This is not to say that it is legally (morally is a fuzzier matter) right to sneak into a country without taking the course of action said country deems most appropriate. Any country. There are safety and financial preservation reasons for requiring valid identification and express permission to enter a country, and sneaking in, or crossing borders under the guise of vacation and just never leaving, potentially undermines that safety or financial preservation.
But there is a reason that so many do. If all it took to successfully get immigration papers (even on a temp/work basis, let alone a permanent one) was an absence of criminal record, people generally wouldn't feel the need to sneak in (there are always exceptions, I suppose). It is a lot harder for people to get permanent visas and citizenship for the U.S. than what a lot of Americans realize. The waiting lists are absurd. In some cases, there are a specific number allotted each year. This actually could very well be true for other countries too, although I'm not going to pretend to be able to guess how that would work with the passport-free travel agreements parts of Europe had worked out for a while (I don't know if that's even still a thing, with recent events).
Quote:
In 2012, 757,434 immigrants were naturalized as U.S. citizens, a huge increase from the fewer-than-120,000 individuals that went through the same process in the 1950s, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report.
More 12.5 million individuals last year applied for a visa under the Diversity Immigrant Visa program, which offers residents of select countries a chance at winning one of 55,000 available permanent resident cards. Even though most applicants have less than 0.01 percent chance of winning this lottery, it is an easier path to citizenship than most others.
Only those with close family members living in the U.S. as either citizens or permanent residents, highly skilled workers, the exceptionally talented or the very rich have a chance at citizenship, and even so, it’s a long, drawn out, laborious process that can last for decades.
There is huge gap between the demand for U.S. citizenship and the number of visas or permanent resident cards that are actually granted. There were an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. as of 2010, as calculated by the Pew Research Center.
Right now, it is almost impossible for an unskilled or a low-skilled worker to be granted a visa or be eligible to apply for citizenship. The U.S. agriculture industry, which depends heavily on low-skilled workers, is experiencing a dearth of qualified available authorized workers, according to a recent White House report. Making immigration easier for such workers would be economically beneficial to the U.S., the report argues.
http://www.ibtimes.com/immigration-refo ... me-1370721And anyway, of course he's going to say out loud that he has no problem with legal immigrants, he's not a complete idiot in regards to social conduct. His self-awareness is just tragically slow. However, the issue might be that he would potentially encourage an attitude of suspicion about people who "might be illegals". Not that this isn't already a thing in a portion of the population, but having a governmental figure validate that attitude makes it a lot harder to tell them to stop being unreasonable. Everyone always bitches about darker skinned immigrants, never once mentioning the massive numbers of Irish immigrants in the New York area that have overstayed their travel visas, or are otherwise here on a permanent basis without appropriate paperwork.
However, all of that being said, I do agree that even if he wins, while it will be an insufferable social situation, it's not likely for him to get Congress to agree to more than about 10% of what he says. Hell, he'll probably change his mind on half of it before the end of the year anyway. He's not a terribly consistent dude. (That whole tragically slow self-awareness thing again.)
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
