U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications (wsj.com)

https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/us-citizenship-...

I don't think the practice of the change is significant. Reddit has numerous stories of people who are still receiving it, so whatever that release says, things haven't changed. People seem to be receiving AoS based Green Cards the same way I did under the Biden Administration. It does seem to be a bit more uncertain which is always troubling.

My classmates who had gone to the US for PhD programs, even those who were fortunate enough to get multiple entry visas, had visas that allowed re-entry for only the first two years of the PhD program. After that, if they wanted to leave the US, say for a conference or to visit family, they would have had to apply for a visa from abroad and hope to be granted one. In Canada, I could apply for the visa and get it while in Canada. Even comparing like with like, the American system seems bizarre to me, looking at it from a Canadian lens.

The point is surely to get another chance to grill the immigrant and potentially bar them entry. Other countries don’t always do this: Canada for example has inland changes of status and I believe renewals.

Everything post-2025 has been a shit-show. There's no predictability or clear guidance, either from our lawyers or from the state department.

Predictability matters a lot in business. If you know what the procedure is and how long it will take, you can plan around it. If the rules change in the middle of the game you're left scrambling to keep up.

Tons of Americans are out of work. I’ve personally seen my wages drop by at least 20$ an hour as well as the work being less stable.

Gasp, you might need to train someone a bit or have employees that will say no if you ask them to work on Christmas.

If I ran the H1B program it would be an unrestricted work permit with an automatic pathway to a GC after 5 years. Don’t get *convicted* of a felony and here you go.

They get a plenty bad enough shake. Let’s grant them the absolute basics of humane treatment and a fair shake at getting citizenship, sheesh.

Other countries get by just fine not having such a huge delta between haves and have nots on citizenship, and their social cohesion is better for it.

I sometimes wonder where these concepts come from, because it sounds like somebody tricked you into thinking that non-citizens are somehow taking things from everybody else, rather than contributing just the same as everyone.

That's a very weak analogy for the moral issue here.

The consequences are radically different; losing a parking space is a minor inconvenience; losing immigration status can/does involve relocation and upends employment, family, property, and years of life planning / general stability.

Legally, there's very little the state can't do, there could be a bill passed tomorrow revoking all immigrant visas. But businesses, and by proxy the nation, benefit from work done by these workers.

Sudden unilateral moves like this are stupid on a social level (cause damage to businesses and communities), and on a moral level. "First do no harm" is a principle just as suited to government as medicine. Even if there is a broad consensus for reducing or eliminating H1B visas, why punish people who followed the system as it exists and contributed? It's perfectly possible to pass a bill, stop handing out new visas, and sunset renewals after some 1-2 year timeframe.

It's legal to invite a bunch of guests over and kick them all out after you open the wine, but you're going to lose friends. And ultimately it will be businesses and individuals paying the cost for these needlessly volatile course changes. Tourism and high skilled immigration rates will face lasting harm.

So what do we do? I don't want good people disrupted. But I also morally disagree with everything the abuse of the H1B program represents. What's the solution? It doesn't seem that crazy to me that "tax the companies so they can't undercut local labor so easily" is a reasonable first pass. But we know how that went.

I can't help but think if instead of shouting across the isle there were some amount of bipartisan accountability and shared understanding on the topic then the previous attempts by this administration to curtail the problem would have been more effective and we wouldn't be at a point where people have to take the gloves off.

It's understandable for everyone to have varying views on immigration and immigrants, but this sort of rhetoric is a vile, racist and xenophobic dog whistle.

The reality is the program has been abused and stretched far beyond its intent by corporations in pursuit of cheap labor. You cannot, with a straight face, argue that the spirit of the program is being upheld. Come on. People are upset because they are realizing that they haven't been playing fair--the game's been rigged this whole time. I think that's a very understandable and normal human emotion all things considered.

That is how it's designed, and that's fine.

But make a decision... They're pausing the decision making for an indefinite amount of time. That's not how it was designed, but it sure does look like that's on purpose.

Have you worked at a tech company in 2026?

Plenty of engineers, born in India/China and working in Silicon Valley, are openly anti-immigration. And I also support them since I agree with them.

Pull up the ladder once you’ve made it.

Nothing new.

I've legally gone through this process in at least 5 countries and the US was the most expensive, but far from the worst.

Minorities and women, for a start.

They explicitly said that for h1b and l1 aos wouldn’t be affected as they are dual intent visas.

And if the employer isn't willing to pay the cost of labor to fill the position, it directly raises the question of whether its "necessary".

It's common for the prevailing wage to be double what that person could earn in their country of origin.

As an interviewer, I don't rank candidates. I have my set of questions, some candidates solve them, others don't. You can argue that it's the bar to do your job properly. Should politicians tell big tech companies what's the bar for being a successful SWE?

> When it comes to national interest, the argument for "meritocracy" falls apart quickly.

A lot of US tech exists because of skilled foreign workers. I'm not sure what would be the tech industry without them.

That racism isn't only something white people are capable of.

That was study about Cuban immigrants into Miami, a city with large Cuban population and thus existing infrastructure to absorb. I wouldn't draw that study into anything broader.

As someone in Local Politics, the issue generally is, immigration, esp of unskilled kind decimates local budgets since they are generally directly tied to number of people. Here is CBO report on it. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61464

Now, type of immigration that mostly impacts this study is not type of immigration that is impacted by visa application processing halting but acting like "Yea, this current system is working GREAT!" is false. This is what so annoying about this issue, it's in clear need of change but Congress refuses to do it and Trump doesn't have leadership to get it done.

No it's a negative sum thing. Especially when they come in at such insane rates as they did under Biden. Notice you car insurance rates going up? Housing costs skyrocketing? Hospital waits taking forever? That's the cost of mass immigration. And that's not even accounting for the millions of illegal immigrants.

>Every economic analysis

Since there apparently so many, surely you wouldn't mind citing a handful.

Costs $2500 AND payment of all student debts.

This place (USA) is literally a fucking company town.

However being a dual citizen isn't necessarily all upside. Citizenship comes with requirements, particularly in some countries military service is mandatory and so if you're a citizen - even though you are a permanent resident of somewhere else, you must either go do your service or maybe pay a fine depending on the country.

You also get treated differently if things go wrong. Foreigners are entitled in most cases to diplomatic assistance from the representatives of their country. Your country can't necessarily do much for you, but typically you will get that phone call home to let loved ones know what happened, they can find a lawyer who speaks your language (but you'll need to find a way to pay them), if there's some paperwork snafu they might be able to help (often for a fee). It's at least nice, if you're jailed or in hospital after surprise food poisoning or whatever, to hear somebody who speaks your language.

None of this applies to dual citizens. You're "home" from their point of view, so no need to contact your diplomatic representative, maybe you have never been there since the day you were born and can't speak a word of the language but too bad.

And we can amend constitutional rights. It most definitely will happen in our lifetimes.

> Most of us are only citizens because someone up the chain was born under this rule.

And?

You think the world in 2026 is exactly the same as in 1776?

What about slavery? Good idea in 1776 therefore good idea in 2026?

Not to mention how unsustainable it is anyways, what happens a few years down the line when the immigrants stop having kids? There isn't an infinite ocean of people you can import on a whim, and definitely not forever.

So the immigrants end up with the same birth rate and then we have to bring in more immigrants. So there would have to be a constant source of excess people somewhere else for this to be sustainable. So it gets to a point where I wonder if this is really the plan.

But since you asked, here you go: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/microsoft-...

There's nothing inherently wrong with pausing immigration visas. These commenters act like anything less than fully open borders and unlimited immigration quotas makes you Satan reincarnate.

They intentionally over-dramatize everything he does to spread fear and alarmism cause that's all they can do. It's so tiring and nonsensical.

In 2024, I didn't think we'd be murdering protesters in the streets or kidnapping heads of state or inciting global tariff wars paid for by US citizens or watching the president take billions of dollars of bribes using cryptocurrency.

Why do you think thos government is responding to something in a good faith attempt at improving a system?

Whatever the party affiliation, he was an actual thief and scam-artist at the public’s expense, so wouldn’t be a great example of some high water mark for public service.

Do you not remember the two-minutes-hate where they screamed at Emmanuel Goldstein? Apparently not. The point is people rabidly attack Trump when his policies - especially foreign - are indistinguishable from Biden, Obama, and Clinton. You're attacking a dummy setup for that. Your obsession with him makes it obvious. Israel gets whatever they want instantly, and Americans get fancy speeches from figureheads.

You're the one screaming at a figurehead and accusing me of doublethink? Read the book again.

What Mayorkas alone did to this country is treason: https://x.com/search?q=from%3Afentasyl%20mayorkas&src=typed_...