DHS Quits Granting Green Cards–Almost

mmalshe about 2 hours ago 25 commentsRead Article on cato.org

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Discussion (25 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

koalaman•13 minutes ago

This is a really horrible policy and I personally know a fair few people and families that are going to have their lives upended by this.

On the other hand I've always wondered if most of America's competitive advantage at driving tech innovation hasn't simply been through capturing the ROI of other more social minded countries investing in public education. It could be a massive long term benefit to Europe and Asia especially if they get to keep the talent they created, and more globally distributed innovation seems like it could have some benefits to global welfare.

jfengel•44 minutes ago

I hear "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant" a lot. To which there is an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow.

Instead we're doing exactly the opposite, cutting down on legal immigration as well. Making it hard for me to believe that it was ever about illegal immigration at all.

cogman10•26 minutes ago

So much of the US immigration process is built around punishing and exploiting. The primary reason for the strong border is allowing farms and construction companies to find cheap labor which can't complain about mistreatment.

It helps that a decent portion of the population hates and/or is fearful anyone different from themselves. That is what's allowed for these even more draconian and brutal measures.

romaaeterna•24 minutes ago

How many immigrants do you want, from which countries to which countries, and what are the cultural, social, and political effects that you expect your legal mass immigration plans to have on their societies? I'd love to hear well thought-out plans for any massive changes that you might be advocating, along with grounded historical examples of mass population movements and the previous results for the native populations during those periods.

I ask, because sometimes instead of the above, in discussions like these, I hear only the second-hand regurgitated paid-for advertisement-speak from the very short-term beneficiaries of massive population growth (ie., developers, various capitalists, investors, etc.). These people spend a lot of money seeding the public debate with various inanities and certain people repeat them without having ever thought it through. Of course, I don't expect this from anyone on Hacker News.

ilinx•8 minutes ago

It’s sad that pragmatically adjusting quotas is never the loudest argument in the room. I’m in favor of greatly increasing legal immigration, providing paths for safe work and citizenship (when that’s the goal). I’ll admit that my idea of an ideal system is probably not palatable for many. But if we could start from anywhere near a sane baseline, I’d understand wanting to gradually find sustainable quotas that take all factors into account. I’m done with purity tests and letting perfect be the enemy of good.

I suppose by “all factors” I mean all factors aside from exploitation and xenophobia, but I hope we could at least move the Overton window back that far.

happytoexplain•27 minutes ago

In my experience, the phrase is just used to mean, "I don't hate immigrants, but..." (which, like the phrase "I'm not racist, but...", you are free to doubt case-by-case). I.e. it is not inherently inconsistent to apply the same disclaimer regarding a belief that legal immigration is too loose, too high, mismanaged, whatever; since that doesn't necessitate a belief that immigration as a concept is bad.

georgemcbay•26 minutes ago

> "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant".

Usually this is what people say when they mean "I'm ok with the white immigrants, but not the others" but they also have some idea of how bad that sounds.

scottyeager•23 minutes ago

Refusing future applications to adjust status would be one thing (still wrong, in my opinion). The fact that they are canceling pending applications is simply evil. There will be so much unnecessary anguish and expense. I really feel for anybody who is now learning they will have to leave and wait years to come live in the US with their spouse, due to overstayed visas which were supposed to be forgiven under the status quo.

coolThingsFirst•11 minutes ago

Why on earth would they need to wait years?

lazide•9 minutes ago

Says right in the comment.

cmiles8•28 minutes ago

This is a bit extreme. On the other end of the spectrum the existing system is heavily abused and hard to defend. For example many if not most PERM applications in tech are a complete sham. Putting tiny job adverts burred deep in a newspaper hoping nobody applies to try and say there are no skilled workers in the US is just one example of current abuse of the system.

ilaksh•4 minutes ago

The DHS has made many communications that were openly white supremacist. It's not just an unfair situation with legal technicalities. Their views and plans are more extreme and dangerous than our society is able to accept as reality, so many are in denial. There are obvious historical parallels.

There need to be thorough weekly video walkthroughs of all of the detention centers. Otherwise you can expect actual starvation at some point.

ck2•1 minute ago

Don't worry, the are letting in white South Africans

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/us/politics/trump-afrikan...

the wildly corrupt double-standard is breathtaking

There is well documented historical evidence Elon Musk not only illegally overstayed a student visa, he also illegally worked while on that visa AND did illegal drugs publicly while on that visa

Destroyed USAID murdering millions, highlights the President is in the Epstein Files extensively, then six months later is flying on Air Force One, it's all a cruel joke against humanity

bikelang•11 minutes ago

My wife already has her green card through our marriage - but it expired under the Biden admin and we were given a 4 year “non-renewal extension” because USCIS was unable to process its renewal in time due to the post-COVID backlog. We’ve got about a year left on that extension and are absolutely terrified we are going to be forced to uproot our entire life by this evil administration and its pointlessly cruel policies.

amazingamazing•about 1 hour ago

> From now on, an alien who is in the US temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances

Whats the equivalent policy for other countries? Can you stay like you could prior to this?

noodlesUK•29 minutes ago

Many other countries including UK enforce a similar rule. It's very inconvenient in those countries, but there's a significant difference: in most other countries that have this kind of policy, visas can typically be processed in a timely fashion (and are actually processed at all). It's insanely expensive and very arduous administratively to get a visa for the UK as the spouse of a British citizen, but the process will typically only take a month or so.

thinkcontext•about 1 hour ago

Another immigration policy that would have negatively effected Trump's own wife. Oh well, she got hers.

This could be a big deal for Big Tech. I wonder how personal experience of Musk and Huang will play into how they react.

dyauspitr•about 1 hour ago

How to destroy the greatest country on earth.

jimmydoe•14 minutes ago

There's no THE greatest country; every country can be great.

US&A has been the escape hatch for oppressive regime in China/Russia/... for many years, young people from there seek freedom in US, instead of fight for freedom in their own.

Individual freedom is great but collectively they made people who can't migrate have less and less freedom. Some expected US&A compensate that with trade, military and twitter, which all turned out to be disasters.

I'm sorry for anyone stuck in those processes, but for long term US&A giving up on Green card / dual citizenship is not necessarily a bad thing for the world.

efitz•about 1 hour ago

What a dumb thing to say.

Of course changing the policy of green card issuance will not destroy the United States.

I disagree strongly with the policy- it will cause ridiculous hardship for people; my wife got an adjustment in status while we were engaged and got her green card and later naturalized. So I know precisely the effect it will have and dislike this decision.

But it will not destroy the United States.

grassfedgeek•29 minutes ago

It will destroy the United States as a leading economy and superpower.

Think about it: China draws mainly on the talents of the best of its billion+ population. But America has had its pick of the best of the world's 8 billion people. Until now.

jfengel•about 1 hour ago

In itself, no, of course not. But it's part of a much larger pattern which together blow apart that whole "great American melting pot" thing that seemed fundamental to the country's prosperity.

potatototoo99•12 minutes ago

Death by a thousand cuts.

sys_64738•about 1 hour ago

Petrodollar is gone now. Only ships paying in Yuan can exit the Strait.