24
votes
"Now the Donald Trump administration wants to limit US citizenship for legal immigrants"
Link information
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- Title
- Stephen Miller's next target: Legal immigrants
- Published
- Aug 7 2018
- Word count
- 1375 words
Wow, this is concerning.
My father in law (who has been a lawful resident since the 1980s) used food stamps once, in 2001, because he was laid off from his job (there was a small recession from the dot com bubble popping at the time, so a lot of people got laid off from their jobs back then). He was on food stamps for a couple of months, managed to get solid work, and has never been on food stamps or any form of public welfare before or since.
He literally used the social welfare program for its purpose- as a temporary stand-by to help get you by between jobs. He isn't some lazy, border jumping Mexican menace who has five kids with no papers- he's a hard working, honest man who firmly believes in doing things the right way.
This proposal would bar him from ever becoming a citizen.
Thankfully, his wife (my mother in law) got her citizenship a few years ago, so she's safe. But now I'm very concerned about my father in law. :/
Yeah, this would affect a lot of people; I'm sorry your father-in-law could be one of them.
I was reading responses on Twitter, and one woman tweeted that she was now worried about her husband becoming a citizen because she used an ACA/Obamacare plan. Refusing citizenship to permanent residents who legally used certain programs is definitely bad enough, but refusing citizenship to people whose household members have used them certainly shows how malicious this proposed policy is.
This seems like an awfully black-and-white view of the world. Any amount of immigration == open borders? Any amount of welfare == robbery?
Hah, I think you and I have deeply different perspectives of the world, on a fundamental level. I find your thoughts interesting but I also disagree with most of it. :P
That is not an either/or proposition.
Gradients are possible, as is demonstrated throughout the world.
I can't believe a few years ago I was actually considering moving to America as a potential future. In a way Trump's rhetoric is working, this is one potential legal immigrant who has been completely put off the idea.
Okay, I'm gonna answer this stuff assuming you're asking honestly, because if I wasn't an immigrant and naturalized citizen I don't know how informed I would be, either. But I'm gonna be upfront and say that posting so many questions (about a topic not related to the article) doesn't come across great. You admit to not researching this, and I encourage you to do so next time you're curious about this sort of thing. I actually had to do some googling in order to reply.
DACA has no path for citizenship. It doesn't even grant true legal status in the way something like a visa would as far as I understand it, just a work permit. They couldn't apply for citizenship, they weren't procrastinating, they probably do want to be citizens, and they get very few benefits aside from the ability to temporarily reside and work here.
The path to citizenship involves first becoming a permanent resident (of which there are several methods, usually either through family or an employer) and then waiting a certain number of years to apply to be naturalized (usually 5 years, 3 if married to a US citizen). It's a long process. It took my family 10 years just to become permanent residents, so in total it was 15 years until we were eligible to apply for actual citizenship.
The DREAM Act was only proposed, and has not been passed. It would actually give a path to citizenship, first through conditional residency, then permanent residency, then naturalization. It couldn't pass, so Obama enacted DACA, which is an imperfect solution to the problem.
(If anyone reading this notices any inaccuracies, please correct me.)
EDIT: things got deleted, so I'm just going to add part of my final reply here, because it does add a clarification.
Because... it's not legal for them to do so? All it does is stop people from being deported and give them work permits. It doesn't give them a legal status, so there's literally no way forward in the system. No legal status, no path to permanent residency, no eventual citizenship.
I don't really know how else to explain it except "they can't."
I looked this up. People enrolled in DACA can totally become citizens. There are numerous ways they can do it. It's not easy, but it's doable. So to say it's literally impossible is flat-out wrong. I don't know why you came at me with such a hostile attitude, but I hope your day got better.
Since you have whatever you found in front of you, could you link what you found for us? I don't know of any ways that are still valid.
This policy is about documented immigrants who had been on the path to citizenship.
DACA and the Dreamers have nothing to do with this.
Some of it you will need to crossreference and dig into further to get the full details.
https://citizenpath.com/paths-to-legal-status-undocumented/
http://www.ilrc.org/files/documents/daca_advance_parole_adjustment_.pdf
https://www.boundless.com/immigration-resources/daca-recipients-and-marriage-green-cards/
https://www.uscis.gov/greencard/diversity-visa
https://www.google.com/amp/www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/february/why-don-rsquo-t-daca-recipients-just-become-citizens%3famp