[quote]Since you’re the expert, what kind of job can someone get in a “conditional nonimmigrant status”? Certinaly can’t get very far in the military cause no way you’re getting a security clearance.
Based on what you are saying, I would venture to guess many of these kids are better off staying undocumented. Obviously being undocumented has not been a hindrance to getting work for millions of people.[/quote]
In theory, any job that exists. I know that many H1B immigrants were very unhappy about this law, because, if you try to immigrate here via the H1B process (for which, a master’s degree or equivalent is mandatory), you have to keep working in the same industry and possibly with more or less the same job description till you get the green card, but the “conditional nonimmigrant” can do anything he/she wants.
Getting security clearance is a different story. I’m not sure if a former illegal immigrant can get security clearance at all. In the private industry, security clearance usually implies U.S. citizenship. And even then you go through a rigorous background check up to the point of having FBI agents go to places where you lived 20 years ago, knocking on doors and talking to your former neighbors.
There’s no advantage to staying undocumented. You have to find ways to beat E-Verify, you have to hide from the cops, your chances of getting a good job get progressively slimmer as you move up the food chain…
The biggest problem I have with the law as the Congress tried to pass it, is that it basically gives a 10-year immunity from deportation to anyone who manages to graduate from high school, even though only a small fraction of those would actually end up meeting college/military requirements down the road. This part could’ve been better written. By the time the 10-year period expires, half of the “conditional nonimmigrants” will have 8-year-old kids and they’ll have no choice but to go off the books.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind allowing said illegals to pay in-state rates for college tuition, as long as they qualify for college admissions on general grounds (this was, I believe, taken out of the bill over GOP objections). That is already the case in California, because crafty state attorneys made that happen; but it’s not the case everywhere. Any student intelligent enough to pass admission tests should be able to get college education, regardless of his/her legal status.
BTW, an interesting fact related to that 15-year long wait to get an immigrant visa that I mentioned earlier. I recall reading that something like half of all illegal immigrants currently in this country are on that list. In other words, their U.S. citizen relatives filed the family reunification petition some time in 1995 or 2000, the petition is still on hold (for who knows how long), in the mean time, they are already here, they have a house and they are working whatever jobs they can get, in anticipation of legal status that they know they’ll eventually get.
