I've been trying to tell this to people for years. Im a minister who was involved in the process of helping a minister from another western country get approval to pastor a church. The church hired an immigration lawyer. At one point when months had passed I asked the lawyer how much longer it would take to get the ministers visa. She said "Three more months". When I reacted as one might expect she said, "Oh wait. You paid the fee for an expedited visa. It will take three weeks." It was then that I realized four things: (1) in some nations you'd have to bribe somebody to get in; we bribe the government (2) if it takes a lawyer to smooth the skids, some poor guy in Mexico has no chance (3) I'm glad my ancestors came over when all you had to do was survive the voyage (4) our immigration system is in desperate need of a fix.
so much waste here and it's worse now with all of the attacks on immigrants from the government side. It's sad how complex this system is: it's no wonder undocumented arrivals happen all the time. Thanks for all your work on this topic.
Great question. Let's take it seriously. Say President Trump prompted by Mr. Miller announces tomorrow that all immigration has to stop immediately. No new visas, no new green cards, nobody comes in. What actually happens next?
First, every American engaged or married to someone abroad is now in indefinite limbo. Hundreds of thousands of US citizens file spousal or fiance petitions every year. Those people are told: the government forbids you from living with the person you married. Not because their spouse did anything wrong, not because of any serious security concern, but because the government decided the number should be zero.
Second, every business that was planning to hire a foreign worker is now out of luck. Hospitals already short on nurses cannot bring in qualified ones from abroad. Farms that depend on guest workers to pick crops have no legal option to staff their fields — fruit and vegetables rot or get a lot more expensive, fast. Tech companies, construction firms, hotels, meatpacking plants: all cut off from a labor pipeline they have relied on for decades.
Third, universities lose incoming international students and researchers. American graduate programs in science and engineering are heavily international. Labs that expected new doctoral students and postdocs find empty seats. Funded research stalls.
And that is just the first few months, focused only on people who have not yet arrived.
A "zero immigration" policy means all of this. That is, looking a fellow American in the eye and telling him the government will not let his wife come home from a different country. It means telling a rural hospital it has to ration care because filling its nursing vacancies from abroad is no longer an option. Most Americans, when they think through what stopping immigration actually requires, do not want that.
I've been trying to tell this to people for years. Im a minister who was involved in the process of helping a minister from another western country get approval to pastor a church. The church hired an immigration lawyer. At one point when months had passed I asked the lawyer how much longer it would take to get the ministers visa. She said "Three more months". When I reacted as one might expect she said, "Oh wait. You paid the fee for an expedited visa. It will take three weeks." It was then that I realized four things: (1) in some nations you'd have to bribe somebody to get in; we bribe the government (2) if it takes a lawyer to smooth the skids, some poor guy in Mexico has no chance (3) I'm glad my ancestors came over when all you had to do was survive the voyage (4) our immigration system is in desperate need of a fix.
so much waste here and it's worse now with all of the attacks on immigrants from the government side. It's sad how complex this system is: it's no wonder undocumented arrivals happen all the time. Thanks for all your work on this topic.
What if we just stopped letting people come here?
Great question. Let's take it seriously. Say President Trump prompted by Mr. Miller announces tomorrow that all immigration has to stop immediately. No new visas, no new green cards, nobody comes in. What actually happens next?
First, every American engaged or married to someone abroad is now in indefinite limbo. Hundreds of thousands of US citizens file spousal or fiance petitions every year. Those people are told: the government forbids you from living with the person you married. Not because their spouse did anything wrong, not because of any serious security concern, but because the government decided the number should be zero.
Second, every business that was planning to hire a foreign worker is now out of luck. Hospitals already short on nurses cannot bring in qualified ones from abroad. Farms that depend on guest workers to pick crops have no legal option to staff their fields — fruit and vegetables rot or get a lot more expensive, fast. Tech companies, construction firms, hotels, meatpacking plants: all cut off from a labor pipeline they have relied on for decades.
Third, universities lose incoming international students and researchers. American graduate programs in science and engineering are heavily international. Labs that expected new doctoral students and postdocs find empty seats. Funded research stalls.
And that is just the first few months, focused only on people who have not yet arrived.
A "zero immigration" policy means all of this. That is, looking a fellow American in the eye and telling him the government will not let his wife come home from a different country. It means telling a rural hospital it has to ration care because filling its nursing vacancies from abroad is no longer an option. Most Americans, when they think through what stopping immigration actually requires, do not want that.