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You can get jobs without ID.

Not legally. You must fill out an I-9 form when you are employed - and that requires considerably more than just an SSN.

But... all the outrage shown by these people against illegal immigration is fake. They want cheap strawberries and cheap fast food and cheap lawn mowing and cheap home construction. If they are really against illegal immigration they will prosecute the employers.

This line is parroted by people who have no idea what employers have to do to insure an employee you hire can legally work in the U.S. It is impossible for an employer to tell if an employee can work in the country legally. Pick your jaw up off the floor and let me repeat that. The U.S. government provides no way for an employer to tell if a prospective employee can legally work in the U.S.

When an employer hires someone, we're not allowed to ask race, nationality, country of origin, or legal status. All we're allowed to do is request the employee fill out form I-9 and present the piece(s) of ID required by the I-9. Most people give their driver's license and social security card. A few give their U.S. passport. Non-citizens give a copy of their work visa in lieu of their social security card.

The employer photocopies these documents, and puts them along with the I-9 in a filing cabinet. That's it.

You don't submit it to the government. There's no cross-check to verify that the IDs are valid, and not forged. Nobody reviews the info the person wrote on the I-9. If the employer suspects the documents are forged, they can refuse to hire the person. But you're taking an enormous risk since you'll be subject to discrimination lawsuits and fines if it turns out the documents were real. The form and copies of the work documents just sit in a filing cabinet. The sole purpose of the I-9 and the copies of the documentation is to prove the employer did their due diligence and asked the employee to present documents they're supposed to have before they can work. In the event that the employer is raided by INS, the I-9 and documents shield the employer from prosecution for hiring illegal immigrants. The illegally immigrants are still hired, it's just that the employer didn't know they were working illegally.

When you hear on the news that some company was raided and INS found illegal immigrants working there, that does not automatically mean the employer intentionally hired illegal immigrants. The employer could have, under current law, hired all those people legally, and some of them were still working illegally. As long as the employer has copies of the I-9 and work documents (fake or not), they have done nothing wrong, even if the employee is in the country and working illegally. Most of the stories you hear about employers "caught" hiring illegal immigrants are simply a result of the employer losing or misfiling the I-9, and they can't provide it to INS after a raid which turned up some people working illegally. (I kept photocopies, and also scanned them to avoid a single point of failure.)

The current system is a joke. With modern technology, it would be trivial for the government to set up a system where the info on the I-9 could be submitted to a government server, which spits out a simple yes/no verification. Or even not tell the employer, and some time later ICE drops by to investigate the person whose I-9 didn't match a known U.S. citizen. Some states have even passed laws making it illegal for employers to report to INS/ICE people who applied for a job but weren't able to fill out the I-9 and provide the requisite documents. It's not the employers who are at fault here. The government doesn't want you to know who is legal or illegal to hire.

A lot of this leniency stems from the post-Civil War era. A lot of people in the ex-Confederacy tried to make hard for freed slaves to work or vote, by denying they were legally eligible to do these things. So the law was set up to force employers and pollsters to assume the person cou

> You don't seek asylum at the border, but at the consulate of your home country.

False. To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States.

> I don't know what this means. They're enforcing the law. That means forcing people to obey it.

The difference is enforcing the law according to the law, and enforcing the law with brutality because you can get away with it. Despite what some people would like to believe, it's actually not okay for police officers to beat you senseless - there are actually laws that dictate how other laws are to be enforced. We've unfortunately gotten very bad at enforcing them, though.

> You just advocated for ICE not to enforce the law

Incorrect; There is a proper way and an improper way to enforce laws. By way of trivial (and admittedly hyperbolic) example, the proper way to enforce speed limit laws is to issue the offending driver a ticket, not to drag them out of their car and beat them within an inch of their life. Similarly, there are proper ways to detain and deport illegal immigrants, and there are improper ways.

=Smidge=

Driver's license and Social Security number are the most commonly used documents for the I-9 form. Basically, the government doesn't want you hiring aliens and visitors without a work visa, but don't have a system in place for an employer to verify if someone is authorized to work in the country (is a citizen or has a work visa).

Yes, why doesn't the government have a system like that...

Driver's license and Social Security number are the most commonly used documents for the I-9 form. Basically, the government doesn't want you hiring aliens and visitors without a work visa, but don't have a system in place for an employer to verify if someone is authorized to work in the country (is a citizen or has a work visa). Rather than put together such a system, the government requires employers to collect the I-9 - it becomes the employer's proof that they did their due diligence and collected the info the government required of them to "determine" work eligibility. (In quotes because the documents are commonly forged, and the employer can't root out forgeries because they'll get in trouble if they mistake real docs for a forgery.)

The tax documents are probably the W-4 form. They're used to determine how much of your paycheck is withheld (sent directly to the IRS) for income taxes. If an employee is dishonest or wrong and the incorrect amount is withheld (usually the employee errs on the low side), it gets corrected on April 15. If the employee had too little withheld, they could face fines. So the employer has to keep the W4 on file as proof that the incorrect withholding wasn't their fault, and they did as the employee told them to do. It's a matter that is entirely between the employee and the IRS, but the IRS doesn't want to do it themselves (employee could submit the W4 to the IRS, and the IRS could tell the employer how much to withhold). So they require employers to do it and force them to keep each employee's W4 on file. This one has always baffled me - the IRS verifies it anyway when the employee files their taxes, so it's not like the IRS would have to do any extra work to handle it themselves instead of foisting the job onto employers..

Both are usually shoved in a filing cabinet and forgotten about, since the government requires you to keep them but they're never used for anything again (unless you happen to be raided by INS or ICE)..

Social Security number is generally required because that is needed for tax purposes. It's not supposed to be used for identification.

In this instance it's not being used for identification purposes, it's being used to establish the eligibility to work. source

The SS card itself may not always be required.

If you mean that there other acceptable documents, yes, you are correct. If you mean that I, as an employer, don't need the to see the physical document? By signing the form I am attesting that I have physically inspected the card. And I'm personally liable if I sign it without the card being there. I assume there are employers that are willing to take that risk, but as a contractor hiring 100s of people from all over the country that wasn't a risk I was willing to take. Our policy was no SS card (or other legally acceptable document, obviously), you got shown the gate.

No, most jobs only require a social security number

The above is a demonstrable falsehood:

All employers must complete and retain Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, for every person they hire for employment after Nov. 6, 1986, in the U.S. as long as the person works for pay or other type of payment.

DACA was initially rejected by POTUS as beyond his authority. But he saw the flagging numbers in the 2012 election and did it anyway, knowing that court challenges would be resolved after the election. There are already conditions for declaring asylum but hey, what are a few bribes to stand in the way of vote-seekers who try to ensure a permanent underclass?

America has the largest % of people in jail, so it's doesn't seem that much of a deterrent for other crimes. Why is this one so different? $50k for a lawyer won't do anything if you can't qualify for other reasons.

If it's really so cheap and easy at 50k, why do people bother to do this for a million?

2. Any employee turning in their employer for failure to use e-Verify will have their status automatically transitioned to legal immigrant. This will apply to all other employees and their families in the US.

This was the original proposal, all can be quite a big number.

So a large group of people who were willing to spend a million and set up a business and hire 10 people and, and..would easily be able to find someone they could pay to set up 1 scam business and beat this system with much less hassle/effort.

People with not much to lose and a lot to gain will take the chance for the money.

People would also be willing to sacrifice themselves to bring over their families/friends, family members friends etc, etc.

The business and person "caught", need not have any assets to lose. And the proposal doesn't even mention the green cards are contingent on a conviction anyway. So they could just flee first and avoid the jail and fine anyway.

Actually, that is exactly what you can do.

Asylum status is a form of protection available to people who meet the definition of a refugee but are already in the United States and seeking admission at a port of entry.

And before you get to upset about it. That same set of laws protects Americans if they decide to bail as well. In 2015 there were 4832 refugees from the United States and that number has risen steadily over the last 15 years.

To conflate it all is disingenuous.

I don't see anything being conflated at all.

Under U.S. law, anyway, "asylee" is not synonymous with "refugee;" it's a subset of refugee, with different legal procedures and consequences. See https://www.uscis.gov/humanita... , http://www.alllaw.com/articles... , https://www.dhs.gov/immigratio... , https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... , and--if you want the statute-- https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... .

Implicit in the idea of uniform naturalization and control and disposition of federal lands, and in conducting international relations (also a power of Congress) and having a military is the idea that you have a border and you guard it.

Uh, no. Naturalization is citizenship. You're not "naturalized" if you have a green card; you're authorized to be present. Ask CIS:

Naturalization is the process by which U.S. citizenship is granted to a foreign citizen or national after he or she fulfills the requirements established by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Emphasis mine. Requirements for naturalization:

You May Qualify for Naturalization if:

You have been a permanent resident for at least 5 years and meet all other eligibility requirements, please visit our Path to Citizenship page for more information.

Permanent resident (green card: you can stay here forever) but you're not naturalized.

Green Cards are issued as a stepping-stone to naturalization and are part of naturalization laws passed by Congress under Article I, Section 8, Clause 4.

You mean the Immigration and Naturalization Act?

If Congress had no authority to make naturalization law, it would not have the authority to make laws about issuing green cards or work visas, nor would it have the authority to pass laws directing the executive to kick people out for not having those documents.

Actually, the laws prohibit people from giving immigrants jobs and housing (affecting commerce), and give the Executive the authority to remove dangerous unauthorized immigrants.

Let's ask a lawyer, since I'm just making shit up here and really have nfc what I'm talking about.

The Supreme Court’s basis for action is clear when the area regulated is naturalization. Article 1, 8, clause 4, of the United States Constitution specifically grants Congress the power to establish a "uniform Rule of Naturalization." By expressly allocating this power to Congress, the Constitution prevents the confusion that would result if individual states could bestow citizenship. The Constitution does not, however, explicitly provide that the power to deny admission or remove non-citizens rests with the federal government as opposed to state governments. Hence, in the early immigration cases the Supreme Court faced the problem of identifying the source of the federal government's exclusive and plenary power over immigration. Later cases found the plenary power to be an inherent sovereign power.

Inherent sovereign power...makes sense.

In the earliest cases, the Court looked to the federal power over foreign commerce. The Commerce Clause in Article I, 8, clause 3, of the United States Constitution provides Congress with the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States." The Supreme Court in the Passenger Cases (Sup.Ct.1849) invoked the Commerce Clause to ban the levy of fees upon foreigners wishing to disembark at state ports. The Court invalidated state immigration fees even though Congress had yet to implement any relevant federal regulations.

Interesting. State fees to control immigration are unconstitutional.

The Naturalization Clause in Article I, 8, clause 4, has served as an argument for federal control over immigration. The dissent in the Passenger Cases rejected this argument. Passenger Cases (Sup.Ct.1849). As mentioned earlier, the Naturalization Clause's granting of power to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" concerns decisions about citizenship rather than immigration generally.

Specifically

Please. The founders never considered restricting immigration. The Supreme Court required the federal government to have a nationwide immigration policy only in 1875, and the INS was established two decades later. Under previous immigration laws you could only apply for citizenship after having lived here for up to 15 years. Setting aside the fact that it would have been impossible to police the border, no one attempted to, and there was nothing wrong legally with just showing up here, buying land, and living your life. It was, after all, a free country.

Here's a hint: we've NEVER had completely open, unregulated borders. There has always been an immigration station, a check of who's coming in and out.

Funny, that's not how the INS tells it. First sentence: "Americans encouraged relatively free and open immigration during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and rarely questioned that policy until the late 1800s." If I were to apologize for you, I would say that you're projecting modern ideas of citizenship, nationality, and law enforcement onto a society with very different beliefs and practices.

As far as your virtue signaling, I've lived on four continents (meaning more than a few years) and married outside my culture and race. How about you?

Dear, whether or not your values match the ones that this country was founded upon is the matter under argument. Virtue signaling on the other hand would include making random statements about what a good person you are. Let's stop before tu quoque, okay?

The problem with blaming employers for hiring illegal (undocumented*) immigrants is that the U.S. government makes it impossible to actually verify if a potential hiree is in fact authorized to work in the U.S.

So what you're saying is that you're ignorant? E-Verify has had you covered for years.

There is a system, it is called E-Verify

https://www.uscis.gov/e-verify

Yes, but is local production necessarily a good thing? American consumers have limited dollars, and the employment market adjusts to job availability--just graph the absolute labor force from 2000 to 2017 and look at what happened around 2008's huge unemployment spike.

You can see a drop in H1-B approvals in 2009 and 2010, with some of that drop lingering in 2011. We also had students going to grad school to avoid the job market, and people retiring earlier (fewer late retirements). These are spot reductions in the labor force.

There's a well-debated theory of population growth called Mathusian Theory. Simply put: population grows in abundance, and shrinks in scarcity. Modern economists don't know what to do with this, because it seems about right, but they've never been able to pin down what exactly we're talking about being "abundant" or "scarce".

As a corollary, I've suggested with the above data that the labor force exhibits this behavior based on perception of job scarcity and the need for jobs. The ultimate scarcity is the scarcity of the means to survive. It's not "food", "housing", or anything else; it's whether your economy is currently able to carry people. The labor force responds in ways Malthus would find reasonable.

So what?

More-expensive solar panels means people work, get paid, and spend their money on more-expensive electricity and other infrastructure. It doesn't necessarily mean more jobs, and could even mean fewer jobs.

Less-expensive solar panels means we can pick something else we're better at and do that. Maybe we can sell it as export (although too much export is a threat to national security; it does bring wealth). Maybe we can just enjoy a thing we would otherwise be unable to afford (thus for which we wouldn't create the demand, thus jobs). These are real, likely outcomes.

Finally, China's wages, social insurances, and labor laws have been rapidly improving, in part to their dominance in global manufacture. We've been feeding them the economic power to improve their infrastructure and their technology, thus leverage labor better. They can pay labor better, provide better social services, and still come out cheaper. Trade benefits both parties--especially when one party can't afford the GDP-breaking cost of the machines and infrastructure necessary to build their economy up (see: some, but not all, nations in Africa).

Trolls are so funny... Read the I-9 itself. Then go mumble in the corner again...

The Federal Government disagrees with you. Not completing an I-9 can result in civil and criminal penalties for the employer. There are alternatives to an SSN - but those all provide proof of identity, and either citizenship or legal immigration status (which would also indicate the right to vote).

The Federal Government disagrees with you. Not completing an I-9 can result in civil and criminal penalties for the employer. There are alternatives to an SSN - but those all provide proof of identity, and either citizenship or legal immigration status (which would also indicate the right to vote).

That might be "the problem" from the corp's viewpoint, however, what their doing is still straight-up H1B abuse. The program wan't created to help their quarterly profits via wage suppression; it was created to fill positions with actual unique skills. Skills, not wages. Their "easy way out" is the main reason this "crackdown" is happening. Even though I really really really don't like Trump, this crackdown is happening because of corps like your client, not because of him.

If I knew who your client was, I would personally send their HR department an email with the text for the H1B visa requirements and tell them their hiring practices are the reason I am reporting them to USCIS for an audit. I am highly disappointed in the Trump administration for the fact they have yet to address the Disney H1B situation; hypocrisy at it's finest.

The Democrats have ardently opposed any sort of testing or requirements for any voters, asserting that any such test is inherently biased against minorities and the poor.

Hell, you have to show a DL to cash a check or buy a beer in the US, but Democrats insist it's not necessary to vote.

Personally, I'd be fine with making it the US citizenship test: there are 100 questions, you get asked random 10 of the 100. You only need to answer 6 of the 10 correctly to pass.
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/de...

Seems fair.

Civics test: will never happen.

As an employer who tried not to hire illegal aliens, but got a lot of illegals as job applicants, it's nothing like you characterize. It is already a crime to hire an illegal alien. The penalty ranges from a few thousand dollars for the first offense, up to tens of thousands of dollars and jail time for multiple offenses.

The problem is the government requires some sort of government ID and a social security number before you can hire someone. But it doesn't give employers any way to authenticate that the documents they receive are legit. I spoke to multiple employment attorneys about this, and the best you can do is make copies of the ID presented to you and keep them on file. This is your due diligence - proof that you attempted to comply with the law to the best of your ability should the employee's legal status come into question.

In other words, the government doesn't make any effort to block illegal immigrants from working. If it wanted to, it's be trivial to implement an electronic system which could verify an applicant's ID as legit. Social security cards are trivial to fake, and they don't even need a real SSN if they don't plan to work past the end of the year (at year's end, employment taxes are submitted and SSNs which don't match the person's name and address on file get flagged by the IRS). Just a simple system which allows you to submit a name and SSN, and it spits back valid/invalid would block about 75% of the illegal applicants we got (based on flagging by the IRS). Likewise, government ID could be confirmed the same way, possibly adding a unique code onto each ID to make forging impossible without access to the original source documents.

But the government doesn't do it. They're not serious about stopping illegal immigrants from working. My hunch is conservative politicians want to keep cheap illegal labor readily available. And liberal politicians want to encourage people to enter the country illegally to skew Congressional reapportionment (House representatives are allocated based on total population - legal and illegal - so every 743,000 illegal immigrants is approximately an extra House seat), and on the outside chance they'll be legalized and become voters (they're disproportionately low income with liberal politics).

a distinction is made between those who are born to US citizens and those who aren't (naturalized citizens)

You have no idea what "naturalized citizen" means. https://www.uscis.gov/us-citiz...

You are splitting hairs.

I'm not splitting hairs, I'm pointing out that you are using a specific, legally-defined term (naturalized citizen) and claiming that it has a meaning different than it does. Naturalized citizens are people who went through a specific process of naturalization, including a civics exam and a loyalty oath. You claimed that the term described children who are born on US soil to non-US parents. It does not. Those children are either natural-born citizens or they're not citizens at all (and the general consensus is that they're natural-born citizens).

There is some controversy over the citizenship status of children born on US soil of non-US parents. The undisputed approach since the 14th amendment up until very recently has been that they are "jus soli" citizens, that they have "birthright citizenship". The Wong Kim Ark ruling in 1898 affirmed this. There have been recent attempts to pass a law clarifying that undocumented immigrants are not "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" and therefore their children don't have birthright citizenship, but no legislation has been passed, and indeed part of the reason it hasn't been passed is because it would probably be unconstitutional. It's likely that we would need an amendment to the constitution to end birthright citizenship for anyone born on US soil.

Yes, Native Americans used to be a special case, since their reservations were considered to be out of US jurisdiction and under the jurisdiction of their tribal nations even though they are within the borders of US states. Not only does that special case not apply in the situation of someone not born on a reservation, it hasn't applied to native Americans since 1924, when Congress granted US citizenship to all Native Americans.

a distinction is made between those who are born to US citizens and those who aren't (naturalized citizens)

You have no idea what "naturalized citizen" means. https://www.uscis.gov/us-citiz...

You are splitting hairs. What's your fucking point? Just want to be a superior pedant? The issue is citizens who when you trace back the path which they became citizens either included legal immigration procedures or they did not. Do you refute that there is a difference? I mean let's get to the point why have any fucking immigration law at all if illegal aliens can just side-step the whole thing based on their own self interest and not be tax payers and suck off of the teat of the actual taxpaying American citizens? You don't see a problem with that? I have an idea, why don't you send me all your money as a gift and a demonstration of altruism. Better yet how about I find a way to force you to do it because I consider you selfish. Sounds like a good idea doesn't it? You're a typical liberal idiot.

a distinction is made between those who are born to US citizens and those who aren't (naturalized citizens)

You have no idea what "naturalized citizen" means. https://www.uscis.gov/us-citiz...

So where's the form to apply for one?

Here you go.

DACA recipients are eligible for work permits, yes? So any Apple employees affected by killing DACA would likely have been hired quite legally.

What is this magical flimsy law that you're referencing here?

The DREAM Act (in various incarnations) has been introduced multiple times and never passed Congress.

Some of the last significant immigration laws were passed back in the 90's.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA) represents an effort by Congress to strengthen and streamline U.S. immigration laws. The Act was designed to improve border control by imposing criminal penalties for racketeering, alien smuggling and the use or creation of fraudulent immigration-related documents and increasing interior enforcement by agencies charged with monitoring visa applications and visa abusers.

Employment eligibility verification guidelines are also incorporated into the Act, including sanctions for employers who fail to comply with the regulations and restrictions on unfair immigration-related employment practices, as well as provisions governing the dispersement of government aid to aliens.

It lists a lot of things such that "The Attorney General is directed..." but not a lot of executive discretion is in the text.

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/de...

If you hold a green card in the US for 5 years you too can become a US citizen. So the same basic "path" at Australia and Canada. We just don't have their common-sense point system - yet.

From https://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-resume-h-1b-premium-processing-certain-cap-exempt-petitions ...
Release Date: July 24, 2017
WASHINGTON â" U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will resume premium processing for certain cap-exempt H-1B petitions effective immediately. ...

From https://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-resume-h-1b-premium-processing-certain-cap-exempt-petitions ...
Release Date: July 24, 2017
WASHINGTON â" U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will resume premium processing for certain cap-exempt H-1B petitions effective immediately. ...

Data here

Is it any wonder that middle class wages have stagnated and young workers are under employed?

And some people still can't figure out why Hillary lost....

Have you actually seen a current green card or are you just repeating what you read? Green cards are indeed green and this is what they look like since 2010. I'm not sure if I should take the erst of your post seriously either.

Bullshit.

The B-1 is only required if you cannot enter under the visa waiver program. Sweden is part of the visa waiver program.

Info about the B-1:

https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-visitors-business/b-1-temporary-business-visitor

There is actually a wide-scope already in play for "business" and the US immigration department has a fair amount of information on what you can conduct as business under the visa waiver program.

Info about visa waiver:

https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-visitors-business/wb-temporary-business-visitor-under-visa-waiver-program

If you want to know what activities are allowed under visa waiver, then let this immigration lawyer tell you:

"Traveling and working with the Visa Waiver Program generally means engaging in business activities other than the actual performance of labor. To work in the United States, you will need a visa specifically for that purpose.

The visa waiver program is appropriate for the following types of persons/activities: Selling, Voluntary Work, Service Engineer, Speaker/Lecturer, Conference, Researcher, Business Venture, Medical Elective, Telecommuters."

Bullshit.

The B-1 is only required if you cannot enter under the visa waiver program. Sweden is part of the visa waiver program.

Info about the B-1:

https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-visitors-business/b-1-temporary-business-visitor

There is actually a wide-scope already in play for "business" and the US immigration department has a fair amount of information on what you can conduct as business under the visa waiver program.

Info about visa waiver:

https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-visitors-business/wb-temporary-business-visitor-under-visa-waiver-program

If you want to know what activities are allowed under visa waiver, then let this immigration lawyer tell you:

"Traveling and working with the Visa Waiver Program generally means engaging in business activities other than the actual performance of labor. To work in the United States, you will need a visa specifically for that purpose.

The visa waiver program is appropriate for the following types of persons/activities: Selling, Voluntary Work, Service Engineer, Speaker/Lecturer, Conference, Researcher, Business Venture, Medical Elective, Telecommuters."

It was not created by Trump and the Kushner family isn't using it any way that's not available to other businesses to attract foreign investors. Most other countries (like Canada) have similar programs to attract high net worth immigrants.

I'm pretty sure that's what the O-1A visas are designed for:

DHS info on O1-A

You have to read the actual guidance to get any meaningful details. Both of the articles are light on meaningful details. The first article at least linked to the guidance though.

I don't consider a four day old memo "Old news", and, yes, this memo -- which Slashdot, being Slashdot didn't link to but instead linked to a low-quality article -- is from March 31.

The purpose of H1-B visas is to fill positions that companies can not fill with American workers, regardless of price. Greed CEOs, of course, promptly abused the system to use it to pull down wages and increase unemployment for US workers, such as when Disney forced US workers to train their lower cost H1-B replacements (nytimes link).

Trump is doing the right thing here. The actual memo (PDF file) spells out the new policy: just because the position needs a computer programmer, we can automatically have an H1-B fill the position.

I am no supporter of Trump and voted for Hillary last November, but I am not blinded by partisan politics; he's doing the right thing here: Protecting hard working Americans.

It's a temporary suspension. It was also done in 2015 and 2007. This is not a significant new development from this administration.

Fair enough. I was just being pithy. There are several non-STEM categories in the treaty:

https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/do...

" a message from the government that you "can't buy your way into America.""

You can buy your way into the USA just fine. It will cost you $500k, or $1M if you don't want to deal wth a poor rural area, and some paperwork setting up a company.

Celestine Omin is an Nigerian national. Nigeria a country currently fighting (with US support) its own homegrown terrorist insurgency in the form of Boko Haram. This is an understandable and completely normal security precaution.

But not an understandable and completely normal procedure. From the Linkedin article linked from TFA:

On 3/1, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson responded to the 2/27 request for comment. He said the agency "does not administer written tests to verify a traveler’s purpose of travel,” but would not comment on Omin’s case specifically. He added that foreigners trying to enter the country "bear the burden of proof to establish that they are clearly eligible" and "must overcome all grounds of inadmissibility."

So, Omin was required to satisfy the border agent that he was who he said he was, but not with a written test.

He had a B1 visa, obtained prior to travel. The visa said he's a software engineer, but doesn't prove he's a software engineer. It would have been prudent of him to carry additional documents, such as a transcript of courses he has taken.

To avoid SNAFUs like this, it's best to talk to an immigration lawyer before you get on the plane. Border agents are supposed to follow the law and their agency's rules, but unpleasant things can still happen.

Exactly.

I agree with the concept of the H1B--it allows US companies to recruit top talent from around the world. But I have a hard time believing that there are 65,000-85,000 people a year who fit that description. Heck, "Operation Paperclip" only brought in 1500 people and we started a space program with that!

H1B is not about top talent. That's the O1 program and there is no limit on those visas. Ditto on investor visas. H1B is for depressing the labor wage of any industry that would otherwise spike up due to demand.

Exactly.

I agree with the concept of the H1B--it allows US companies to recruit top talent from around the world. But I have a hard time believing that there are 65,000-85,000 people a year who fit that description. Heck, "Operation Paperclip" only brought in 1500 people and we started a space program with that!

First up, this was on CNN

The unedited version of that is a bizarre exchange in itself. It's almost like Obama and that lady understand that they're talking about a particular thing (citizens who have family members here illegally, maybe?) but don't really clarify what that is. Also, I would have liked for him to stop her when she says "and I call them citizens because they contribute to this country" and point out that that's not what citizen means. Citizen is a legal distinction, not a state of being. Canada contributes to this country. Canada is not an American citizen and can't vote.

They showed a quick screenshot of the site where the other lady found the story though, which is here. It specifies what they edited out, which does seem a little deceptive but, again, it was like they were talking about one thing when people watching (including me) were hearing something else. I agree with Cavuto, when talking about illegal immigrants and voting it should be made obvious that they can't vote. Maybe they covered that earlier in the interview, I don't know. I'm not sure how someone here illegally would even vote though, when I go in I show my ID and they look at their list to make sure I'm at the right place. You can't just walk in and cast a ballot. I guess if someone is bound and determined to vote or appear to be a citizen then they can get fake identification, social security, etc, and that kind of thing is fairly difficult to stop if someone is really determined. I don't think that people can casually just go and vote if they decide they want to though.

Interested in your thoughts on this.

We do need to strengthen the entire process. I find it hard to believe that the government wouldn't know who its citizens are, at some level in some department. Even if that's just the social security administration, or State, or somewhere. One of the agencies has to be able to tell, and it seems like another symptom of the problem of disparate governments or agencies not sharing data with each other. I'm trying to get a green card for my wife, and the applications (e.g. I-130, I-864, etc) do ask to make sure I'm a citizen and list the various ways to prove that (birth certificate, etc). I think that these symptoms are sort of a casualty of the state/federal divide, the case for stronger states rights sometimes has side effects of putting up walls between the state and federal governments so that a state, for example, can't determine if someone is a citizen by looking them up. I think that should change, I think that even a police officer who pulls someone over should be able to look them up in a federal database and get basic personal information like their name, date of birth, and status in the US. They should be able to tell that I'm a citizen and my wife is here on an H1-B without us needing to prove it. Likewise, they should be able to tell when someone isn't on that list, and that should be used in the voting process.

First up, this was on CNN

The unedited version of that is a bizarre exchange in itself. It's almost like Obama and that lady understand that they're talking about a particular thing (citizens who have family members here illegally, maybe?) but don't really clarify what that is. Also, I would have liked for him to stop her when she says "and I call them citizens because they contribute to this country" and point out that that's not what citizen means. Citizen is a legal distinction, not a state of being. Canada contributes to this country. Canada is not an American citizen and can't vote.

They showed a quick screenshot of the site where the other lady found the story though, which is here. It specifies what they edited out, which does seem a little deceptive but, again, it was like they were talking about one thing when people watching (including me) were hearing something else. I agree with Cavuto, when talking about illegal immigrants and voting it should be made obvious that they can't vote. Maybe they covered that earlier in the interview, I don't know. I'm not sure how someone here illegally would even vote though, when I go in I show my ID and they look at their list to make sure I'm at the right place. You can't just walk in and cast a ballot. I guess if someone is bound and determined to vote or appear to be a citizen then they can get fake identification, social security, etc, and that kind of thing is fairly difficult to stop if someone is really determined. I don't think that people can casually just go and vote if they decide they want to though.

Interested in your thoughts on this.

We do need to strengthen the entire process. I find it hard to believe that the government wouldn't know who its citizens are, at some level in some department. Even if that's just the social security administration, or State, or somewhere. One of the agencies has to be able to tell, and it seems like another symptom of the problem of disparate governments or agencies not sharing data with each other. I'm trying to get a green card for my wife, and the applications (e.g. I-130, I-864, etc) do ask to make sure I'm a citizen and list the various ways to prove that (birth certificate, etc). I think that these symptoms are sort of a casualty of the state/federal divide, the case for stronger states rights sometimes has side effects of putting up walls between the state and federal governments so that a state, for example, can't determine if someone is a citizen by looking them up. I think that should change, I think that even a police officer who pulls someone over should be able to look them up in a federal database and get basic personal information like their name, date of birth, and status in the US. They should be able to tell that I'm a citizen and my wife is here on an H1-B without us needing to prove it. Likewise, they should be able to tell when someone isn't on that list, and that should be used in the voting process.

In the rural midwest salaries might top at 55k with the average being $35-45k. In Dallas that range is more $85k-150k

Already debunked. In theory at least - see Requirement 4.

https://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa...

As I said before, there's no need for any new rules - they just need to enforce the existing ones properly.