Immigration in the US

[billvon 3,028]

My grandparents were born in Ireland before the advent of airplanes.  Ireland was still reeling from the effects of the potato famine that happened about 40 years earlier, and no one was really doing well.  She was a potato farmer; his family owned a sheep farm, which meant he was a bit richer than she was.

But richness is relative, and when they decided to emigrate to the US, all their savings together could barely pay for one ticket.  So my grandfather came over first.

The New York he arrived in around 1925 was very anti-Irish.  There were strict immigration quotas, and they were stricter than normal for the Irish since there weren't many in the country at that point.  I don't know how he got past that, but he did.  He came into the US, found a place to stay, and got his bearings.

Then he did something that would make him a criminal today - he started to work.  It is how most illegal immigrants become illegal immigrants today.  He had to work to make enough money to wire it back for my grandmother to come over.  But back then that was legal, and thus he worked at odd jobs until he could send for her.  Jobs were very hard to find; "Irish need not apply" was a common sign seen back then, due to the common knowledge that Irish immigrants were ignorant, brawling drunks.

They lived together in Queens for decades.  He passed a New York civil service test which was lifechanging for them, because he could then get steady work as a city bus driver.  My grandmother worked at the Chemical Bank cafeteria.  And while they lived there they had two girls - my mother and my aunt.  The tenement they lived in was classic Old New York, with no elevators, massive stone steps, huge air wells so that people could have light throughout their apartments, a good half inch of paint on everything and antiquated, dim lighting fixtures in the hallways.  It always smelled like boiled cabbage in the hallways.

I think about them often when I hear about the immigration debates today.  As Irish they went through what Hispanic immigrants are going through today; everyone just "knows" that they are a problem.  They are criminals, lazy, leeches etc.  Which is sad, and I think indicates most people haven't met many.

Over the years I have met, in person, perhaps a dozen illegal immigrants.  Out of all of them, only two were what the media portrays as illegal immigrants. These two I met on the way back from Eloy after a long weekend of skydiving.  I saw them standing next to a broken down car in the 105 degree heat, and figured I would stop to see if they needed anything.  As I rolled to a stop I realized that the car was standing on four flats and hadn't been driven in months, if not years.  The people there were two Hispanic guys who asked me in broken English if I could give them a ride to San Diego.  I told them that I couldn't, but did leave them with all the water/food I had left over from the weekend.  I hope they made it somewhere safe.

The rest started out legally - then violated immigration law and became illegal immigrants.  One was a member of the Swiss national skydiving team who came here on a tourist visa - and then offered to coach someone for a few bucks.  She was then an illegal immigrant; she had violated immigration law.  Another was legal but had a paperwork problem with his green card.  His only legal option was to leave the US while it was sorted out, since his visa had expired.  But he did not, since he had a company to run.  He was, at that point, an illegal immigrant.  A co-worker had his visa renewal delayed, and on the day the renewal was supposed to arrive, he waited by the mailbox all day.  It did not arrive.  He was then illegal.  To his credit he did the best he could, and moved to Mexico the next day to await the arrival of the visa.  Our company helped as much as they could, setting him up for remote work and pressuring the INS to move on the paperwork.

Now, right wingers reading this may claim "but they're not REAL illegal immigrants!  They came in legally and there was just a paperwork problem!"  The thing they miss is that MOST illegal immigrants fall into this category.  About 40% just plain overstay their visas.  About 35% work illegally.  About 10% have problems with paperwork that makes them illegal.  (And many fall into two or three of those categories.)  The image of illegal immigrants crossing the border illegally under cover of darkness - that's less than half of all illegal immigrants.

Now these people, again by the letter of the law, would have a very hard time becoming legal if they were honest.  I've helped a few people with green card and citizenship applications, and the applications ask a very important question - have you violated US immigration law in the past?  And if you have, it is VERY difficult to get a green card, because you have a history of not following the law.  So most people just say "no" and it usually works out, because the INS is a government program that politicians love to cut.

But there's a catch there, too.  If you obtain a green card, or become a citizen, under false pretenses, it will be revoked.  Thus those people just have to pray that no one looks at their history very closely.

This brings us to two of our most famous illegal immigrants - Elon Musk and Melania Trump.  Musk first came to Palo Alto in 1995 under a student visa; he said he was going to go to school at Stanford.  But he never did.  He never even enrolled.  Instead he began working at a startup called Zip2.  He flew under the radar for a while until 1996, when potential investors looked at everyone's immigration status, and required both Musk and his brother to get a visa within 45 days.  Derek Proudian, who was with Zip2 at the time, said that “their immigration status was not what it should be for them to be legally employed running a company in the U.S.  We don’t want the founder being deported.”

Given that Musk then quickly got his work visa, it is safe to say that he lied on that application, and said he had never violated immigration law.

Melania Trump (Melanija Knavs at that point) came to the US in August of 1996 on a B1/B2 tourist visa.  Under a tourist visa, of course, it is illegal to work.  Per employment records, she was paid for 10 modeling assignments between September 10 and October 15. Then on October 18, 1996, Knavs got an H-1B visa, the visa intended for skilled workers, allowing her to legally work.  Again given the speed that she got the visa, she did not admit she had violated immigration law.

So although people rail against illegal immigrants, it might be wise to afford them the same opportunities to skirt the law that was afforded to Knavs and Musk.  It would have been a bad thing for the US economy to have deported Musk just because he was an illegal alien.

[kallend 2,056]

I don't recall being asked (in person or on a form) if I had violated US immigration law.

I was asked - in person at the interview - whether I intended to overthrow the US government by force, and my wife was asked if she intended to engage in prostitution.  We both refrained from sarcastic answers.

[billvon 3,028]

23 minutes ago, kallend said:

I don't recall being asked (in person or on a form) if I had violated US immigration law.

I just helped someone here with the resident-alien applications and that question was on there.

[JerryBaumchen 1,384]

39 minutes ago, billvon said:

My grandparents were born in Ireland before the advent of airplanes.  Ireland was still reeling from the effects of the potato famine that happened about 40 years earlier, and no one was really doing well.  She was a potato farmer; his family owned a sheep farm, which meant he was a bit richer than she was.

But richness is relative, and when they decided to emigrate to the US, all their savings together could barely pay for one ticket.  So my grandfather came over first.

The New York he arrived in around 1925 was very anti-Irish.  There were strict immigration quotas, and they were stricter than normal for the Irish since there weren't many in the country at that point.  I don't know how he got past that, but he did.  He came into the US, found a place to stay, and got his bearings.

Then he did something that would make him a criminal today - he started to work.  It is how most illegal immigrants become illegal immigrants today.  He had to work to make enough money to wire it back for my grandmother to come over.  But back then that was legal, and thus he worked at odd jobs until he could send for her.  Jobs were very hard to find; "Irish need not apply" was a common sign seen back then, due to the common knowledge that Irish immigrants were ignorant, brawling drunks.

They lived together in Queens for decades.  He passed a New York civil service test which was lifechanging for them, because he could then get steady work as a city bus driver.  My grandmother worked at the Chemical Bank cafeteria.  And while they lived there they had two girls - my mother and my aunt.  The tenement they lived in was classic Old New York, with no elevators, massive stone steps, huge air wells so that people could have light throughout their apartments, a good half inch of paint on everything and antiquated, dim lighting fixtures in the hallways.  It always smelled like boiled cabbage in the hallways.

I think about them often when I hear about the immigration debates today.  As Irish they went through what Hispanic immigrants are going through today; everyone just "knows" that they are a problem.  They are criminals, lazy, leeches etc.  Which is sad, and I think indicates most people haven't met many.

Over the years I have met, in person, perhaps a dozen illegal immigrants.  Out of all of them, only two were what the media portrays as illegal immigrants. These two I met on the way back from Eloy after a long weekend of skydiving.  I saw them standing next to a broken down car in the 105 degree heat, and figured I would stop to see if they needed anything.  As I rolled to a stop I realized that the car was standing on four flats and hadn't been driven in months, if not years.  The people there were two Hispanic guys who asked me in broken English if I could give them a ride to San Diego.  I told them that I couldn't, but did leave them with all the water/food I had left over from the weekend.  I hope they made it somewhere safe.

The rest started out legally - then violated immigration law and became illegal immigrants.  One was a member of the Swiss national skydiving team who came here on a tourist visa - and then offered to coach someone for a few bucks.  She was then an illegal immigrant; she had violated immigration law.  Another was legal but had a paperwork problem with his green card.  His only legal option was to leave the US while it was sorted out, since his visa had expired.  But he did not, since he had a company to run.  He was, at that point, an illegal immigrant.  A co-worker had his visa renewal delayed, and on the day the renewal was supposed to arrive, he waited by the mailbox all day.  It did not arrive.  He was then illegal.  To his credit he did the best he could, and moved to Mexico the next day to await the arrival of the visa.  Our company helped as much as they could, setting him up for remote work and pressuring the INS to move on the paperwork.

Now, right wingers reading this may claim "but they're not REAL illegal immigrants!  They came in legally and there was just a paperwork problem!"  The thing they miss is that MOST illegal immigrants fall into this category.  About 40% just plain overstay their visas.  About 35% work illegally.  About 10% have problems with paperwork that makes them illegal.  (And many fall into two or three of those categories.)  The image of illegal immigrants crossing the border illegally under cover of darkness - that's less than half of all illegal immigrants.

Now these people, again by the letter of the law, would have a very hard time becoming legal if they were honest.  I've helped a few people with green card and citizenship applications, and the applications ask a very important question - have you violated US immigration law in the past?  And if you have, it is VERY difficult to get a green card, because you have a history of not following the law.  So most people just say "no" and it usually works out, because the INS is a government program that politicians love to cut.

But there's a catch there, too.  If you obtain a green card, or become a citizen, under false pretenses, it will be revoked.  Thus those people just have to pray that no one looks at their history very closely.

This brings us to two of our most famous illegal immigrants - Elon Musk and Melania Trump.  Musk first came to Palo Alto in 1995 under a student visa; he said he was going to go to school at Stanford.  But he never did.  He never even enrolled.  Instead he began working at a startup called Zip2.  He flew under the radar for a while until 1996, when potential investors looked at everyone's immigration status, and required both Musk and his brother to get a visa within 45 days.  Derek Proudian, who was with Zip2 at the time, said that “their immigration status was not what it should be for them to be legally employed running a company in the U.S.  We don’t want the founder being deported.”

Given that Musk then quickly got his work visa, it is safe to say that he lied on that application, and said he had never violated immigration law.

Melania Trump (Melanija Knavs at that point) came to the US in August of 1996 on a B1/B2 tourist visa.  Under a tourist visa, of course, it is illegal to work.  Per employment records, she was paid for 10 modeling assignments between September 10 and October 15. Then on October 18, 1996, Knavs got an H-1B visa, the visa intended for skilled workers, allowing her to legally work.  Again given the speed that she got the visa, she did not admit she had violated immigration law.

So although people rail against illegal immigrants, it might be wise to afford them the same opportunities to skirt the law that was afforded to Knavs and Musk.  It would have been a bad thing for the US economy to have deported Musk just because he was an illegal alien.

Hi Bill,

Re:  This brings us to two of our most famous illegal immigrants - Elon Musk and Melania Trump.

As I was reading your post, I just knew this was where you were headed.

Bravo, sir!

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  So, why hasn't the MAGA-right demanded we deport them both?

 

[wmw999 2,475]

Two of my sisters-in-law are immigrants; the first one was during the late 80's when it was easier -- she just married an American and came up. The second one married my other brother in 2003 in Brazil. They had a child after a few years, then he was offered a transfer with his company to the US (he's an engineer). So he comes up and tries to arrange for her to come up; their daughter was about 3 months old at the time.

It took 8 months for her to get a permanent visa. She'd been here before on a tourist visa, before and after after married (they "tightened that up"). Even with help from his company (GM, you may have heard of it), it took the full round of interviews, along with a separate trip to Japan, where she'd lived for a number of years in the 80's, to make sure she didn't have a criminal record there. She'd been assured she didn't have to go  to Japan -- it'd been more than 8 years. But at the last interview, my brother and SIL said that the agent smugly said "oh, I've determined you have to go." They made damn good and sure NOT to fly through the US, just to make sure she wasn't accused of violating the "don't enter the US" order during that time. It was egregious enough that GM was happy to fly the two of them via anywhere else, just to make sure. Their senator was unable to help.

It's a minefield that money helps; notoriety helps, and the rules are arcane and deliberately difficult. Smug assholes think that's a good thing.

So when he took a new job in Brazil, they delayed until she could get her US citizenship, just so that he wouldn't miss another kid's first steps, first smile, first tooth. She votes now.

I'm an American. I'm as American as every right-winger out there. I have a Palestinian immigrant in my family (married to my cousin -- he's been  a citizen since the 50's or the 60's, and still can't fly without hassle -- and I know skydivers who think that's a good thing). I have Brazilian immigrants in my family. I don't think I'm unique.

If there is a "conservative resurgence," and an inability to elect people who support a variety of people in the future, it'll be because the bad guys have won. Because you can't build a wall around your life and expect it to be real -- it's a walled-off life, incomplete. Just like the American people without immigration.

Wendy P.

[BIGUN 1,338]

5 hours ago, billvon said:

 The tenement they lived in was classic Old New York, with no elevators, massive stone steps, huge air wells so that people could have light throughout their apartments, a good half inch of paint on everything and antiquated, dim lighting fixtures in the hallways.  It always smelled like boiled cabbage in the hallways.

And everyone came out in the evenings and knew their neighbors, no matter what ethnicity. They knew their neighbor's kids, they disciplined each other's kids and when they got home, they got disciplined again cause the neighbors had to do it. Our grandparents walked the same sidewalks as you and I did the same. I still miss the days of hanging out at Ryan Junior High School in Queens. More nights than not, the cops would come and play basketball with us. Everyone knew everyone. Block Parties. I miss those too.  

[nigel99 521]

Bill let’s check in after 6 months to see if deporting Musk would have been bad for the US.