What's so Hard about becoming a U.S. resident legally?

Question

Im serious I don't know. I don't mean to sound like a jerk Im just curious. Obviously it's a difficult process otherwise Mexicans would just come here the right way. Maybe we should look at making it a more welcoming process. Mexicans are going to come to the U.S. and take all the jobs that none of us want anyways. Lets see if we can encourge them and help them do it legally!

Answer 1

yeah...a LOT of people don't understand this process.....it's extremely difficult, extremely. to get in legally, the waiting list is about 20 years long at this point. if it takes up to 1.5 years for a US citizens SPOUSE to enter the country, you can imagine how long it takes for john doe to get in.

basically, you have an order of importance. it starts with spouse and under age children, moves to older children, then parents, the brothers/sisters, etc... but of course with that way you just know someone in your family already here. this waiting list (other than the spouse) is about 10 years long for mexicans.

next...you can get a work visa. well...you have to show you have a skill that the average american cannot fullfill. well....you try learning a skill that beats out one of the most progressive nations in the world. how in the heck is a brain surgeon in mexico going to be more skilled when he had to come to the US for his training in the first place?? (this is an example, there are some very good medical schools in mexico)

next, a student visa. this doesn't mean you can stay, but it does mean that you can rub shoulders with a good company and they could possibly ask you to stay on a work visa. in this case, you are NOT eligible for scholarships or student loans. now....few americans can afford to pay for college outright...so you can imagine the students here on this type of visa are farely wealthy in their own country...they do NOT NEED to come to the US, they are doing fine at home!

these are three basic ways to get in. the 2nd and 3rd being the only ones you could use without having family...but also happen to be pretty much only available to people who already have money...who are already successful. these people are not desperate, they are not illegal immigrants.

if you spent even an hour at the US border in Laredo, you'd see why it's so hard to get here legally. effeciency is shockingly bad. 8 people sit around drinking coffee, making 40k plus a year, while the lines keep getting longer. people who up with valid passports, visas, bank documents, and get treated like crap, and then get turned away. it gives people the feeling that there just ISN'T a way to do it the right way...they feel desperate and hopeless.

you are right, we need a better way. we need to give people the sense that it IS possible to do this the right way, the legal way.

Answer 2

We have quotas. We give out only between a million and two million resident visas a year. Many are first given to family of those already here. Because we subsidize services like education and health care for our poor, many more than a million want to come every year, but since their subsidies are paid for by us and our schools have limits on how many they can adequately educate, we need limits.

Some would never get visas. The border patrol estimates that 1 in 10 of those they catch trying to come illegally have criminal records. Others just don't want to wait the years all the legal immigrants are waiting.

Our schools are failing our own children and there are 4 billion people in the world poorer than the average citizen of Mexico. We can't take all who want to come.

Answer 3

There is a lottery process (basically, a quota) from most countries unless you have skills that are considered in shortage here. Family can take 1-7 years, average, to bring here once you are a citizen. So, yes, there is a process, but it's not fast enough for many. Many Mexicans are simply here for jobs--they would prefer to live in their home country.

Answer 4

It's a long and tedious process, with pages and pages of paperwork that takes months to work its way through the system. I knew a couple who had to wait six years to get to the US, and that was when they were trying to move to get better medical care for a chronically ill daughter. Some people just decide that they can't wait that long.

Answer 5

We are incentivizing them to NOT become citizens!! They get all kinds of federal assistance by being here illegally and not having to pay taxes. We are funding their local existance. If they have children here (which most of them do), they ARE citizens. It makes it very difficult to send mommy and daddy home and leave their CITIZEN child here.. Like the story goes, if they made the welfare folks (and illegals) take drug test like us working citizens before getting their government checks from the US, we wouldn't have to pay a fraction of the money. They'd mostly all fail..
You move to Mexico and try to become a citizen. It's almost impossible. Plus, you have to give away most of your assets. You can't protest anything. You have few rights. Why do we make it so EASY for them to live here??

Answer 6

nicely if he got here as a vacationer in 2001 or 2002 then it is unlikely that his vacationer visa helps 7-8 years of non-end stay, so he has violated this coverage. that's amazingly unlikely that he gets residency in the US. Sorry.

Answer 7

some won't change because they don't like US policies. Others don't change because they were brought up in their own culture and tradition and want to keep it rather than meshing into the melding pot. Sometimes people just don't wish to change the language they were born with. But you're right, sometimes they just want the income and benefits and wish to help their own country.

Answer 8

i agree with that.if your gonna live here why should u get to duck out of taxes and other duties? i also think we should give new americans english classes too.it would solve alot of problems with language.
i know that sounds bad but america dont go into france and tell them to stop speaking french..so why should we have to quit speaking english?

everyone should be legal!

Answer 9

Because the Democrats have simply made it unnecessary.

They even want the right to vote now! That really steams me. Only citizens should vote. If that makes me a racist, so be it.

If you are not a citizen -- get out!

Answer 10

Oh dont worry its coming