[quote=harvey]What I find interesting about those who are against “illegal” immigration is that almost nobody understands the selection process for “legal” immigrants.
Why are some people allowed in, and others aren’t?
What’s the process, and who controls it?
Who decides which immigrants are “legal?”
And why does everyone assume that the current process is “correct?”[/quote]
There are three designed methods of changing your status from non-resident to resident:
1. Employment based, where an employer initiates the process. The candidate can be in the US. Transition from H1B is the most common scenario, since H1B is a ‘dual intent’ visa, i.e. you do not surrender your right to apply for permanent residency when you apply for H1B. You cannot transfer from visitors (B) or from intra-company (L). In theory the candidate can be outside of the country during the process, but the process in most cases takes too long and few companies will do that. The process generally takes one or more years. If you are from India and the position does not require masters degree you might have to wait a decade or two. About 150K adjusts status every year through EB, and that number includes primary applicants (future employees) and immediate dependents. That includes spouse and children under 18 – the cut off is based on the age at the end of the process and there are cases of children who ‘aged out’ – i.e. turned 18 while waiting.
2. Family based. A citizen can sponsor parents and spouse, subject to no quota. Thanks to the previous amnesty and the rule that says no country can get more than certain % of the total, you can’t really sponsor anyone (including unmarried children and siblings) if you are from Mexico or Philippines since the wait time is ~20y. For the rest of the world, the wait time is ~10y for siblings and ~7y for unmarried children. There are 200-250K adjustments/year.
3. Lottery. ~50K visas/year, you have to be from a country that is not ‘over-represented’ already (like UK, Mexico or China), have highschool diploma or equivalent experience.
If you have AIDS or tuberculosis you can’t immigrate.
The only way to adjust status if you overstay your visa (or come here illegally) is to get married to a citizen, or be granted asylum.
There is constant talk about immigration reform, but most recent ‘major’ change is from Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform that removed family-based immigrants from being eligible for certain benefits. Tech companies are pushing for changes on the employment based side, but democrats (Hispanic caucus in particular) are holding EB hostage. The pattern is simple – one year ‘they’ talk about ‘comprehensive solution’ which includes amnesty in some form and that is blocked by republicans. Then when the initiative fails ‘they’ try partial approach, which is blocked by democrats because ‘we need comprehensive solution’. Occasionally someone will start talking about Canadian/Australian style of immigration program where a candidate gets points for certain things, like high demand occupation, age, language skills, arranged employment, family ties and the influx is controlled by the cut-off number (when economy is doing good they lower the bar, when it’s bad they raise the bar), but that is not supported by the same Hispanic caucus.
Generally, Reagan’s amnesty is seen as major cause of the current problems. It clogged the legal family-based channel and it did not solve the problem of new illegals coming. If anything it made it worse since it created a precedent.
