unskilled workers.

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf

A state driver's license is NOT proof of citizenship or residence, only identity. To demonstrate both, you need a passport, green card, or one of a few others. But no state-issued ID is adequate. That's one of the big dangers here. The vast majority of Americans don't carry their passports with them as a matter of routine; just a driver's license. Sheriff joe is, no doubt, salivating with glee at all the ways he abuse the situation.

Most people in the US only routinely carry their driver's license as ID. A driver'd licenses are state-issued, not federal. As such, they're adequate for proving identity, but NOT citizenship or legal residence. To demonstrate both you need a passport (I certainly don't carry *mine* when I'm not traveling.) or an I-551 (green card). There are a couple of other docs that'll do but those are the biggies. (See the back of the I-9 form for the table.)

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf

So yeah, drive through in Arizona while brown, and despite being a natural-born citizen with perfectly valid ID, and you chance being detained as an illegal.

The H-1B is for individuals at the top of their respective field, and it only accounts for 65,000 out of more than 6 million visas alloted per year.

No, the immigrant E-1 Employment First Preference visa is for individuals at the top of their fields (the three subcategories include: [1] "persons with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics" who must "must have extensive documentation showing sustained national or international acclaim and recognition in their fields of expertise", [2] "Outstanding professors and researchers with at least three years experience in teaching or research, who are recognized internationally", and [3] "Multinational managers or executives who have been employed for at least one of the three preceding years by the overseas affiliate, parent, subsidiary, or branch of the U.S. employer."; source)

The H-1B is for "Persons in Specialty Occupations which requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge requiring completion of a specific course of higher education", not "people at the top of their fields". (Well, there are also H-1B subcategories for fashion models, and for Department of Defense Cooperative Research and Development projects or Co-production projects; source and source.)

Say what you will about work visas in general, and granted the H-1B lasts longer than most other work visas, but H-1B visas are not where I would begin making cuts! They allow us to sap the smartest minds from other coutries, and use them for our own benefit, to benefit our own industries and own economy.

In general, snapping up the best minds is the purpose of the E-1 and, to a lesser extent, E-2 immigrant visas, not the H-1B. The H-1B is more about getting human special-purpose parts for industrial machines, not the "brightest minds".